Such a shame, Australian television has totally ditched children’s after school programming like this.
Australian television was thriving so much during this time.
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Which paid off in the long run by keeping children watching in the evenings and kept them as viewers into adulthood. Kids barely watch anything on free to air now.
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Exactly right, engaging them young, build the habit of watching FTA. That is gone now and we see viewership down massively.
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And it’s not just afternoon shows either, it really starts in the morning with shows like Agro’s Cartoon Connection on 7 and getting them into that habit of turning on the telly on a regular basis. Nowadays they don’t have that, so it’s iPads and gaming consoles they turn to.
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Exactly. Seven had the highly popular Agro’s Cartoon Connection, and people like myself would tune in every morning. To a lesser extent, Ten’s Cheez TV and then there was Nine’s pre-school based shows after Today (like Here’s Humphrey and others at 9am).
For after school, it was a great mix of after-school game shows (what this topic is all about), and kid’s dramas. You come home from school, switch on Seven or Nine and you get school based shows mix, until the various family games shows air.
When did Seven and Nine start airing their afternoon News? They started out as 30 minutes long to start out with. I think in 2003? Since then, less and less children’s shows were on, until now, where there’s nothing.
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It was Cheez TV that ultimately killed off Agro’s Cartoon Connection.
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I think it’s because the world has changed since the 90s and early 00’s there so much terrorism,crime and natural disasters the tv networks want more news but they could put a show like Agro or dickie knee ,plucks duck or cheesy tv on a multi channel but how much do these shows cost to make?
Seven launched a news bulletin titled “Target Iraq” in 2003 and after the invasion ended, it converted to a regular news bulletin which didn’t feature sport unless it was a major event.
Nine launched their afternoon bulletin in February 2004.
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Soon axed it 6 months later… then retuning it again, befor axing it again for This Afternoon, then returned it again. 
From memory Friends reruns were once in the 4.30 time slot on Nine. Before Seven launched “Target Iraq” in early 2003, I believe “Home Improvement” had the 4.30 slot.
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That’s correct. I think I remember Seven aired an advisory that “Home Improvement” would not air at 4:30 due to the “Target Iraq” bulletin. Whether that show ever returned (albeit in another timeslot) I don’t know.
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One of the oddities of being originally produced in Brisbane was… usually these shows attract the top year of local primary schools. So they included the year level of the students in the first season’s player profiles, and I’m sure I was a little confused (as someone from NSW) for them being in year 7 and yet them still being primary schools… until later in life when I found out that high school in QLD didn’t start until year 8 back then. The same actually applied in Perth too; they both didn’t move year 7 to high school until 2015. [Something to do with kindy/prep year having been optional before then. SA was in the same boat with y7 in primary, and that only changed this year.]
I wonder whether that had an impact on them choosing those places in the 90s to host Seven’s game shows (Time Masters included in that), over Sydney or Melbourne where they would’ve likely had to use kids a year younger. [Starting to wonder if it related to insurance or other matters for the physical portions of both, where they had to make sure they were 12 years old or something, over simply having a more mature face for the cameras. Hmm.] 
Most children’s television in the 80/90s were produced from Perth / Brisbane or Adelaide. This slowly reduced as soon as digital television came about in the early 2000s. 10 was the last to shut its Brisbane unit down last year with Totally Wild.
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A*mazing was filmed in Brisbane from '94 to '96, it then moved to Perth in '97.
Yes, the Seven network throughout the 90s was very deverse with programming between cities.
Adelaide had Wheel of Fortune and The Book Place
Brisbane had Family Feud, Saturday Disney and Cartoon Connection
Perth had Amazing.
Most primetime programming was reserved to Sydney and Melbourne.
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Perth also had Time Masters and The Adventures Of The Bush Patrol.
I remember that show. Wendy Strehlow was part of the cast.
I think Nine Adelaide produced The Curiosity Show too? (though not really a game show as such).
i think also C’mon Kids was an adelaide show as well
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Yes, Curiosity Show, C’mon Kids and Fat Cat and Friends was all Adelaide produced. Brisbane had Wombat.
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