I thought it might be interesting to have a thread devoted to various presentation elements (promos, idents, news opens, etc.) on Australian TV that were either bought from overseas – mostly the U.S. – or modeled on overseas examples.
For instance, versions of this early 1980s Eyewitness News promo from ATV0 in Melbourne…
…were first seen on several U.S. stations. Here’s an example from 1976, complete with a sequel (and thanks to capsgm2002 at TVNewsTalk.net for helping me find it):
Seven’s 1989 promo “Only the Best on Seven” was based on NBC’s “Come Home to the Best…Only on NBC”.
7mate’s current “Simpsons” promo appears to be recycled from a FXX ident. I think it’s around 3:44 in this video, the main change being that the “Every. Simpsons. Ever. Starts Aug 21 (FXX logo)” (which advertised the first of their many Simpsons marathons) being replaced with “(The Simpsons logo) Wednesdays 8:30 (or a time like that) (7mate logo)”.
Who can forget the Today promo from early 2018 borrowed from BBC (?)
The “Turn to News” package originally composed by Frank Gari featured a lot across the 0-10 network.
Also heard in the TV0 theme
TV0 News
I can’t tell you how cheated and deceived I felt when it finally dawned on me that our home grown networks had been purchasing and adapting American television promo campaigns. Entertainment This Week used to show snippets of the American promos during reports on new season television shows in the mid 1980s.
Here’s one example:
Seven in 1989:
Seven’s Be There was also from NBC.
Nine used ABC’s You’ll Love It in the late 1980s.
Same.
ATV10 also did its fair share, using CBS’s “Looking Good” in 1981, and “Reach For The Stars” in 1982.
Nine’s 2008 slogan
This 1986 ID was based on WTTG Washington’s 1985 ID “Forty Years Together, Channel 5 and You!”
P.S. ATN’s 1968 logo would later be used by Malaysian station NTV-7 from 2001-2018.
This 1982 TVQ0 news open…
…was based on the BBC News look from that era:
For some reason this movie intro always sticks out like a sore thumb when I think about Seven borrowing NBC elements, I think because of the weirdness of the Seven version (“Australian Television Network” branding and logo of sorts).
It’s very clear that our networks have had a historical alliances with the following;
Seven = NBC
Nine = ABC
Ten = CBS
ABC = BBC
Versions of this animation were also used in the UK…
…and, with a somewhat different ending, in France:
Ten’s 1992 network launch “This is It!” borrowed from both ABC (America’s Watching ABC) and FOX (It’s on FOX).
And in New Zealand…
Did TVQ0 use the Closer To Your World news theme?
The theme used by the short-lived National on the ABC…
…is better known as the Channel 4 News (UK) theme and is still used today in a slightly modified form – the main melody starts at 0:35:
It was also used by a station in Arizona back in the 1980s:
