Burke's Backyard

TV History Nine
1

Intro to a Mexican special in 1997:

Part of a 1991 episode:

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Started out as a Saturday lunch time program. But obviously got popular enough to put it on in prime time on Friday nights. They would then show the previous week’s episode in the original Saturday lunch time slot

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My Grandmother loved this show. I believe it was a rating winning in the 90s every Friday night.

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Yeah and why the footy was always on delay

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My grandmother used to watch it every Friday night without fail, with all other members of the household banished to the other television sets in the house.

She sent in plenty of stamped self addressed envelopes for the fact sheets too.

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Yep, I can very much relate to this as a kid growing up in the 90s.

Everything would stop for her at 7.30pm Friday nights.

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Nursery’s around Australia would get swamped the following days for whatever plants were promoted on the Friday show.

Nursery’s tried for ages to be given advanced notice of what would be on each week’s show so they could be prepared, the producers always gave a flat no.

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Yeah the show used to top weekly ratings at its peak. It was a Friday night tradition in our household when I was in primary school. We would always have Fish & Chips on a Friday in front of the TV to Burke’s Backyard. I even remember when I was in primary school in our Italian classes, we actually watched the episodes of Burke’s Backyard that they did in Italy.

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9

ha, yes same but with pizza. Always got an off vibe from Don as a kid, guess I must have been a good judge of character. But certainly revolutionised lifestyle TV.

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I think its success was what sparked the oversaturation of lifestyle shows in the early 2000s, which probably also contributed to its eventual decline.

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The late 90s / early 2000s was the peak for lifestyle content. I think at one point, Nine’s weekly line up consisted of ‘Our House’, ‘Money’ , ‘Changing Rooms’ ,‘Backyard Blitz, Burkes Backyard and Getaway.

The early 90s was more comedy skewed content.

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and Animal Hospital!

Then they’d all unite for those Renovation Rescue specials.