ABC News First edition wasn’t a successful breakfast show due to Today.
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I’d imagine that the ABC would’ve been restricted as to how long a news-based breakfast program could run for back in the 1990s, due to their commitments to children’s programming in the all (or mostly) five channel Australian TV landscape of this era.
Those dynamics only really changed over the past decade or so with the launch of dedicated kids shows on Digital TV, which finally allowed the ABC to run a fully fledged breakfast show on their main channel after it started on ABC2.
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Melbourne & Victoria TV listings: Friday, November 8, 1974
from The Sun
courtesy of Flickr user “Vax80”
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Melbourne TV listings: Sunday, September 13, 1987
from The Age
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It made its debut across the rest of the Seven Network (Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide) the following night.
Today’s TV: 12.9.1978, Melbourne:
Source: TV Times
Today’s TV: 12.9.1978, Brisbane
Source: TV Week
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I noticed in the Wiki article it had the premiere as September 12, 1978 so I went back and checked the listings for Sydney on Monday, September 11.
Any idea what those other cities were showing on the Monday night?
Also interesting that BTQ 7 screened it at 7.30pm while Sydney and Melbourne had it at 8.30pm.
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Melbourne:
7.30 On The Buses
8.00 The Dick Emery Show
8.30 Cop Shop
9.30 Police Woman
10.30 Thriller
12.00 Billy Liar
Brisbane:
7.30 The Muppet Show (x2)
8.30 Cop Shop
9.30 The Naked Vicar Show
10.30 McMillan And Wife
I don’t have a listing for Adelaide for that week, but the TV Week article previewing Against The Wind said that it was also debuting in Adelaide on 12 September, 7.30pm.
TVW7 Perth was not technically part of the Seven Network, so who knows when it appeared there… could have been years away still!
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It looks like Cop Shop was more popular in the city in which it was produced than it was in Sydney. It occupied the Thursday and Friday 8.30pm slots in Sydney and I think it was later moved to Saturday nights.
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ATN7 probably deliberately pushing it onto lower profile nights because it’s a Melbourne production 
A tactic they tried again years later with Neighbours
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I think Skyways suffered a similar fate- rated quite well everywhere except Sydney.
Network executives in Sydney should’ve taken more notice of how Neighbours was performing in Melbourne and Brisbane and not relegated the show to 5.30pm, later 3.30pm, in Sydney.
ATN stubbornly stuck with the one hour news in Sydney so couldn’t schedule it at 6pm as they had originally planned. Terry Willesee Tonight was successful enough for them at 7pm so they couldn’t move it there and Terry had a clause in his contract that stated he wouldn’t go head to head with his brother in the same slot. I feel ATN would’ve followed Nine and BTQ 7 with the half hour of news and half hour of current affairs from 6pm had that clause not been in place.
Neighbours was rating in the high 20s/30s for BTQ 7 at 7pm and Brisbane programmers were said to be livid when the decision was made in Sydney to axe the show. Ten’s programmers obviously noted how well the show rated in that slot.
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The Rugby League game at 11:45 on 10 was between Souths and Canberra and Canberra won by 46-12. Canberra scored 3 tries in the space of 18 minutes in a game that Souths rookie winger Steve Mavin would like to forget
According to Wikipedia, Video Hits aired Saturday and Sunday mornings on Ten but in this Melbourne Green Guide no sign of it on Sunday morning. I also note Business Week was screening at 10:45pm instead of morning slot. Any ideas on why?
ATV10 didn’t pick it up until late in 1987 or early 88.
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Funnily I always thought Skyways was made in Sydney when it was originally on. No idea why. It wasn’t until years later I realised it was made in Melbourne
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When The Early Bird Show was renamed Club 10 and shortened to two hours in 1989, it only lasted ten weeks before being axed and replaced by Video Hits.
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Which regional network aired Video Hits first?
Just wondering was 10Capital the first regional network to pick up Video Hits or did DDQ/RTQ beat it? or did some other channel elsewhere beat those i have listed?
yeah but I think they wanted it to fail. Conspiracy theory: ATN had two dramas in production (Sons And Daughters and A Country Practice) and I reckon it dreaded the thought of a soap from Melbourne potentially knocking one of them off, as to have three soaps was potentially not sustainable, so they knocked it down before it had a chance and convinced the Sevens in Brisbane and Adelaide to vote it out as well.
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I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons network execs gave the go ahead to Neighbours, besides desperately needing something competitive for the 6pm slot, was because all that studio space in Melbourne was going to waste after the demise of Cop Shop saw the end of drama production at HSV.
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ATN-7 could not let us have nice things.
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