Classic TV Listings

Short promo for Richmond Hill at 9:32 in video for that night on TVO

I don’t know if these aired on TV0 but in Melbourne they also had ads during Neighbours, featuring cast members from Neighbours telling us to stay tuned for Richmond Hill.

Very vintage TV listing here. 31 January 1958, Melbourne, from TV-Radio Week

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and from a couple of years later… Saturday 4 February 1961:

Source: TV Times

Includes GTV9’s Today, which began in July 1960, going from Monday to Saturday mornings.

Barry McQueen was the show’s first host but left Channel 9 abruptly after the show’s first five days! He of course later became a main presenter for ATV0 which debuted a few years later.

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NRTV had started a loose affiliation with Network Ten come early 1987. It relayed Sydney’s Eyewitness News on weekends however still took TCN9 News on delay at 6.30 weeknights as it was only 30 mins long. TEN’s weekday news at 1 hour would have interrupted NRTV’s schedule in those days working around programmes such as Perfect Match, Neighbours & Sale of the Century. By 1988, NRTV start using TEN’s News theme and ident music and relayed more of TEN’s programmes before full affiliation in late 1991.

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I wonder how well “Music, Clock and Audio Time Calls” would’ve rated. Must’ve been riveting stuff. :slight_smile:

haha… well it was basically a glorified test pattern. And in those days test pattern with music was not entirely unpopular as people appreciated the FM sound quality which even though it was mono it was better than AM radio.

But to be honest I don’t think that early morning lineup lasted long and Nine went back to starting its broadcast day later in the morning. Breakfast TV seemed to fare better in Sydney but it seems Melbourne households never quite warmed to it until much later.

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This Day, 10 February, in 1997. Source: TV Week.

Kerri-Anne is back for a second year of Midday.

Rob Elliott has taken over from Tony Barber’s disastrous run as host of Wheel Of Fortune.

Sale Of The Century, Healthy Wealthy And Wise and In Melbourne Tonight are back for a new ratings year.

And, look, no Simpsons on Channel Ten! MASH and The Nanny surround Neighbours.

And not sure why the double episode of Blue Heelers outside of its regular Tuesday timeslot. (It was on again for its normal hour episode the next night)

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They could never keep Simpsons off weeknights for long. :slight_smile: According to this, it was back in the 7pm slot by June 97.

A golden era of television with just one breakfast program (Today) and one morning show (GMA). How did those formats become popular again? :frowning:

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The obsession with news was months away from becoming reality with events like Thredbo (Stuart Diver) and Princess Di still to occur in 1997. Plus the informercial had really yet to become mainstream.

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GMA raked in millions of dollars for Channel Ten with its advertorials. It was inevitable that Nine and Seven would eventually follow suit.

There had long been two breakfast shows during the 1980s, the original GMA and Today. And for a year or so Seven tried with TVAM. But then GMA was cancelled, with the title going across to the mid-morning show, and Today was on its own really until Seven decided to beef up Sunrise from just a one-hour news bulletin.

ABC did try breakfast news for a little while with First Edition which was only a half-hour bulletin at 7am. It didn’t last that long. For a while ABC also used to run early morning repeats of the previous night’s 7.30 Report.

Here’s another one, Monday 12 February 1979, Melbourne from TV Week:

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Friday 17 February 1961, Melbourne, from TV Times.

The debut of Consider Your Verdict, Australia’s first one-hour series drama. Produced at the HSV7 “Teletheatre” in Fitzroy and was Crawford Productions’ first TV drama.

Interesting, too, to see the original The Twilight Zone…on ABC.

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Interesting that the guide lists ABC’s presentation announcer just before 5pm. I’m guess she just read out the night’s programming, like what they still do in the UK…

Sydney TV listing for Monday June 2 1980 courtesy of Sydney Sun-Herald Google archives, the documentary “Death of A Princess” airs on ATN7, it was so controversial many regional TV stations of the time refused to air it.

SBS used to have continuity announcers as well during the 1980s. In SBS’ case it was intended as a way for presenters to give uninitiated viewers some context for whatever foreign language shows were to follow.

Basia Bonkowski and Silvio Rivier started at SBS as such presenters and I imagine they were multi tasking as subtitlers as well :wink:

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NBC has renewed Days Of Our Lives for its 52nd season.

This looks to be the earliest reference to it I can find for Melbourne, listed in TV Times on 25 March 1968:

Via Google News archive, the earliest appearance I can find for the show in Sydney is on Tuesday 13 August 1968 on TCN9. The previous day’s edition which was Monday, and would have possibly mentioned the new show in SMH’s weekly TV guide, is not on the archive.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9bEpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_OYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=964%2C3959903

Of course Nine let the show go in April 2013 after 45 years.

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Tomorrow’s TV: 25.2.1975, Melbourne from the Listener In-TV.

This was only a few days before the full changeover to colour and TV stations were restricted in this last week of Black and White television to only have test colour programs during the daytime. After 6.00pm was to be completely B&W so as to increase the impact of “C-Day” on 1 March.

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I notice The Mike Walsh Show as still on O in that year.

Looking back, what was the point of the restrictions on test colour programming before C day?

The Mike Walsh Show didn’t move to 9 until 1977. Apparently the big carrot that 9 waved at Walsh was the promise of doing the show live to air, whereas the show was pre-taped days in advance at TEN10. I imagine 9 had a lot more dollars to splurge too, i can’t imagine Ten being as generous

Restrictions were placed on colour test programming so as to have a uniform changeover nationally and industry-wide and to have a big impact rather than just phase in programming gradually as happened overseas.

How long did the ABC 6-7pm line up last with My Favorite Martian, GTK and Bellbird?