I can recall that happening a few years later with SBS showing a day of a golf tournament for a couple of weeks in a row whilst something else was on ABC. Conversely, can recall them leaving the final round of another tournament to cover and NBL match and returned afterwards.
Good to see our national broadcasters had some co-operation between them!
I recall SBS was sometimes used to broadcast sport from Seven when Seven had two different events on at the same day/time. It was still Seven’s coverage/presentation but was just being broadcast on SBS. This was the days before SBS carried commercials so I’m not sure if they had to put in some sort of filler when Seven would normally have gone to a commercial break.
It also wouldn’t have started transmission until mid morning on a Sunday (in time for Italian Soccer) and lunchtime on weekdays. Obviously access to the various worldwide news bulletins was restricted.
Did they update the title theme song lyrics to Class of '75 and '76 when it was the new year?
I doubt it. The show was axed and had already been done and dusted in the eastern states. I can’t imagine anyone putting any money in to re-do the song lyrics for Adelaide’s benefit in playing out the remaining episodes over Summer. My guess is it was just re-badged Class Of 76 for the listings but still broadcast as 75.
Today’s TV: 29.1.1991, Melbourne
Today’s TV: 30.1.1976, Western Australia
TVW7 still catching up on Class Of '74 in 1976 
Today’s TV: 1.2.1983, Melbourne.
Prisoner returns for the new year and viewers find out who lived or died from the prison fire
Source: TV Week / TV Scene
Some quality programming there and I mean that in all sincerity. TV was much better back in the old days.
and technically this was still non-ratings. Some shows still yet to return for the new year.
Looking at the synopsis for Sons and Daughters, it looks like the second episode of the 1983 season (which makes sense). Do we know if HSV7 and ATN7 were in sync with S&D back then, as an unconfirmed (and probably incorrect) source states it returned in Sydney on 17th January?
It returned for 1983 on 31 January in both Melbourne and Sydney at 7.00pm. I imagine both cities were in sync with S&D episodes.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 31 January 1983. The Age, 31 January 1983.
Totally agree. I used to get so excited about returning shows around this time of the year in the 1980s. Apart from Survivor there’s nothing being promoted on free to air that remotely interests me.
Those Prisoner cliffhangers were always so well done. They always generated interest with plenty of press coverage in the lead up to new seasons. The tunnel escape attempt during the panto was another favourite I remember fondly.
That would change the following year. ATN had installed Terry Willesee Tonight at 7pm over the non ratings period for a trial run. It was announced TWT had been axed in late January to make way for the return of the better performing S&D at 7pm with the TWT team being redeployed to work on specials. Consideration was given to airing TWT late night after Newsworld but the expense couldn’t be justified.
TWT ended up getting a last minute stay of execution when they managed to break some big stories in late January/early February and were winning nights against Sale of the Century. Sons and Daughters returned in Melbourne on 6 February 1984 at 7pm four nights a week. ATN aired one hour episodes Sundays and Mondays from 26 February. Not sure how TV Week coped with the show being so out of sync at that time with the potential for storylines being spoiled for Sydney viewers.
Thank you for the additional info about S&D’s scheduling. I do know that some markets (such as Adelaide) had shown 60-minute episodes as early as 1982, and others reverted to a 30-minute format later in the run. It surprised me that HSV overtook ATN in 1984 (with it being a Sydney-produced show), but that wasn’t particularly unusual with the soaps - didn’t Prisoner debut in Sydney before Melbourne, despite being made at ATV0?
The issue with TV Week spoilers was obviously an issue with many such shows - did they tend to run features about storylines on the same week in all the regional/state editions of the magazine, with the only differences being the listings pages themselves?
I remember an editorial in TV Week back in the day lamenting the fact that soaps could be well out of sync not just between Sydney and Melbourne but also taking into account the smaller capital cities and regional markets, which could be months or even years out of sync. They would want to preview storylines and have articles about current actors and the shows but had to be wary of revealing significant spoilers. At least when networking got a proper grab by the late 1980s and aggregation soon after that relieved them of that awkwardness.
HSV7 finally aligned with ATN7’s format of Sons & Daughters in two x 1-hour episodes a week from 1985, when they put a local current affairs show Day By Day at 7.00.
Yes. Episode one of Prisoner aired on Monday, February 26 1979 on TEN10. Episode two ran the following night. ATV0 had a two hour premiere on Tuesday, February 27 (episodes one and two) and ran episode three on the Wednesday night.
My understanding is that programmes normally had one tape in which they would send on to the next station in line. Brisbane was part of this chain. Sale of Athens Century was one such such that was many months behind Melbourne and Sydney. I presume Aussat made life easier around 1986 fir sending shows between cities before full networking came into play in 1988?
