Today’s TV: 15.8.1981, Southern NSW/ACT, Newcastle:
Source: TV Week
Some afternoon variations between RVN2 and AMV4 for football coverage.
ABC has Sydney Rugby League on regional stations, but excluding Newcastle and Wollongong.
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Laurie Wilson had been at Seven for nearly 20 years and was their Canberra bureau chief when he was poached by Nine in 1993. He was a big part of Seven’s coverage of the Whitlam dismissal in November 1975 and won awards for it. Seven’s coverage of the event was highly praised with their news reports from that night being seen on the BBC and TVNZ.
I can’t imagine how they managed to split a one hour drama into half hour episodes like that. One of the oddest programming moves I’ve ever heard of.
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I seem to recall he also worked at BTV6 in Ballarat at some stage? Sometime in the '80s I think.
I notice the ABC showed the famous 1981 Ashes series (also known as Botham’s Ashes for Ian Botham’s heroics with bat and ball). England won the fifth test at Old Trafford by 29 runs to retain the urn.
Did the ABC or Nine show the Ashes tour of 1985?
I think it was Nine. I vaguely recall it was the cricket coverage that prompted Nine to shift Hey Hey It’s Saturday from 9.30 to 6.30pm. I don’t know if the change was intended to be temporary only, but it never went back to its old timeslot after that.
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And Hey Hey was shortened to a snappy two hours down from two and a half 
Like Nine’s other LIVE variety offerings, such as Midday, it would regularly run ten to fifteen minutes over the scheduled finish time.
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That was a constant source of frustration here when I was growing up!
I recall some pubs had antennas installed to get ABC Channel 1 Taree (as it was at the time) with signs out the front saying “Watch live rugby league here today!” to get people in.
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I’m still intrigued by the inclusion of NBN3 in the Southern NSW listings.
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With the VFL football shown live on CTC7 and RVN2 (and replays on GMV6), strange MTN9 Griffith didn’t take this live telecast as its viewing area is close to the Victorian border and Australian Rules is just as popular in the Riverina MIA than rugby league. Also strange AMV4 didn’t take the Seven’s Big League telecast at 6.30pm. You’d think there would be some sort of football coverage. But most people in Albury-Wodonga could receive GMV6 so they can watch it there. The 6.30pm-8.30pm programmes were an alternative for those not so footy inclined.
Although they did take World of Sport and the Sydney Swans home games live on Sundays.
Yes it was Nine that showed the Ashes tour of 1985. But their coverage wasn’t as good as the ABC did in 1981. Day 1 of each test was always on a Thursday, which meant that Nine did not show the first session and part of the second session live that night because the Mike Walsh Show was on and that took priority. There were many complaints from cricket fans, that as well as low ratings was the reason the Mike Walsh Show got axed later that year. Most regional commercial stations that took the Ashes cricket did not show the first session live on all days of each test, joining in after 10.40pm when the second session was underway.
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also one of the tests clashed with Wimbledon, Nine had rights to both so they screened a few overs of the cricket followed by a few minutes of Wimbledon then back to the cricket and so on. It didn’t go down too well, one person wrote to the Age Green Guide saying “seeing Ian Botham hit John McEnroe for six into the Saba car park!”.
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Error. The Big Game lists Balmain v Norths, but it was Manly and Souths that were playing.
Interesting name for Seven’s VFL telecast: Australian Football World.
It’s amazing how little news was on air prior to 1981.
Bugs Bunny was on Seven?
I also notice Seven Sydney had local news at 6pm followed by national news at 6.30pm.
I’d say even up to the 2000’s the news offering was limited, the ability to go live without large/complex setups (link trucks or portable satellite setups) has really changed the way the news is put together
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I think that was a Sydney thing. It was usually on Nine in Melbourne.
It didn’t last long
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