Today’s TV: 4.9.1988, Brisbane
Source: Scene On TV/The Sunday Mail
That is interesting that TVQ was still on VHF 0 this day 29 years ago.
As I was up there in late September and they had moved to VHF 10 by then.
A quick Google search tells me that the switch occurred only 6 days after the above guide was published.
Doesn’t look to be any promotion of that there.
Channel Ten in Sydney also aired The Year My Voice Broke that night, so presumably it was Movie Of The Week across the network:
Looking at Sydney TV guides for the same day, there’s actually a number of differences between that and the Brisbane TV schedule for that day…
*Ten Sydney had the “Good Day” religious program at 6.30am instead of Footprints (which I presume was a different religious program). The programing of the Sydney & Brisbane stations remains the same until 4pm when Ten Sydney had You Again followed by The Tall Ships at 4.30pm.
*Ten Sydney aired it’s news at 5.30pm to accommodate it’s edited “State Bank Big Game” rugby league broadcast for 90 minutes from 6pm followed by The Comedy Company at 7.30pm.
*While TVO gave “This Week At Expo” a pre-news airing, Ten Sydney showed it at 12.40am! 
*Nine Sydney’s 2pm movie was Ohms, with Sports Sunday airing from 4pm to 6pm.
*Channel Seven Sydney had it’s own 6am-9am and 10.30pm-midnight programing, including Please Explain (aired at 6am and 11.30pm), Cartoon Connection from 6.30am and Falcon Crest after the movie at 10.30pm.
*On the ABC, the regional NSW service broke away from Sunday Afternoon at 2.55pm for a (live?) telecast of the Balmain vs Cronulla rugby league match before re-joining the show at 4.45pm.
*Regional areas of NSW had the same programing as ABC Brisbane from 9.20pm until a 12.10am closedown, but Sydney had the Rugby League highlights, the Rugby Union highlights, Music Gallery (the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performing works by Berlioz and Mozart) followed by a 12.05am close.
It’s interesting that Ten had it news at 5.30pm to accommodate it’s edited “State Bank Big Game” rugby league broadcast for 90 minutes. At some point, Ten carried the full match didn’t they?
Unusual that both the ABC and TVQ had the Sydney rugby league on, the same game as well (I assume that was a finals match).
I don’t recall that happening in Sydney, not on a Sunday anyway?
The edited “State Bank Big Game” broadcast at 6pm with news at 5.30pm might’ve been a Ten Sydney-specific thing (remembering that this was back in the early days of TV networking, when stations had more local autonomy than they do now), but I’d have to check on that.
What I do know is that something similar was also happening in 1989 and possibly other years that Ten had the rights to broadcast rugby league.
The Cronulla vs Balmain game that day was a Preliminary Finals match, the last of the 1988 NSW-RL season before the following Sunday’s Grand Final.
The magazine did acknowledge the pending changeover on page 3 of the magazine:
Rival magazine TV Extra (in the Sunday Sun) also mentioned the upcoming changeover to 10 but failed to make the change on the actual listing, continuing to list it as TV0 on the day it was to become Ten.
The show used to get similar treatment in Melbourne, it used to be on very late Sunday night but also for a while got a 6am run… one extreme to the other!
It was hosted initially by Anna McMahon but then Fiona Crawford took over towards the end of its run.
Today’s TV: 8.9.1988, Brisbane
Source: TV Week
I don’t think SBS stuck with Brookside for very long, did they? I’m not sure when it started and finished on SBS or whether they ran it from episode one (Nov 82 in the UK). That synopsis implies they are a couple of years at least behind the UK - though it was only shown twice a week there in the 80s so SBS could have caught up quite quickly.
The synopsis for Home and Away is obviously wrong - the programme never had episode titles!
I think SBS started Brookside in 1985 or 86 (EDIT: It was actually 26 January 1987), initially weeknights at 6.00. I remember watching a few episodes but don’t remember anything much other than it was set in some suburban cul de sac? Bit like Neighbours?
I’d say it must have. Every episode that week has the same title When The Bough Breaks, with the week starting with Roo (Justine Clarke) going into labour. The following week’s episodes were titled The Cradle Will Fall., and the next week Down Will Come Baby.
The nursery rhyme theme for titles obviously ran out because a couple of months later, for the week 14-18 November the episodes were titled Dealing In Futures. I’ve never watched Home And Away with any regularity so perhaps the titles didn’t appear on screen?
I know Neighbours used to have episode titles a few years ago. They were (AFAIK) usually clever puns about the storyline or characters focused on that week.
Brookside was set in a suburban new-build cul-de-sac (in Liverpool), but that’s where any similarities to Neighbours ended. In its early days it dealt with social issues - some characters had moved there from upmarket areas, others came from social housing and were owning their first home. Much of the early episodes dealt with the tensions between residents from differing backgrounds, and explored social issues such as unemployment, “fiddle jobs”, unionism in Thatcher’s Britain, drug use and general larrakin behaviour. It was seen as the most realistic of the UK soaps and often broke the mould - featuring the UK’s first pre-watershed lesbian kiss, amongst other controversial storylines. Later it tended to feature more sensational plots, such as explosions, sieges and incest - some of which werent so well received. It ran for 21 years in the UK.
As for Home and Away, it certainly had no episode titles onscreen - this is the first I’ve heard of such titles existing. Intriguing!!
Today’s TV: 10.9.1978, Brisbane. Ten years to the day before TVQ0 became TVQ10
Source: TV Week
Today marks the 61st anniversary of the launch of television in Australia, in particular TCN9 in Sydney.
The TV listing for that first week:
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Today’s TV: 16.9.1961, Perth
Source: TV Times
Four Corners at 10pm on a Saturday is odd, although TV was so early everything would have been fairly popular surely?
Pretty much. I don’t know anything of the logistics but I wonder too if the show was barely in the can in Sydney that day before a copy was flown over to Perth, maybe necessitating a later airtime.
Although it’s not clear if the episode aired in Perth was the same as the one that aired on the east coast the same night.
Canned Fruits Corner, showing how to make canned pears with rice cream. I should buy some canned pears and canned rice cream and try that.
Today’s TV: 19.9.1974, Sydney:
Source: TV Week
