Better than in 1980 where Seven only had 2 hours of packaged highlights late at night. And if you were in a country area you’d have been lucky to see anything at all if the local station had not opted to take the coverage.
Meanwhile, here’s today’s TV for 13.2.1966, Western Australia
ABSW5 in Bunbury is WA’s only regional station at this time.
Prime Minister Harold Holt gives a “C-Day” talk to the nation on the eve of the switch to decimal currency.
STW9 in Perth is still a relative newcomer, not beginning for the day until 4.00pm.
Neither TVW7 nor STW9 have any news service on the Sunday. Even on Saturday, Seven only had a 15-minute bulletin and nothing on Nine. On weeknights, Seven had a 25-minute bulletin at 6.35pm but Nine only had a 10-minute news at 6.25pm and another 10-minute bulletin just before close down.
Only 90 minutes of late night highlights on Seven of the 1980 Winter Olympics held at Lake Placid, New York State, USA.
“Liquefied Natural Gas” on Seven at 3.40pm, obviously it is a filler programme of a short doco designed for schools. Often these short docos aired on Seven’s childrens programme of the 1970s “This Week Has Seven Days”.
Olympic Minutes on Seven at 1.50pm after the Midday Movie
the very short lived Aussie soap Arcade on Ten at 6.30pm
BBC snooker tournament Pot Black makes the ABC’s prime time schedules at 7.30pm
the 1980 Winter Olympics was shown on CTC7 and WIN4 but both in late night timeslots
CTC7 had a 15 minute local news bulletin before going to Seven National News via ATN7 at 6.30, WIN4 had News listed for an hour, I presume 30 minutes of local news and the rest being the Seven National News relay.
I think the only other live event may have been the women’s aerials skiing where it was expected that Jacqui Cooper would win. Then she blows out her knee, gets told about Bradbury doing the Bradbury upon arrival back in Australia, and some lass called Alisa Camplin then steps up to the plate.
Arcade was problematic for many reasons but its scheduling did it no favours at all. In Melbourne, 10 put it on at 6.30pm up against the news on 7 and 9 which were both strong performers. There was no real way it was going to make a dent in their ratings.
And in Sydney, where 10 had a one-hour news, Arcade was on at 7.00. Up against Willesee At Seven and The Sullivans. Again, two very popular programs, particularly The Sullivans. Like with Melbourne, it was never going to cause an upset there even if it was actually good (although, I do concede I didn’t mind Arcade but I was 8 at the time so perhaps I wasn’t a great judge of quality)
I remember I used to watch This Week Has Seven Days on occasions but I really remember nothing about it. It was mostly studio-based segments, almost like a talk or magazine show for kids? It sort of disappeared once the “C” classification came in. Perhaps it didn’t score approval for the classification so Seven dumped it?
Business Sunday, Sunday, 60 Minutes and Vox Populi are back.
Ten has a new sports magazine show, Sportz Crazy, with Jack Thompson. Guessing the “nude racing” segment didn’t go into too much detail given the show’s G-rating timeslot!
Ten also had a debut of The Dolly Show, featuring Dolly Parton. This died a quick death up against 60 Minutes and Seven’s ALF. But then Ten replaced it with The Comedy Company and that surprised everyone by beating all rivals.
Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony is on Nine. Coverage of the Winter Olympics was 3.5 hours each night at 8.30.
Seven’s late movie is The Saint Strikes Back. And I reckon it’s still getting played to this day, now on 7flix’s mid-dawn black and white movies.
I used to watch The Dolly Show when Ten ran it on weekend afternoons. Dolly would always end the show with her signature song “I Will Always Love You”. Years later we’d come to loathe the song because it got so much radio airplay when Whitney Houston released her version. It’s funny to see Dolly listed here on a Sunday night when it’s replacement would debut two days later on Tuesday, February 16 1988 at 9.30pm.
Ten can’t have had much faith in The Comedy Company initially. The first episode obviously showed enough promise for them to take the plunge and schedule it in a prime slot. I remember the first show being a little different in format to what would appear on Sunday nights. I think they originally planned to have guest hosts, like Saturday Night Live. Mark Mitchell hosted the first episode dressed in a dinner suit but the Sunday version dispensed with the role.
There was probably some caution in commissioning it, given that sketch comedy wasn’t really a big thing on the commercial networks at that time. And comedy was (as it is now) always a risk for commercial TV. And most of The Comedy Company cast had little experience in television except from the short-lived The Eleventh Hour sketch comedy show that had a brief run on HSV7 in 1985. Most of the cast had come from the stand up circuit and not really well known for TV. Ten’s caution was probably justified though, as it turned out, unnecessary.
I can’t really remember those very early shows (although I did watch them at the time) but I suspect they had a slightly more adult feel (in 1988 terms, probably very mild in today’s terms!) suitable for 9.30pm and IIRC it was only commissioned for 13 weeks or so. It wasn’t meant to run all-year as it ended up doing. When Dolly got bumped it was really just a fluke that The Comedy Company got put in that slot and to have it succeed the way it did. I don’t think anyone, not even Channel 10, saw that coming.
There was such an irony at the time that The Comedy Company with its cheap sets and obviously produced on the smell of an oily rag, managed to out rate 60 Minutes which had a budget of millions.
Plus The Comedy Company was only part of the sketch-comedy boom that happened in the 80’s. Other shows included Australia, You’re Standing in It, The Eleventh Hour, The D-Generation, and Fast Forward.
Also, Tattslotto draw on Sunday night and NSW Lotto draw televised on Monday night. Odd. NSW Lotto draws were always on Mondays in those days but I thought Tatts draws had always been conducted on Saturdays. Melbourne television not able to be networked to Darwin in those days? Could Territorians even subscribe to both draws? I know the ACT had outlets selling either Tattslotto or NSW Lotto back in the day but wasn’t aware that was also the case in the NT.
Up until Cyclone Tracy, NTD8 only produced a short 15 minute local news bulletin (the last bulletin aired on Christmas Eve, 1974). When NTD8 came back on air 10 months after Cyclone Tracy it didn’t carry any news. This was in part due to not having any direct link to the eastern states (the ABC had a full-time lease on the only microwave link into Darwin and essentially relayed ABC from Brisbane with no time delay) so there was no timely way to get ‘national’ news to NTD8.
This changed later in 1982 when NTD8 was linked up to Queensland via microwave, so they began taking national news stories from QTQ9 (later BTQ7) Brisbane and launched their own News At Seven.
Again, most likely due to the lack of a direct link to the eastern states so they probably had to rely on getting the show sent up on videotapes. Even the Tattslotto draw looks like it was broadcast on Sunday nights, one day after it appears elsewhere.
They were but NTD8 didn’t start until 5.00pm, although they did start at midday on Wednesdays only and that included Simon Townsend’s Wonder World and Shirl’s Neighbourhood in the traditional “C” timeslot.
ABC was basically relaying ABQ2 from Brisbane into Darwin so it was just operated like a regional Queensland station with a 5-minute “regional” news which was most likely presented from Brisbane.
NTD8? Most likely not unless they came to any special agreement to access the ABC’s connection which I think sometimes happened for things like the Melbourne Cup. Although in those days the ABC used to sometimes re-broadcast special sports coverage from commercial networks into the remote areas where commercial TV didn’t reach then. I don’t really know how it worked logistically or how ABC coped with things like commercial breaks which they obviously couldn’t show.
I remember ABC regional stations relayed coverage of the America’s Cup to regional areas (with a short v/o intro from Norman May) but did not show it on their metro station.
