Given that less than 3% of households had colour TV sets in time for “C” Day I imagine the test pattern did not rate too highly 
Although apparently even on a normal day the test pattern was said to rate even around 1 to 2 per cent of households. Maybe they liked the music? (Remember this was “FM” sound when everyone had only AM radios) Maybe they ticked the wrong boxes in their ratings diaries? 
I know this probably belongs in the Question thread, but I have 2 questions related to content some of the regional were showing
When did regionals stop screening Primac Tele-Auctions ? I have a feeling it was around the time of aggregation in NSW/ACT in late 1980s
How Primac Tele-Auctions rated in regional markets?
Cattle auctions?
yes DDQ (aka 10/4/5a), NEN (9/8 Television) and NRTV at least used to screen these at around 9am in the morning after GMA in the 1980s. I daresay other regionals may have screened these too. They were usually on a Tuesday or Thursday monring
Seven and Nine both used color rather than colour, maybe that influenced TV Week?
The 0-10 Network would also use the American spelling. ABC TV would use the Australian spelling.
Today’s TV: 4.12.1988, Melbourne
Source: TV Week
And can you imagine ABC nowadays having the bucks to put in daily adverts in the magazine?!? And this would have been national, too. Must have cost them (or, actually, us!) a fortune.
I think I saw a Doctor Who ad for the recent season premiere and thought it’d been a while since I saw an ABC advertisement in commercial media.
Also of note a very Liberal news reading duo om 10, with Sarah Henderson and Alister Patterson who both went on to federal and state politics respectively as Liberal members based around Geelong.
Cartoon Corner, Willisee at Seven, Power without Glory.
Channels Nine (at 9.30) and 0 (at 9.00) are both running mid-evening news bulletins for the summer
The Mike Walsh Show in its last days on 0-10 before moving to Nine in the new year.
The Young Doctors and The Sullivans both run back-to-back as summer tryouts for Nine.
SEQ8 (Sunshine TV) also aired Primac as well, as shown in the 1985 closedown:
Interesting that 9 was showing a black and white episode of My Three Sons At 6pm… the ep would have been at least 10 years old.
It’s also strange that they would program a black and white program in the lead to their news when colour was new and still a major promotional tool.
But I guess it was December and non-ratings in those days meant no care or responsibility taken.
And in 1976 something like 80% of households hadn’t switched to colour. (The big spike in colour conversions came in 1977)
And as you say, summer non ratings. Programming was very b-list
Had every TV station at the time switched over to color?
Was there a particular event in '77 that triggered the colour conversion spike?
Don’t know. Maybe the cost of sets was starting to come down?
I recall my parents bought our colour TV in 77 so given being a young family they probably had to wait for sets to be more affordable
Thinking back you’re right about conversion, I know in our family we probably waited unil about 1977 to get a colour set.
I think most people wanted to wait and see what all the fuss was about before spending a lot of money on a TV.
I believe the cheapest sets for the living room were around $1,000 which was very expensive in the olden days. Bearing in mind a TV set for the lounge was quite an elaborate affair usually in a wood panelled cabinet. It was essentially a key piece of furniture not just a panel on the wall.
I recall that 9 showed B&W Addams Family at 7pm in summer many years later to some success when everything was colour.
My grandparents got a colour Rank Arena in 1976, I found the receipt when cleaning up my Dad’s place, wish I’d kept it. I’m thinking a shade under $700?
Needless to say, we inherited the black and white National telly which was still going strong until it literally caught fire one day around 1986. We replaced that with a Panasonic 33cm black and white portable, by then grandparents had passed on and we had the rank arena in the “good room”, always loved when I convinced mum to watch Play School, Humphrey or Shirl’s Neighborhood and see the vibrant colours.
We also inherited a big HMV push button which also had UHF so we could watch sbs again after they’d turned off Channel 0. The TV repairman was our nosy regular tradie with that thing but it say us through into the early 1990s.
