Millennium Live and 2000 Today were really just to showcase NYE celebrations and fireworks from around the world. ABC filled gaps in 2000 Today with their own segments/interviews both live and pre-recorded.
I don’t really recall watching much of either program apart from fireworks at midnight AEDT and maybe again when SA and Qld later followed.
I was staying at a mate’s place that night and I do recall being bleary-eyed and watching Sons And Daughters or Prisoner re-runs or something on Foxtel at about 3am It was also around that time we did some channel flicking and saw Channel 7’s new logo for the first time.
Not sure which channel it was, probably TV1, but Foxtel during the day on New Year’s Day then did a whole marathon of “first episodes” of various shows to mark the day.
It was probably also a chance to really showcase the different countries and their celebrations and a bit of unifying, something which wasn’t as achieveable in the past or cost effective at all but something that is now taken for granted with live crosses now a regular part of even regional news bulletins.
It was also as there was quite a bit of fear in the world about how things would respond to the Y2K bug which in the end did extremely minimal damage but there were concerns and fears about it, a lot due to not knowing as the internet was still relatively young but we’d already grown such a reliance on it so it was a good program to see around the world what was happening/if havoc was about to be wreaked.
the footnote in the TV guides for New year’s Day was that Nine’s planned Today On Saturday “In the event of nothing or little to report re: Y2K bug, Millennium Live will continue”. I’m guessing they didn’t bother with Today.
Nothing formally announced other than Nine planning to dump Millennium Live for 2 hours for a special edition of Today. But I’m sure all networks had a mountain of behind the scenes contingency plans in place also in the event that vital infrastructure could have been affected as well.
On this night 30 years ago, Australia Live went to air on Nine, ABC, SBS and regional stations to mark the start of Australia’s Bicentenary Celebrations. Quite a feat to get it to air by crossing to over 70 locations around Australia.
Although “Australia Live” was technically impressive broadcast for it’s time, judging by the clip above the content has not aged very well at all! Then again, you can probably say the same about most celebratory elements of Australia’s Bicentenary year.
Could you imagine the outrage if anyone today dared to suggest a re-enactment of the arrival of the First Fleet on Sydney Harbour would be a good idea? I don’t think we’ll be seeing the likes of the 1988 celebration, a time that reflected the intense national pride most people felt about the progress made over 200 years, in 2038.
There were so many different celebrations for bicentennial. As a kid I thought it was amazing. We also had Expo 88 in Brisbane and many special sports events. New Parliament House opened.
Each student in schools across the country also received a commemorative bicentennial medallion.
Correct me if I’m wrong but on Australia Day in 88 it was the first ever fireworks off the Harbour Bridge.
The Celebrstion of a Nation ad was also quite memorable
Some rare glimpses of ABLV4 from Gippsland announcing its upcoming switch to UHF 40:
YouTube: Dave Headland
Given this is a pre-conversion announcement, it’s unclear just when this announcement was airing during the day as not to interrupt programs. I suspect it was only airing in the mornings in place of the usual test pattern before sign-on, although that’s only going to reach a handful of viewers.
Dave Headland has a number of videos covering Gippsland stations ABLV4 and GLV8 (Southern Cross Network)
It was also around that time we did some channel flicking and saw Channel 7’s new logo for the first time.
