Here it is, The Simpsons debuts on Southern Cross Network (GLV8) on 17 February 1991 (one week behind its debut in Melbourne). It is listed as 7.30pm but looks like a typo and it should be 6.30pm. From the following Sunday it continued in the 7.00pm timeslot, leading into 60 Minutes.
Also debuting on Southern Cross this week is Twin Peaks, and Blind Date with Greg Evans debuts the following week, screening weekdays at 3.20pm.
Source: TV Week
Also the news was listed as “National News” for one hour. Did they take TEN Eyewitness News at that time or they still had a half hour Gippsland news followed by National Nine News?
At this point I believe it was still half-hour of local news followed by Nine News on delay. But during the year they did change to relaying Ten News from Melbourne, which meant that the local news went from 6.00 to 6.30, then Ten Eyewitness News on a half-hour delay from 6.30 to 7.30. I’d have to check but I don’t know what happened to them showing ACA, whether it got bumped to a late timeslot or taken off all together.
If Nine are going to strip and dump archival footage, they’d better get the Uni in on this…looks like they’ve kept the tapes in good nick.
“Dear Sir, i wish to complain…”
Aside from Newcastle, Hobart and Launceston, did any regionals produce weekend news bulletins? I recall local footy scoreboards, but can’t recall news bulletins or updates.
I recall WIN TV having a short local bulletin during the 1970s. Couldn’t tell you exactly when it was cut but I think most regionals produced some sort of local content on the weekends back in those days.
BTV6 and GMV6 used to produce 5 minute local news on weekends in the 1980s. Can’t be certain of the other Victorian regionals but I would say they did similar
Prime had “Prime Weekend News”’ in 1994, as a 30 minute bulletin to counter NBN’s bulletin, but that lasted less than a year. It was presented by Kylie Gillies.
The 2nd block was combined local news and sport, recorded as a separate window for each NNSW sub market.
Weather was generic for the entire region.
WIN bought DDQ Toowoomba at the ‘last moment’ in 1990 and brought its Nine affiliation with it to that market. WIN wan’t aligned with Ten in those days at all.
QTV had an agreement in principle with Nine in 1990, but wasn’t prepared to pay the high profit percentage Nine wanted for the content stream. The WIN purchase took QTV by surprise.
WIN was steamrolling in those days and just paid whatever it took to get the Number One network into regional areas. We all know how that worked out for Brucey!
From what I can gather, the composite weekend editions of Prime Local News in Northern NSW seemed to last until at least 1998? That is, unless the concept was axed and later revived.
In any case, on YouTube there’s the 15/11/1998 weekend bulletin including the local window for Tamworth with Fiona Ferguson (in her first year at Prime Tamworth, if I’m not mistaken) reading the news, Scott Beveridge (before moving to bigger and better things) on Sport, Seven Nightly News report signoffs kept intact and a Northern NSW-wide weather segment:
Video credit: @Brayds
I’m not 100% sure when the weekend editions were axed, but my guess is that they would’ve been gone by 2001.
Thanks, I have to admit I’m not 100% sure now. It’s also possible that the Newcastle version of the weekend bulletin was axed before the Tamworth one was.
Yes, how people forget. It took years before the Simpsons became accepted as mainstream viewing. I remember being on a plane to America and there was an audible groan when the Simpsons came on the TV screens. People just couldn’t accept a cartoon as anything but children’s entertainment. Many letters to the editor would disparage them as ”The Simpletons”…
I know all about the WIN purchase of DDQ that was tied with the Nine affiliation.
Although it was reported that WIN did approach Nine six months before aggregation about the Queensland market but nothing came from it until Nine told WIN that its negotiations with QTV had stalled on Christmas Eve. I guess WIN was banking on Nine and QTV having a falling out although it was far from a foregone conclusion. It was definitely a risk on WIN’s part given that Nine was a significant shareholder in QTV. I guess if Nine and QTV had signed off on their deal then WIN would have made a hurried signing to Ten at the last minute.
When WIN was willing to pay whatever Nine asked and both sides knew it, not so sure it was a foregone conclusion. They already had a cosy relationship and WIN knew that aggregation was about slashing costs and streaming metro content. QTV was still in a ‘country TV’ mindset.
QTV was actually the last to know of the deal on Xmas Eve, Nine and WIN had done the dirty on them.
I guess that doesn’t surprise me.
But (just me speculating) maybe QTV, despite their last minute surprise, had their suspicions that something was going on behind their backs… given that they surprisingly dropped its 9 dots logo for the rainbow QTV logo ahead of aggregation? (I have a press release from QTV issued in 1990 with the rainbow logo but spruiking its ties to Nine) A pre-emptive change? I always thought that was a weird move that didn’t really make sense. But it did happen to make sense once they aligned to Ten.
Knowing how Kerry Packer worked, he probably ran between QTV and WIN to get the best deal for Nine
At one point, some regionals like NEN9/ECN8 and RVN2/AMV4 produced shortened editions… and I think WIN did for a while. I know in 1989 WIN did 5 minute newsbreaks on Saturday and Sunday leading into National Nine News in Canberra/Yass regions
Yes, Prime also did 6:25 bulletins on Saturdays towards the end of Seven Nightly News in 1992-93 (but not Sundays).
In Tamworth, it was presented by Paul Gregg, in Newcastle it was presented by Garry Blair.
The Newcastle 6:25 bulletins ran for 6 nights a week in 1992 ahead of the launch of “Prime Local News” at 6pm in February 1993.
I recall Mary Franks reading a 6:28 weekend bulletin on WIN in 1996-97?
I actually find it interesting that Southern Cross Network didn’t try and insert Bold And The Beautiful into the schedule somewhere. In 1991, I was living in Lismore NSW and they screened Bold and The Beautiful at 3:10pm after Days Of Our Lives and E Street (Young And The Restless was dropped by NRN11/RTN8 at the end of 1990) before moving to 1pm at end of November when Midday Show wrapped up for the year. It then reverted to Channel Ten daytime schedule.
