General TV History

I thought that this was a good promo for Wake Up back in 2013 but the ratings for this show failed to fire. The show has been thrashed by Sunrise, Today and even ABC News 24. In just under 2 weeks, Natasha Exelby left TEN Network (I didn’t know why she moved from TEN). It was a very expensive show to produce in Manly as well as in Melbourne.
How many viewers watched this short-lived show in 2014 compared to Breakfast back in 2012?

I think Wake Up got even less viewers than Breakfast did in 2012.

Yes, it was an expensive flop that lead to the reduced under resourced Ten News we see today.

I remember watching the first show. It was very average, with hardly any news. The next day, it lost a third of its viewers and never recovered. The show itself did improve after 3 months, but the damage had been done.

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Speaking of stations on relay:

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WHats withtthe 4 letter call signs in remote WA and NT? Independent stations set up by the mines?

Pretty much. They were part of Mining Television Network and set up at mining sites in Western Australia and Northern Territory. AFAIK they were just transmitters hooked up to video players and relied on program tapes being dispatched presumably from Perth. It was essentially redundant when Aussat came along and GWN and Imparja took over the transmitters.

Here is a program listing of Mining Television Network from 1985:

Source: TV Week

For some context, 28 September was Grand Final Day for the VFL. It was shown live in Perth (TVW7), Bunbury/Albany (GWN) and Kalgoorlie (VEW8) and there was an hour of highlights later on ABC.

GTW11 and Mining Television had no listing for the GF at all for the full week. Presumably Mining stations had to wait for program tapes which could have been a week behind. Not sure why GTW hadn’t scheduled it, unless it was put in as a late schedule change after publication.

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and now it is 20 years!!! Just kidding South Australians

The first episode of Wake Up did get more than the first episode of Breakfast, but then fell sharply. Breakfast was actually showing some rating improvements before it was axed

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Who know about what to be called “Mining Television Network”, my friends?

read a couple of posts up, my friend :slight_smile:

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How about year launch ? I see the year end is 1986 to 1988, but how about year launch?
Also, which “traditional” stations (3-letter callsign) are part of it? And how about network and stations’ logo, design, appearance, …, my friends???

Some interesting programming there.

A close between about 4pm and 6pm or thereabouts, and shows like Disney for mining folk?

I know very little about Mining Television Network other than what I’ve written. No idea what logos or presentation they had but I understand the stations started up in the 1970s. As far as I know the only stations in the network were the 4-letter call-sign stations as they were licenced differently to conventional commercial stations. I imagine they were set up / operated by the mining companies themselves as a service to the shift workers who had little options for entertainment when not at work as these sites were very remote.

They weren’t really proper stations and judging by the program guide only broadcasting a few hours each day and night.

it is rather odd programming. I don’t know where these sites are in relation to any nearby towns but maybe whatever signal they had covered some general populace as well.

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Okok…, my friend…
Who else (expect @TelevisionAU) know about Mining TV network), my friends…???

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Before FIFO was a thing, families would live at the mining towns.

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FIFO ???

What was worse for Wake Up was that TEN News boss Adam Boland left after two weeks due to stress leave. And thus the downfall began for the network.
I had to say that TEN have made a lot of terrible decisions over the past few years where they have spent too much money on trying new things. Wake Up, Early News, Morning News, late news, international bureaus have been axed in late May. However, Studio 10 still kept at the normal 8:30AM timeslot. Following the demise of news bulletins, TEN made a massive overhaul with the daytime lineup.

What TVAU has said about the Mining TV Network is about as much as anyone knows. It wasn’t a big network. It was a “network” in name only - it was all run off video tape recorded in Perth and sent up north.

Unless a lurker here who used to work for Mining TV and/or GWN knows more and wants to elaborate in more detail, we can’t provide any more info.

Fly In, Fly Out. You would fly into a mining camp for a few days, work a week or so, and then go home for a while.

Please Google it.

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Okok, my friend… Let me check.

I even contacted the guys at WA TV History and their knowledge of the mining television network was not much more than what little I knew.