General TV History

Don’t quote me on this but I think Seven’s “grunge”/“red ribbon” graphics lasted in its original form until the Athens Olympics, with some elements (such as the date/time straps on the Promo Endtags being changed to a cleaner look) being updated after the games or possibly around the same time Nine launched the 2nd generation of their popular “seven colours for seven days” package.

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Back in the days 10 used to have a Ten guide channel. That channel ceased broadcasting in late 2007 when it was replaced by a standaway HD channel. Ten HD altered their scheduling with Ten News at 5:30pm on Ten Hd. A few documentaries were shown on that channel. Then in early 2009, Ten HD was replaced by ONE HD with 24-hour sports channel.
I wasn’t a big fan of the layout with the Ten Guide as this removes a bit of the small screen in a few seconds.

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Ten HD also had a full night breakaway on Thursdays with a Sci-Fi theme including shows like Battlestar Galactica and Smallville. There was also breakaway drama on other nights at 10:30 like The Shield and Veronica Mars.

Countdown to ONE HD

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Nine HD’s breakaway Sci-Fi program late on Friday nights was Invasion.

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On a completely separate note, I have been trying to think of all of the short run shows (eg 15 minutes or less) that networks used as fillers aside from cartoons etc

Below are some I thought of. Please add to the list if you can think of some

(Shell) Drive
Queensland Unlimited (screening on QTQ9 and regionals)
Science World/Science International - were they 2 separate shows?
Thrillseekers
Nine Lives
Aboriginal Australia
Across Australia
Go Health
Stefan (again in QLD as far as I am aware)
Point of View

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They weren’t fillers as such, they were paid advertisements.

Stefan used BTQ7 to film and broadcadt 5 minute adverts per day. QTQ9 had “How to get that job” with Sarina Russo. Both were moved around a bit to fut it with netwirk programming in tge lare 80’s.

Queensland Unlimited was a Sir Joh National Party paid advert seen on every QLD commercial station (including all 3 commercial channels in Brisbane) and aired at approx. 5.55pm on Sunday evenings asa lead in to the news. It lasted until Joh retured in '87. Political propaganda at its best!

i can accept some were “paid” presentations but some were actual fillers. i can see your point on Stefan and Queensland Unlimited and maybe even Shell Drive. But what about Nine Lives etc?

Not really a fill in program as such, but Channel 10 in Melbourne in the 80s used to have Rock Profile which was basically just a pop music video clip that they’d run between shows or even instead of a commercial break. I remember it used to be a very limited playlist because it was always the same songs each time.

National Roving Eye was a five-minute segment screened across most regional stations in the 70s. I don’t recall it that well but I think they were just short films or reports compiled by regional stations for broadcast across the country.

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I know this a few months late, but i wanted to share these screenshots from Studio 10’s history of the Ten logo.

15%20pm

14%20pm

50%20pm

14%20pm

58%20pm

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In said report, most pre-80s logos are Sydney-centric but there is one exception…

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Even in recent years, Nine would air a mini concert that would run for 10-15 minutes with two or three songs, titled “Nine Presents”.

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This one must be very Sydney-centric.

14%20pm

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How do you do?

Did I get that right? :joy::joy::joy:

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They have an arrangement with Sony.

Nine also had ‘Nine At The Movies’ for a few years in the early/mid-2010s.

WIN at one point in the 2000s had ‘Letterman Moment’ which I presume was just a selected segment from The Late Show.

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Also, GEM Presents and GO! Surround Sound.

A interesting note is that there haven’t been any new “Nine Presents” segments produced since cicra 2015…

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Video Hits on Ten…

Cartoon fillers were the best. Nine with Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies and Seven with Tom and Jerry.

I remember when Passions was on Seven at 3pm they had to run Tom and Jerry to fill the time to 4pm as some episodes of Passions only ran for 50 minutes.

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And in 1989, in the first year of aggregation. I recall Prime Canberra and Wollongong ran local news at 5:45, preceded by Wheel Of Fortune at 5:15, and I think they ran cartoons from 5-5:15 as filler?

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Seven used to (or probably still does) use segments from NBC Today to fill in any awkward few minutes after its midday movie.

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Found via WIN’s YT channel from late 2011-early 2012, which is shamefully still up! A watermarked “Who’s Who Of News” promo, with its description stating WIN were going to celebrate their 50th on-air year (at least in Wollongong!). Wouldn’t matter if WIN were planning on doing a version of NBN’s “50 Years” idents…

Every time I’ve seen Nine/GEM presents it’s always been an extended commercial for an album.

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