I’ve found a clip from 1978 of Roger Climpson reading news on ATN7, clearly using an autocue (and looks like the were very excited about chroma key in those days!). Conversely, there is a clip of ABN2 news with Ross Symons in 1977 reading from a paper script. Gives you a bit of a window of timing.
Sports simulcasts aren’t nothing new; Seven and Foxtel have simulcasted some Wallabies matches back in the day, if Seven aired a movie in the southern states, then FOX aired the game nationally.
Not sure how Roger would feel about being described as dead.
Good point, he’s still with us! I was actually confusing him with Geoff Hiscock. Two of my news idols.
I didn’t know where else to post this but this thread seems suitable.
Not entirely sure, viewer habits just seemed to change I guess. Same with Melbourne in the early to mid 2000’s when viewers ‘made the switch’ to Seven News with Peter Mitchell, after decades of Brian Naylor and Peter Hitchener.
Not entirely decades. TEN dominated the 80s if I remember correctly. But yeah Nine was still such a strong force.
There was no Friday Night game that weekend. 3 games were played on the Saturday (with 2 games starting at 2:00 and the TV game between North and Richmond starting at 2:08) and 4 games on Sunday with a double header from Brisbane and Adelaide in the last year of the 15 team competition (Fremantle entered the next season). It would be the last year where Friday Night football wasn’t played every week, and this was the 3rd weekend in a row where no FNF game was scheduled (the week before had 2 Queens Birthday games).
For the record the Rugby League game that night was part of the Split Round prior to the Origin decider at Lang Park, with Souths defeating Penrith 26-18. I believe all games that round had TV coverage (Saturday games on the ABC), but Sydney didn’t get either game involving the Queensland teams (Gold Coast vs Manly prior to Origin 3 and Canberra vs Brisbane after were shown in Queensland only, a 1 hour package cutting into Sports Sunday at 5PM prior to the News with the other games, Parra vs Wests Magpies before and Canterbury vs Norths at Concord Oval after, shown in the regular 6:30 slot).
And for Basketball fans, the game on Capital (Tigers vs Sixers) was won by the Tigers 107-99 (Gaze scored 42), but the Sixers got their revenge in the semi final series. It wasn’t a nationally televised game with some markets getting the Townsville vs Newcastle game (Falcons won by 5) and others saw the upset of the season with Hobart beating Perth by a point (the Devils won only twice that season)
People only watched for what Hewy cooked that week.
A QANTAS commercial for the bicentennial year 1988.
I know that Nine and Foxtel simulcast the NRL grand final in the 1998-2000 era, and Seven and FOX simulcasted some Wallabies matches too. But the AFL/NRL deals make more of a regular occurrence. When did this practice start?
This practice started as soon as Pay TV was launched in 1995 with Galaxy. They got the rights to the Australian cricket tour of the West Indies that year, and as anti-siphoning laws at that time did not allow them to screen it exclusively, they had to get a free to air partner. Enter Network Ten. Ten simulcast all matches in that cricket tour, using Galaxy/PSN (Premier Sports Network, now Fox Sports) commentators such as David Hookes, Mike Coward, and Tony Cozier. In 1997 Seven simulcasted the Australian Cricket tour of South Africa, carrying the Foxtel coverage (seen on FOX 8 instead of the usual Fox Sports) with David Hookes as chief commentator. Foxtel were grooming Hookesy as its face of cricket at the time, similar to Richie Benaud on Nine.
Seven and Optus sometimes simulcasted AFL games, like if a game was being shown in SA, but it was the C7 Sport game. C7 also carried games if Seven was busy with the Wallabies test matches.
50 years ago tomorrow (Monday), Our World was beamed from 14 countries to a total of 24. ABC was the Australian broadcaster here with James Dibble anchoring the coverage from Sydney.
YouTube: watvhistory
Didn’t FOX use it’s own team separate from Nine for the NRL grand final in the 1998-2000 era or did Rabs and co call the game for both?
ABC News Victoria from 1992.
1992 - Olympics give it away
Wasn’t it similar to the Channel O set in Brisbane?
Channel 0 Brisbane had a completely different set.
In 1988 there was the Expo set for 6 months.
Prior to Expo this was the set
After Expo the new set was this