Not sure if this is appropriate to post here, but on August 23, 2009, on the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Ken Basin became the first contestant in that country to answer the final question incorrectly.
Because of this, of the $500,000 he held, he dropped $475,000 and won only $25,000 (as opposed to the $32,000 second safety net which he would’ve kept on the Aussie version. In 2004, the second safety net on the US version was reduced from $32K to $25K).
August 24, 1992: A news bingo war has erupted along the east coast with Nine launching “Australia’s biggest ever television instant win giveaway competition” in response to the successful “Olympic Challenge” competition Seven had conducted in Sydney in the lead up to the Barcelona Olympics.
Roger Climpson had managed to do the unthinkable and outrate Brian Henderson on a couple of nights during their Barcelona bingo promotion. Seven’s news ratings only strengthened throughout the Olympics. Kerry Packer was determined to claw back viewers at any cost following the Games even if it meant Hendo had to eat a huge slice of humble pie. Henderson had earlier ridiculed Climpson and the promotion in his radio appearances with John Laws on 2UE claiming: “they’re really sort of paying people to watch… they’re no longer a straight news service. They’re a scratch lottery news”.
A massive letterbox drop of “Big News Game” scratch cards took place in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in preparation for the four week promotion on Nine. Seven retaliated by conducting a similar competition in Melbourne and Brisbane from August 31.
I know I missed it a few weeks ago.
18th August 1997 marked ACA’s worst story. Reporter Jane Hansen reported on Benny Mendoza alleged shonky business dealings. After promoting the mans alleged guilt endlessly over the weekend. Mr Mendoza later commited suicide.
Watch Media Watch’s grilling of this story in 1997
Just watching that reminds me of Kim Gyngell’s send-up of Stuart on Full Frontal.
**3 September 1992 **
Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos hosted by Doug Mulray was axed just 30 mins into the show by Kerry Packer.
After a commercial break, Nine placed an ident and message saying
We apologise for this interruption. Unfortunately, a technical problem prevents us continuing our scheduled programme for the moment. In the meantime, we bring you a brief, alternative programme.
A rerun of Cheers aired in its remaining airtime. Bert Newton hosted the original, unedited version in August 2008. This version can still be watched on YouTube without commercials.
The moment when it was pulled off air
Kerry’s infamous comment “Get that f**king shit off the air!”
In Melbourne, the show continued up to the last ad break. Then at the end of the ad break there was no announcement, just the Nine ID and then straight into the next show. I think it might have been Cheers. It wasn’t until the next day that we learned what happened to cause the show to be dropped unannounced.
Apparently regional affiliates like VIC TV carried the show in full. While Packer could call the shots at Nine it was less so when it came to the feed that went out to the regionals.
Brisbane was cut on the add break half way through at 9pm. And the end of the add break, Cheers started. I remember thinking, I can’t recall the last show finishing?
5 September:
1975: Episode 839, the famous “bomb blast” at Number 96. Four characters killed off in a bid to refresh the show with new characters
This seems to have been the extend of Nine Adelaide’s “celebrations”.
https://twitter.com/9NewsAdel/status/1167373617916628992
Given Nine’s huge history of local production in Adelaide for much of its 60 years you’d think they’d have given the occasion more recognition, but it does seem on par with the total lack of interest shown by Nine in other cities for their respective 60th anniversaries.
It will be interesting to see if Ten Adelaide does anything for its 60th next month, given that for its first 28 years it was Channel 7.
All these lacklustre efforts at celebrating the 60th birthday of television are really making me wonder what Nine is going to do for the move from Willoughby to North Sydney next year.
It’d be extremely disappointing if all we got for the end of TCN Willoughby was a few special reports on the news. The end of GTV Studio 9 was marked with a nationally broadcast special, so surely the closure of the last original TV studios in Sydney (which themselves hold a significant place in Australian television history, both locally and nationally) is also something that deserves to be celebrated with viewers?
7 September:
And a special logo to commemorate its 25th anniversary in 1988. No idea if this was ever used on-air but it was on station letterhead.
1964: AMV4 Albury is officially opened
In the early seventies, RTQ-7 would use the same logo as the Seven Network.
Interesting. Where have you seen that?
From this 21st anniversary montage courtesy of theboysOZ. Pause at 0:47.
I’m guessing that might just be vision of an incoming feed from BTQ7. I’m pretty sure RTQ has never used the national 7 branding on air as their own.
It was actually on 4 September 1992, and it ran for 36/60 minutes.
Several viewers in Adelaide watched it for 6 minutes (due to a 30-minute time difference). The show was not aired into Perth due to time difference. Instead, STW9 decided to air a rerun of Cheers.
Mr Packer was very angry about this show and demanded this show to be taken off the air. He was extremely furious about this show, and fired several people at the Nine Network, including host, Doug Mulray.
Not being owned and operated at the time, I’d have thought a similar occurance to VIC TV may have occurred?
Did Mulray actually work for Nine at the time? I thought it was a one off thing. Happy to be corrected if he had another gig at Nine.
