On this day in 1975, Graham Kennedy’s infamous Crow call went to air. For those who aren’t familiar with the story, Kennedy was trying to distract Rosemary Margan during a live commercial by making bird noises. The Crow call sounded very similar to the “f-word”.
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…and he was still getting mileage out of that incident 14 years later on Coast to Coast when he presented a “late item” about Noah asking the lord if he should build an aaaaaark. The punchline was Noah didn’t do live television again for a very long time after that.
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3 March 1972: ATN7 telecasts Melbourne’s Moomba Showboat Review “live” from 8pm. At 9.30pm the station broadcasts the opening concert for the Adelaide Festival of Arts featuring Barry Crocker, Frankie Vaughan, Diana Trask and Ronnie Burns.
3 March 1974: ATN7 presents a one hour special Elton John, The Man and His Music. The doco follows Elton on tour and at home and details his method of writing songs with Bernie Taupin.
3 March 1978: TCN9 goes behind the scenes of the biggest movie of 1977 when special The Making of Star Wars airs at 7.30pm.
The 1978 Logie Awards presentation “live” from Melbourne’s Southern Cross Hotel follows at 8.30pm. Bert Newton was MC and special guest Sammy Davis, Jr. presented the Gold Logie to Graham Kennedy.
3 March 1980: ATN7’s late night news service undergoes a revamp. Newsnight replaces The Latest. John Bok presents a slightly more relaxed round up of the day’s news. Concerns are raised when Seven doesn’t give the newscast a consistent starting time. Eyebrows are raised when respected news and weather presenter Mike Bailey starts presenting film reviews during the show.
3 March 1995: Australia’s first subscription television provider Galaxy launches a premium movie channel, Showtime, and a movie favourites channel, Encore, five weeks after the service starts. Showtime kicks off with a slate of 31 movies that includes Cliffhanger, A Few Good Men, Scent of a Woman, Indecent Proposal and Far and Away.
3 March 1996: Sunday Football premieres on ATN7 with David Fordham as host. Fordham, already the host of Sportsworld, is also confirmed as Johanna Sweet’s replacement as sport presenter on ATN7’s weekend news following Sweet’s boning during maternity leave.
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So there was a late night bulletin on Seven 40 years ago with the same name.
Johanna Sweet (now known as Johanna Griggs) will then become co-host of Sportsworld in 2001.
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The Age/SMH has republished its article of the matter from 1975
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4 March 2019: On this day last year, Mediaspy went into a frenzy over a new set for Sydney’s 10 News First.
It certainly did not disappoint, and was regarded as one of the best sets ever seen in Australia, with an impressive 9 meter video wall, soft set for use on Studio 10, and a versatile desk which has been used for 10 News First, RPM and Studio 10.
The set only took a week to build.
Studio 10 unveiled the set the following day.
Articles including caps of the set:
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By who? By you?
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Hmm… reminds me a bit of The Latest…
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4 March 1985: ABC launches The National as a one-hour news and current affairs hour, breaking the long tradition of news at 7 by starting at 6.30. NSW, VIC, ACT, Tasmania and NT had a single edition hosted by Richard Morecroft and Geraldine Doogue, with 10-minute windows for local news. Each other state had their own edition and presenters but relied largely on “national” content derived from Sydney
The National came after the axe fell on state-based ABC News, Nationwide, Weekend Magazine and the 6.55 regional news.
It wasn’t all that successful and ABC went back to state-based news and current affairs with ABC News reinstated at 7 and The 7.30 Report in 1986.
Also on the same day (night), News Overnight begins on HSV7 with Today from NBC and various news programs from NBC and CNN filling in the hours between midnight and 7am. I believe News Overnight started in Sydney a few months earlier? Maybe HSV needed some convincing to go ahead with it.
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Have never been able to work out: what on earth was Weekend Magazine?
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I think just stories of human interest stories or lightweight current affairs that used to fill out the end of the Sunday bulletin, at a time when nothing newsworthy really happened on Sundays.
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So odd to put it in as a separate program.
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AFAIK, Weekend Magazine was often just listed as guides as part of ABC News. e.g. “ABC News. Includes Weekend Magazine”.
ABC News used to run from 7.00 to 7.40 on Sundays, but Weekend Magazine would take up the last 25 minutes. It used to be repeated as a separate program on Monday afternoons.
It was a bit of a custom to have Sunday night news bulletins include “magazine” segments on what is usually a slow news day. Seven National News in Melbourne used to have Camera 7 in its Sunday bulletin, Nine had Sunday Magazine, and ATV0 had something else again but I can’t remember what theirs was called.
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Thanks, some of the ABC’s old programs and TV decisions seem particularly antiquated.
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The end of this video has the theme music to Weekend Magazine - it was the opening of the last ever episode from 3 March 1985.
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4 March 1985: Kennedy Miller mini series The Cowra Breakout premieres on Ten. The World War II story of the breakout from the NSW prisoner of war camp requires a major commitment from viewers as the ten hour series screens over four consecutive nights starting with a three hour episode.
4 March 1991: A Sydney Morning Herald report speculates on possible hosts for Sale of the Century following the shock announcement of Tony Barber’s departure from the show the previous week. Bert Newton, Richard Wilkins, Larry Emdur, Mark “Con the Fruiterer” Mitchell, University Challenge’s Magnus Clarke and Dennis Walter are all said to be under consideration for the role.
4 March 1993: The Extraordinary starts on the Seven Network. Warwick Moss presents “true life” stories of the paranormal. The show is sold to the US market and would be picked up by Nine after a three year run on Seven.
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Started 28 January 1985 in Sydney. Replays of the previous evening’s Newsworld and current affairs shows (Day By Day in Melbourne) also aired as part of News Overnight from 4am. I was trying to find out if Larry Emdur was still introducing and providing news updates during the six hour package of news by the time HSV7 had started airing it.
The ABC switchboard melted down in Sydney following the first edition with more than 200 calls received, the vast majority complaints, regarding the changes. They abandoned the format eight months later in response to viewer feedback although The National name still existed until 1986. Viewers didn’t like the lack of distinction between news and current affairs. Apparently the news theme was also an issue. A more conventional 30 minute state based news bulletin was reinstated on 14 August. Morecroft reading the Sydney bulletin solo and Ralphe Neill reading in Melbourne from 6.30pm before crossing to Geraldine Doogue in Sydney at 7pm for the current affairs portion.
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I think The National was well ahead of its time. It can work on ABC News channel.
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4th March 1962 - NBN3 Newcastle (the first regional NSW tv station) launches.
4th March 2020 - Nine Newcastle (NBN) turns 58.
that’s actually the first time I’ve heard of that. Very interesting, yet bizarre move. The ABC must have been very embarrassed by the slight backtrack it as it doesn’t even rate a mention in its Annual Report of 1985-86. The Annual Report, I suppose more optimistically, goes into more detail about reinstating the traditional 7.00 news and 7.30 current affairs model that replaced it.
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