On This Day

Do you know why? Presumably a hot property (like The Simpsons was at the time), they would have wanted to air it in ‘94?

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Happy 60th birthday Queensland TV

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Wasn’t “Bart the Genius” the episode they started with when Ten premiered the show in 1991?

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Yes.

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Before the internet became mainstream, networks could do what they liked and nobody could do anything about it. Making us wait over a year for a new series was probably a regular occurrence.

Seven was already trying to make The Australian Television Network a name, and Ten’s long term goal for 10 TV Australia was to drop the “10” part… only they ended up doing the opposite and dropped the “TV Australia” part when it became known that someone else already owned the name “TV Australia”.

So gossip columnists really do just make stuff up…

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Seven were trying to use ATN as a network name. I would say this was largely to resemble an American network. Numbering was seen as local station identity at the time.

It would have made sense for the 0/10 network to form a better network brand in the 70s though.

I think with aggregation coming along it was also a way to sort of incorporate the metro and regional networks under a single non-numeric “brand”, as Australian Television Network. But it never really took off.

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Certain businessmen were collecting TV stations around the country that weren’t necessarily part of the same network so adopting a name instead of using channel numbers to identify a network was seen as a way of bringing those different numbered stations under the same umbrella.

There was a precedent for adopting names. Regional stations were doing it before aggregation. Also, the ABC was widely referred to as channel two in the early days and the multicultural broadcaster quickly dropped the 0/28 name as they expanded around the country.

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I still hear my parents say it sometimes.

Newspaper reports were referring to the ABC as “channel two” well into the 1980s. We used to call it 5A in my childhood home.

When Teletex came along and there was a digital element to the TV signal, some of the newer TVs and VCR tuners would put labels on the channels when they were tuned. Seven would scan in as Australian Television Network.

This is from Wikipedia

Seven = Australian Television Network ATN
Nine = National Television Network NTN
Ten = Independent Television System ITS

Not sure if this is correct.

Ten started out as the Independent Television System in 1965 before being renamed The 0-10 Network in 1970.

August 19, 2013 - Seven revamped its afternoon schedule bringing The Daily Edition forward to 2:00pm, then airing UK game show The Chase at 3:00pm and then a revamped Seven Afternoon News at 4:00pm, presented by Matthew White and Melissa Doyle.

This partnership did not last long; about eight months later, White stepped down ahead of his return to Channel Ten, and Melissa Doyle anchored the afternoon news solo until mid-2015 when Ann Sanders took over.

On this day in 1961, Four Corners debuts on ABC

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This day, 1959, date of the first edition of TV News-Times in Melbourne, edited by Desmond Zwar (writer and actor Adam’s father).

In Sydney it had already been in publication for about a year and was formed by the amalgamation of TV News and TV Times magazines.

TV News-Times soon became just TV Times and continued publication until it was consolidated into TV Week in 1980.

tvtimes_210859

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August 22, 1984: Crawfords returns to cop show production with Special Squad airing for the first time on TEN-10 at 9.30pm on this day in 1984. The show had its Australian premiere on ATV-10 two weeks earlier.

Special Squad had achieved huge advance sales before it had even aired with Paramount Pictures buying the first 29 episodes for international distribution. The action series, modelled on popular British series The Professionals and sharing a producer and story consultant with that show, was believed to be the most expensive ever commissioned by an Australian network at that time. Unfortunately it was savaged by the critics for poor scriptwriting and undercooked character development. It premiered to soft numbers in both Melbourne and Sydney and was axed after 43 episodes.

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Ten with the Olympic Rings as official broadcaster of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games

August 23, 1993: Aficionados of the test pattern, a daytime staple on SBS since the channel’s inception, are in for a rude shock when they tune in to find it has been replaced by foreign language news programs from around the world.

WorldWatch kicked off at 7am on this day in 1993. Connoisseurs of the classical music that accompanied the mesmerising test pattern were relieved to discover the music could still be heard over the continuous loop of pictures and weather information broadcast during WeatherWatch from 11am. The hypnotic scrolling CD merchandising information remained as sales of classical music had become a reliable source of revenue for SBS.


Credit: Australian TV Fan.
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According to TV Week, Worldwatch had its launch on 23 August at 7am, but the bulletins kicked off next morning? Maybe TV Week was incorrect in its advance guide.

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