16 April 1987: The Nine Network launches MTV Music Television, hosted by Richard Wilkins and Joy Smithers. Initially screening late on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Its debut comes a day before ABC launches Rage, screening overnight on Friday and Saturday nights. The two shows were competing with Ten’s Night Shift, which began in March, screening seven nights a week overnight in Sydney and Melbourne.
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On this day 60 years ago 16 April 1962 Walter Cronkite first anchored the CBS Evening News.
On this day 9 years ago 16 April 2013, Analog TV switched off for the final time in Western Australia
17 April 1977: The major US mini-series Roots debuts on Ten, Sydney. It follows in Melbourne a month later. It achieves a rating of 54 in Melbourne and 51 in Sydney.
18 April 1955: The licences to operate Australia’s first commercial TV stations are awarded to: Amalgamated Television Services (ATN7) and Television Corporation (TCN9) in Sydney; Herald and Weekly Times (HSV7) and General Television Corporation (GTV9) in Melbourne
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21/4/2003 The British episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in which Charles Ingram cheats his way to £1M is shown in full in the UK for the first time. In Australia, it aired on Channel Nine at 8:30pm in place of a regular episode.
21/4/2004 A live episode of Blue Heelers, titled “Reasonable Doubt”, goes to air on Seven. Although it peaked at over a million viewers nationwide, the overall season struggled in the ratings.
22 April 1983: The 25th Anniversary TV Week Logie Awards are held at the Regent Hotel, Melbourne. Hosted by Mike Willesee and broadcast on the Ten Network. Daryl Somers wins the Gold Logie.
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23 April 2001: Big Brother Australia debuts on Ten, with 14 strangers living in a specially built house at the grounds of Dreamworld outside Gold Coast, cut off from the outside world for up to 85 days. Ben Williams wins the first season title with Blair McDonough coming second.
Plenty of stuff on that show that you would never get away with now. Especially Blair groping Sara-Maree’s breasts on camera. To be fair, he shouldnt have gotten away with it back then.
The housemates entered the house on the 23rd, but it debuted on Ten on the 24th as the daily shows aired as a recap of the previous day.
Was that on a daily show or uncut?
24/4/2002 The third season of The Mole concludes with Crystal-Rose winning $108,000 after unmasking Alaina as the Mole. Marc finished as the runner-up.
24 April 1971: Young Talent Time makes its debut on ATV0 in Melbourne. The low-budget children’s variety series had the unenviable task of taking on a timeslot that Channel 0 had struggled to gain an audience up against Saturday night VFL replays on the other channels. The show was an instant hit and went on to run for 18 years.
24 April 1983: The Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast in Australia for the first time. SBS 0/28 aired a delayed telecast on the Sunday evening.
24 April 2001: The launch episode of Big Brother Australia on Network Ten. Ten took the unusual strategy of stripping it five nights a week at 7.00pm but it paid off and triggered a wave of reality show formats that continues to dominate prime time TV today.
I think it was on the uncut version. They wouldnt have shown it on the daily episode. I do seem to recall that they did webstreams for it back then. Of course it was extremely poor quality compared to todays standards
Yes, Ten’s series had 24/7 live streams with I think 15 minutes free which would cut get cut off if anything non-PG would start happening. You’d have to pay to get unlimited stream and also get access to more Uncut like material.
Not only was the Big Brother live streaming offering ahead of its time but (strangely) provided a more comprehensive viewing experience than pretty much anything that has come since.
25 April 1988: Graham Kennedy returns to TV with a new late night show, Graham Kennedy’s News Show, co-hosting with Ken Sutcliffe. It managed to knock Ten’s Late Night Australia (with Don Lane) off air within a couple of months and slugged it out with Newsworld on Seven for two years.
Coast to Coast would continue after Graham left but it was no match for Tonight Live with Steve Vizard.
27 April 1962: The official opening of BTV6 in Ballarat marks the completion of the first stage of the rollout of commercial television to regional Victoria. Still to come is the commencement of the ABC rollout ahead of the next stage to incorporate Albury/Wodonga and Mildura.
Source: TV Week
