8 August 1959: GTV9, Melbourne, screens the play They Were Big, They Were Blue, They Were Beautiful, part of the Shell Presents series. The play was originally performed live-to-air at ATN7, Sydney, in June and videotaped for broadcast in Melbourne.
8 August 1964: The end of ATV0’s first full week of transmission ends with the debut of Goal To Goal, presenting highlights and discussion of the day’s VFL matches, and The Ray Taylor Show, a late night variety show with a mix of satire and commentary.
8 August 1978: The series may have been axed a year beforehand, but the movie version of the former hit series Number 96 is given a re-run on ATV0.
8 August 1985: The final episode of The Mike Walsh Show, ending a 12-year run.
8 August 1990: Michele Fawdon stars in an ABC docu-drama, This Time Next Time, as a crusading journalist assigned to write a feature article on the dangers of alcohol-related brain damage.
8 August 2001: ABC debuts the six-part documentary series Long Way To The Top, covering the history of Australian rock music from the 1950s to the present day.
8 August 2008: The Opening Ceremony of The Games Of The XXIX Olympiad are telecast live from Beijing on the Seven Network. Daily coverage from the Games was primarily on Seven with some events covered by SBS.
10 August 1960: ABV2, Melbourne, screens the play The Square Ring, the story of the conflicting emotions of six boxers preparing for their evening fights. The play was originally performed and broadcast by ABN2 in Sydney in April.
10 August 1991: Ten debuts a new children’s series, Kelly, about a smarter than average police dog, starring Gil Tucker and Alexander Kemp.
10 August 2003: William McInnes, Angie Milliken and Tim Draxl star in the premiere of ABC‘s The Shark Net, a three-part series taken from Robert Drewe‘s memoir about his early life growing up during the reign of one of Australia’s most notorious serial killers.
10 August 2004: Seven begins its coverage of The Games Of The XXVIII Olympiad from Athens, Greece, in partnership with SBS.
11 August 1977: The 1218th and final episode of Number 96 airs on TEN10, Sydney. The episode signs off with a curtain call of cast members that have featured through the series. Due to Melbourne’s ATV0 only airing episodes at a rate of one per week, ATV0 did not get to the final episode until December.
11 August 1991: Nine‘s 60 Minutes celebrates its 500th edition.
11 August 1993: The mini-series adaptation of Ben Elton‘s book Stark makes its debut on ABC.
11 August 1996: Melbourne’s GTV9 screens the special Has The Weather Gone Mad?, hosted by Rob Gell and Tracey Dale, providing an insight into Melbourne’s unpredictable weather and what the future has in store for Victoria.
12 August 1972: The debut of Nine Network quiz show Split Second, hosted by Ken James (Skippy The Bush Kangaroo, The Group).
12 August 1979: Marcia Hines and Daryl Braithwaite host the Australian Popular Song Festival on the 0-10 Network, including performances by Delilah, Ray Burgess, Tony Pantano, Mary Jane Boyd and Russell Hitchcock.
12 August 1984: Brisbane QTQ9‘s five-hour special, Channel Nine Celebrates 25 Years Of Television, features past and present personalities including Hugh Cornish, Babette Stephens, Don Seccombe, Jacki MacDonald, Ron Cadee, Jim Iliffe and Brian Cahill. Nine followed up the special with a further one hour on the actual date of the station’s 25th anniversary — 16 August 1984.
12 August 1990: Melbourne station ATV10’s daytime line-up features regular crosses throughout the day to the annual Deafness Appeal Telethon, hosted by TTFM breakfast presenters Geoff Cox and Gavin Wood.
12 August 1992: HSV7 newsreader Jennifer Keyte hosts a two-hour special Melbourne — The Living City, commemorating Melbourne’s 150th anniversary.
12 August 1995: Gladiators (Seven) begins a three-week battle featuring the Australian Gladiators versus their United Kingdom counterparts, hosted by UK Gladiators host John Fashanu and Australian co-host Kimberley Joseph.
12 August 1996: The special Forty Years Of Sport (Seven) takes a look at some of the greatest, funniest and memorable moments in 40 years of sport on Australian television.
13 August 1971: Television finally comes to the Northern Territory as ABC officially opens ABD6 in Darwin.
13 August 1976: The sex-comedy series Alvin Purple, based on the earlier successful film of the same name, was due to commence its 13-episode run. It was front page news when, one day before going to air, Alvin Purple was bumped off the schedule — with ABC management and its new chairman Sir Henry Bland accused of “censorship” of the controversial series. The program didn’t appear as scheduled, with ABC management suggesting some edits but the show’s producer Maurice Murphy did not make any. Alvin Purple managed to make a belated debut the following week.
13 August 1978: The last day of competition and the Closing Ceremony of the XI Commonwealth Games, held in Edmonton, Canada. ABC‘s live coverage is at 6am with a repeat of highlights at 10.50pm. ABC also had a last minute change to its schedule following the death of Pope Paul VI. The funeral for the pope was broadcast live from Rome at 1.50am with a repeat at 8.30pm.
13 August 1984: The final day of competition from The Games Of The XXIII Olympiad from Los Angeles, USA, before coverage of the Men’s Marathon and Closing Ceremony.
13 August 1995: The Australia Remembers Gala Tribute features John Farnham, James Morrison, James Blundell, Margaret Urlich, Don Burrows, Grace Knight and Rick Price to commemorate the upcoming 50th anniversary of VP Day.
13 August 2002: Alison Whyte (Frontline) and Lisa McCune (Blue Heelers) star as sisters and lawyers in the new Seven Network series Marshall Law.
13 August 2006: The premiere of the celebrity pop culture game show You May Be Right, hosted by Dancing With The Stars judge Todd McKenney. The show was seen as a thinly-veiled take-off of ABC‘s Spicks And Specks, and was only to have a short life.
15 August 1971: The Seven Network sitcom The Group makes its debut in Melbourne. The series, starring Ken James, Greg Ross, Gregory de Polnay, Terry O’Neill and Roslyn Wilson, was based around a group of flatmates — three men and a woman — and their landlord. The Group made its debut in Sydney on 18 August 1971. It was not renewed for a second series.
15 August 1976: The sitcom The Bluestone Boys makes its debut on ATV0, Melbourne. The series, set in a fictional prison, featured Bert Newton making a guest appearance in the first episode as a TV reporter. Sydney’s TEN10 debuted the series on 27 August 1976.
15 August 1992: Seven debuts 13-part drama series Bony, the spin-off from the 1990 telemovie of the same name, starring Cameron Daddo as part-Aboriginal detective David John Bonaparte, the grandson of the central character from the 1971 original series, Boney.
15 August 1995: Various special telecasts to commemorate Australia Remembers — the 50th anniversary of VP Day. Including the Australia Remembers Parade, live from Brisbane, the Prime Minister’s Address To The Nation, and a special edition of The 7.30 Report. This is followed by the Flame Of Freedom Celebrations, live from Brisbane, and the documentary Faces Of War: The Battle Comes Home.
15 August 2010: The series premiere of Offspring, starring Asher Keddie as Nina Proudman, the obstetrician juggling a successful professional life with a somewhat erratic family and romantic life.
@TelevisionAUBony, a 13-part drama series and spinoff from the 1990 TV movie of the same name, debuted in NZ on TV3 (now Three) as a ‘world television premiere’ on Wednesday 26 February 1992 - about six months before its Australian debut on the Seven Network.
16 August 1959: Brisbane becomes the first Australian city outside of Sydney and Melbourne to get television, with QTQ9 commencing transmission.
16 August 1968: BKN7 is officially opened in Broken Hill. The local channel joins ABC, which began transmission in the remote mining town in 1965. BKN was originally due to open on 9 August, but had to be postponed at the last minute due to technical difficulties.
16 August 1984: Brisbane’s QTQ9 presents the second part of its 25th anniversary celebration with a one-hour special Twenty Five Years Of Nine. The special followed the five-hour broadcast the previous Sunday.
16 August 2006: The Seven Network launches the game show The Master, hosted by Mark Beretta. Contestants had the potential to win a $1 million prize. Poor ratings saw the show taken off air after its debut episode, with the remaining episodes aired over the summer non-ratings season.
I didn’t realise the show had its debut in NZ. No idea how that came about.
There was some chat at the time that Seven execs were not confident about the show so couldn’t find a timeslot where they were sure it would work and not damage ratings. They ended up running it on a Saturday night at 7.30pm in the second half of the year. By that time, Saturday nights were already the weakest night of the week for ratings and it didn’t find a very big audience. It was dropped from the schedule for a few weeks and then finished in summer non-ratings.
That was always a graveyard timeslot for Seven, up against the 2nd half of Hey Hey It’s Saturday. I think Seven eventually struck gold with celebrity editions of Wheel Of Fortune and Family Feud in that slot but until then they struggled to get anything to work in that slot.
17 August 1959: All three Sydney channels present coverage of Princess Alexandra’s visit to Canberra in what is still considered to be a rare technical feat, requiring weeks of planning by technical staff, particularly as there was at the time no TV services operating in Canberra itself. Sydney’s ABN2 was the host broadcaster, with its coverage being made available to ATN7 and TCN9, though the commercial channels also provided their own commentaries of the royal visit. Film of ABN2’s coverage of the day’s events was sent to Melbourne for transmission on ABV2 later in the week.
19 August 1961: ABC’s acclaimed weekly current affairs program Four Corners premieres
19 August 1994: Tim Webster and Anne Fulwood host live coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games from Victoria, Canada, from 9.00am AEST on Ten. Highlights of the opening ceremony and previews of the upcoming sports and commentators are broadcast from 7.30pm.
19 August 2007: After three series and a telemovie on ABC, the comedy series Kath And Kim makes its debut on the Seven Network.
19 August 2012: The debut of Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, which dramatises the media tycoon’s 1970s battle with the cricket establishment in setting up World Series Cricket for his Nine Network.
20 August 1974: The historical drama series Rush, set during the 1850s gold rush, makes its debut on ABV2, Melbourne. (Almost 20 years later, scenes from Rush were comically dubbed by The Late Show to form a series of sketches called The Olden Days)
