I remember watching that Crawford special at the time and it has since appeared on YouTube. They made reference to Video Village being a show from the 1950s but it didn’t air until the mid 1960s from what I know.
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The infamous telecast where Bert said something he shouldn’t have.
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I think it was 1962. Based on an American show IIRC.
17 March 1962: New TV Station — CBN8, Orange, New South Wales.
17 March 1974: ABC debuts Marion, a four-part series of self-contained dramas centred around Marion Richards (Helen Morse), a 21-year-old teacher facing her first posting, in a country Victorian town, during World War II. The series also features John Frawley, Kerry Armstrong, Jacqui Gordon, Elspeth Ballantyne, Patsy King, John Clayton, Ian Smith, Maurie Fields, Marty Fields, Sally Conabere, Kerry Dwyer, Gus Mercurio and Tony Bonner.
17 March 1989: Bert Newton hosts the 31st annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Hyatt On Collins. The awards are being broadcast on the Seven Network for the first time, and marks Newton’s return to hosting the awards after five years and to Seven after 30 years.
17 March 1991: ABC debuts Sunday morning children’s program, Couch Potato With Grant Piro.
17 March 1993: ABC debuts the new youth-oriented current affairs program Attitude, hosted by Samantha Butler.
17 March 2003: Seven launches its new panel show The Chat Room, featuring Matt Tilley, Amanda Keller, Peter Berner, Greg Fleet and Tracy Bartram. On the same night, ABC debuts interview series Enough Rope With Andrew Denton.
17 March 2010: ABC2 Live Presents Bliss — a live broadcast of the new Australian opera and adaptation of Peter Carey’s award-winning first novel. Includes backstage coverage with Jennifer Byrne and Chris Taylor.
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Died a death after just 3 episodes.
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One of the many lowlights for Seven that year.
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They tried to jump on The Panel bandwagon.
How many international guest were on there?
18 March 1962: New TV Station — WIN4, Wollongong, New South Wales.
18 March 1974: The Seven Network debuts game show Blind Date, hosted by Bobby Hanna, and teen drama Class Of ’74. The latter is the first drama series to come from producer Reg Grundy.
18 March 1985: The Seven Network debuts its new soapie, Neighbours, in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. (Brisbane follows a week later) The series was axed six months later but soon re-surfaced on rival Network Ten.
18 March 1990: Seven presents the premiere of two-part mini-series All The Rivers Run II, starring John Waters, Nikki Coghill, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Peta Toppano and American actor Parker Stevenson.
18 March 1996: Garry McDonald and Magda Szubanski host 40 Years Of Television, a look back at Australian television through the years — featuring footage of programs from all networks, including The Aunty Jack Show, The Box, The Mavis Bramston Show, Blankety Blanks and Bellbird. Guest presenter Amanda Keller presents a segment dedicated to the sacred sites of Australian TV, including Wentworth Detention Centre (Prisoner), Ramsay Street (Neighbours), Russell Street Police Headquarters (Homicide) and the apartment block that depicted Number 96.
18 March 1999: Seven screens concert special The Main Event, featuring John Farnham, Olivia Newton-John and Anthony Warlow.
18 March 2002: Nine begins nightly coverage of the Australian Swimming Championships from Brisbane’s Chandler Aquatic Centre, hosted by Ken Sutcliffe. The competition forms the selection for the upcoming Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.
18 March 2004: SBS premieres documentary series Storyline Australia. The first episode, The President Vs David Hicks, traces the journey of David Hicks from Australia to Afghanistan and then detention by the US in Guantanamo Bay.
18 March 2006: Network Ten has live coverage of the Grand Final of the AFL pre-season NAB Cup.
18 March 2007: Bill Woods hosts Network Ten‘s coverage of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, live from Albert Park, Melbourne. Commentators include Murray Walker, Jeremy Shaw, Greg Rust and Daryl Beattie.
18 March 2007: ABC premieres the three-part documentary series Constructing Australia. The first episode is focused on the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, on the occasion of its 75th birthday. Subsequent episodes look at the laying of the Overland Telegraph from Adelaide to Darwin and the construction of the Goldfields Pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie.
18 March 2007: Network Ten screens the Australian-UK co-production Joanne Lees: Murder In The Outback, a dramatised account of the outback disappearance of British backpacker Peter Falconio and follows his girlfriend Joanne Lees (played by Joanne Froggatt) as she makes her way to safety, and the court case that followed.
18 March 2010: Maeve O’Meara and Melbourne chef Guy Grossi present the SBS documentary series Italian Food Safari.
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it was always going to be a tough sell to Sydney, given it was based in Melbourne and not helped by ATN7’s one-hour news forcing it to put Neighbours on at 5.30pm up against Perfect Match which was getting huge ratings that any prime time show would have loved to get.
Then network politics got nasty, too, with ATN lobbying the other stations to vote Neighbours out arguing that there was no room for 3 soaps on the network, and A Country Practice and Sons And Daughters (both made at ATN) were more than enough. Even though Sons And Daughters was already past its prime by this stage.
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Quite short sighted to sabotage a new program to protect two old ones. You’d think they would want to improve the network by running more local content. Ifyou had viewers tuning in the early evening. They cpuld use that to promote your prime time shows.
Sons and Daughters had another two years left before it ended.
The decision to axe it proofed to be a bad idea, with Neighbours gaining high ratings on Ten. Soon, Seven decided to have a second attempt with Home and Away in 1988.
It was getting thrashed in Sydney which then was handing in a poor lead in to the 6.00 news, and with little other option for a better timeslot for Neighbours I guess that was the deal breaker. And a bit of Sydney ego to get the others to vote in favour of two Sydney soaps over the Melbourne one probably had something to do with it too.
It dragged on for those last 2 years. It never really recovered from losing Rowena Wallace and even though viewers seemed to buy the plastic surgery storyline that had her character come back with Belinda Giblin, the storylines got more outlandish and so far separated from the original premise of the show. It was well past its peak by the time Neighbours came along.
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LOL the best ‘personalities’ Seven could pull out was Derryn Hinch out of all people 
Clearly Seven didn’t want any of their personalities associated with this. One of the 7 “personalities” is Chris Leben, who was actually Lee Lin Chin’s sidekick and wrote her segments on The Feed.
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19 March 1979: Singer Julie Anthony presents her second TV special, Julie Anthony On The Gold Coast, screening in Melbourne and later in the week in Sydney and Adelaide. The special was filmed in September and October 1978 and features guest appearances by Doctor Down Under stars Geoffrey Davies and Robin Nedwell and singer Glenn Shorrock.
19 March 1990: Comedian Wendy Harmer, host of The Big Gig, branches out to host her own talk show, In Harmer’s Way, featuring live bands and guest artists.
19 March 1992: The Nine Network presents a one-hour special, Sex, hosted by Sophie Lee. The program explores various topics of sexuality and is the precursor to an ongoing series on the Nine Network and later Network Ten.
19 March 1993: Bert Newton hosts the 35th annual TV Week Logie Awards from Melbourne’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.
19 March 1994: The AFL Fosters Cup Grand Final is live on Seven, from Waverley Park, Melbourne.
19 March 2007: SBS debuts six-part series Pizza World Record, a spin-off from sitcom Pizza, featuring Pauly (Paul Fenech) travelling around the world to prove he is the Number One Pizza Deliverer.
19 March 2008: The debut of ABC interview series Speaking Personally, presented by Jenny Brockie. The first episode features politician Cheryl Kernot.
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21 March 1982: Former Melbourne newsreader Jana Wendt makes her debut as 60 Minutes‘ first female reporter.
21 March 1990: ABC screens the controversial telemovie, Police Crop, recreating the events that led to the assassination of Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester.
21 March 1993: Ken Sutcliffe hosts Nine‘s live coverage of the Australian Indy Car Grand Prix from Surfers Paradise, Queensland.
21 March 1998: Seven has live coverage of the AFL Ansett Cup, live from Waverley Park.
21 March 2003: SBS debuts indigenous affairs program Living Black, hosted by Tanya Denning.
21 March 2005: ABC debuts Second Opinion, a series taking a look at complementary medicines. Hosted by Judy Tierney.
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