10 April 1967: ABC premieres its new nightly current affairs program This Day Tonight, hosted by Bill Peach. And GTV9 has highlights of the ninth annual TV Week Logie Awards, the first Logies to be hosted by Bert Newton.
YouTube: ABC News (Australia)
10 April 1972: Number 96 makes its Adelaide debut on SAS10, almost a month after its debut in the eastern states.
10 April 1979: Nine has a delayed telecast of the 51st Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles.
10 April 1981: Michael Parkinson hosts the 23rd annual TV Week Logie Awards from the Centrepoint Convention Centre, Sydney. It is the first time that the awards are televised on Network Ten and the first time the awards are held in Sydney since the mid-1960s. Parkinson’s hosting of the awards also marks the end of Bert Newton‘s 14 consecutive years of hosting the awards. Newton did, however, win the Gold Logie. The ABC, Seven, Nine and Ten networks also break into programming to cross to the US for live coverage of the latest Space Shuttle launch.
10 April 1984: Seven has a delayed telecast of the 56th Academy Awards, hosted by Johnny Carson from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles.
11 April 1993: Seven presents the Easter Sunrise Service from the Sydney Opera House from 7.00am. Tim Webster hosts Ten’s coverage of the James Hardie 12-Hour Race at Mount Panorama — starting at 6.00am for an hour, then with updates at 10am and 11am before five hours of coverage from midday.
11 April 1999: Andrew Denton hosts the 41st annual TV Week Logie Awards from the Crown Palladium, Melbourne, and televised on the Nine Network. Blue Heelers star Lisa McCune won the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television.
11 April 2009: Richard Wilkins hosts Tropfest Finals (Nine), featuring the finalists from the world famous short film festival.
11 April 2010: Underbelly: The Golden Mile, the third series in the Underbelly franchise, debuts on the Nine Network. Cast included Firass Dirani, Emma Booth and Dieter Brummer.
14 April 1970: The 0-10 Network screens a delayed telecast of the 42nd annual Academy Awards, held a week earlier at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. Host is Bob Hope.
14 April 1993: Andrew Denton, Wendy Harmer and Campbell McComas feature in World Series Debating: That TV Is Bad For You (ABC), performed as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. MTV‘s Richard Wilkins hosts the seventh annual Aria Awards (Nine) from the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
14 April 2002: The Seven Network debuts children’s series Short Cuts, written by Marieke Hardy.
14 April 2010: Following the success of the two reunion specials in 2009, Hey Hey It’s Saturday returns for a 20-episode series — airing on Wednesday nights.
14 April 2012: Hamish Blake wins the Gold Logie at the 54th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at the Crown Palladium, Melbourne
15 April 1960: Melbourne’s HSV7 presents its first all-day telethon for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, raising £236,089 5s 7d ($472,178) — beating the previous record set in 1956 by £49,122. However, it would be a decade before the record total would be beaten again ($503,857 in 1970).
15 April 1980: The Seven Network airs a delayed telecast of the 52nd annual Academy Awards, from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. Host is Johnny Carson.
15 April 1984: ABC screens the Countdown Awards For Australian Music In 1983, live from the Palais Theatre, Melbourne. Performers include Billy Idol, The Models, Kids In The Kitchen, Pseudo Echo and Dragon.
15 April 1991: The Seven Network presents a two-hour telecast of the John Farnham Chain Reaction Concert, taken from his recent Australian tour.
15 April 1992: ABC presents Australia’s first Aboriginal musical, Bran Nue Dae, telling the story of an Aboriginal boy’s flight from Perth to his homeland at Djaridin.
15 April 2003: Rove Live presents its 100th episode, featuring guest appearances by Adam Sandler, Kasey Chambers and Emmanuel Carella.
15/4/2018 The Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast is heavily criticised by co-commentators Johanna Griggs and Basil Zempilas, marking a sour end to what was otherwise a successful event.
Griggs is still on the network and Zempilas is now WA Liberal Party leader. Still remember that night
15 April 2012 Nine debuted a new on-air package and the second version of the “Welcome Home” era presentation dropping the blue/white look for a more colourful package with flying ribbons. This was when I knew Channel 9 was slowly coming back after a tough few years.
IIRC, The Voice Australia premiered that week and it led Nine to win its first official ratings week since September 2010.
While 2011 may have been a tough year for Nine, it did have the most-watched show that year (The Block finale) and its Sydney news returned to being number one in that market for the first time since 2004.
I did the same on a holiday to Margaret River in June that year. Ch 5 put out a better signal than Ch 3 (higher powered I think was the reason). The fun part was listening to the Ch 5 video carrier on 102.25MHz. It just sounded like a carrier signal (dead air).
The antenna arrangement on Mt Lennard was quite a technical feat too, after 1993-ish. One RFS Band II array with Horizontal dipoles broadcasting TV, and the Vertical dipoles broadcasting high-power FM radio on frequencies between Channel 3 and 5.
17 April 1976: Cover date for final edition of Listener In-TV, after more than 50 years in publication. From the following week it becomes Scene (later TV Scene)
17 April 1987: Music video show Rage debuts on ABC.
17 April 1991: ABC presents Frank Sinatra The Final Concert, recorded at the National Tennis Centre, Melbourne. The concert also features Eydie Gorme, Steve Lawrence and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Seven presents the two-hour Melbourne International Comedy Festival Charity Gala from Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, featuring Wendy Harmer, Richard Stubbs, Steve Vizard, Garry McDonald, Barry Humphries, Mark Mitchell, Ian McFadyen, Maryanne Fahey and Kim Gyngell with cast members of Fast Forward, the D Generation and Acropolis Now. The comedy event is a fund-raiser for the Salvation Army.
17 April 1994: Ray Martin hosts the 36th annual TV Week Logie Awards from the World Congress Centre in Melbourne. It is the first time the awards are presented on a Sunday night, and the first awards hosted by Martin.
17 April 2011: ABC debuts two-part mini-series Paper Giants: The Story Of Cleo, starring Asher Keddie as Ita Buttrose and Rob Carlton as Kerry Packer.
Not sure it was the first (I think Rich Man Poor Man came before it, plus Nine had Luke’s Kingdom as a co-production with the UK in 1976) but it was probably the first to be a major hit, it got ratings into the 50s for 0-10
These American series may have popularised the term mini-series but there were others before these. The term dates back to 1963. The four-part The Blue Knight is credited as being the first American scripted series broadcast in November 1973.
In Britain, limited series date back to 1953 with the six-part The Quatermass Experiment.
oh definitely there were lots of examples of short run or limited run series which would probably have fit the term mini-series before the Americanisation or the super sizing of short run series into mega million dollar epics. ABC in particular made lots of them in the early 60s.
Even Seven produced the TV adaptation of You Can’t See Round Corners in 1967 which was 26 half-hour episodes and would probably have been considered a mini-series though not by the modern definition of the term.
18 April 1955: The licences to operate Australia’s first commercial TV stations are issued to Herald and Weekly Times (Melbourne), General Television Corporation (Melbourne), Amalgamated Television Services (Sydney) and Television Corporation (Sydney).
18 April 1959: The Victorian Football League (VFL) launches its 1959 season and, as per the previous two seasons, Melbourne’s three TV channels are permitted to televise the final quarter of play of selected matches.
YouTube: IfoundthesesVHStapesburiedinmybackyard
18 April 1984: ABC debuts teen drama Six Of The Best, starring Andrew McKaige, Nick Holland and Gina Riley.
18 April 1986: Mike Willesee hosts the 28th annual TV Week Logie Awards from the State Theatre, Sydney.
18 April 1990: The Seven Network debuts police drama Skirts, starring Tracy Mann, Nicholas Bell, Mary Coustas, Kate Gillick, Antoinette Byron, Karen Davitt and Gary Sweet.
18 April 1999: The Nine Network debuts Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, hosted by Eddie McGuire. The first series had a limited run of eleven episodes.
18 April 2004: Eddie McGuire hosts the 46th annual TV Week Logie Awards from the Crown Palladium, Melbourne.
18 April 2007: The Seven Network debuts Last Chance Learners, hosted by Mike Whitney.
