Should’ve kept the name, and eventually rebrand to ITV. All the stations could have IT in the callsign - ITN Sydney, ITV Melbourne, ITQ Brisbane (Mount Isa would’ve gotten a new callsign), ITS Adelaide, ITW Perth.
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Melboune is ITV Channel 0!
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I can’t imagine there are many longer running programs (as in years, not episodes), especially from commercial television
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Yeah, Wikipedia’s list of longest-running Australian television series lists it as the longest commercial TV series by years (fourth overall).
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3 August 1964: First weekday transmission for Melbourne’s new channel, ATV0. Nancy Cato, Alec Finlay and Michael Boddy host the debut of the station’s afternoon program, The Children’s Show. The show becomes a predecessor to The Magic Circle Club, which debuts in 1965 and screens nationally.
3 August 1976: The 0-10 Network presents the 6th annual Australian Popular Song Festival from Dallas Brooks Hall, Melbourne, to decide which song will represent Australia at the World Popular Song Festival in Japan. Includes performances by Denis Walter, Robin Jolley, Dove, Marty Rhone, Debbie Byrne, The Moir Sisters, Matt Flinders and Ronnie Burns.
3 August 1979: One-Day Miller, the comedy spin-off from the Tickled Pink series, debuts on ABC, starring Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Penne Hackforth-Jones, Lucky Grills and Willie Fennell.
3 August 1996: Network Ten premieres animated series The Silver Brumby, including the voices of John Higginson and Rebecca Gibney.
3 August 2003: Network Ten presents For Holly: The Comedy Concert Of 2003, a charity event held in July in memory of Holly Robinson, the daughter of the former ABC executive Ted Robinson and casting director Ann Robinson. Diagnosed with cancer in 2000, it was Holly’s plan to organise a fund raising event for cancer research. She died in April 2003, aged 27. The concert included performances by Wil Anderson, Andrew Denton, Gareth Gates, Richard Fidler, Tim Ferguson, Flacco and Sandman, Tim Freedman, Corinne Grant, Wendy Harmer, Dave Hughes, Marcia Hines, Jean Kittson, Jeannie Lewis, Paul McDermott, Julie McCrossin, Indira Naidoo and The Wiggles.
3 August 2008: After 27 years, the final edition of Nine’s morning current affairs show Sunday.
3 August 2012: The final edition of Network Ten’s mid-morning program The Circle
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YouTube: ObviousParody
Also forgot to mention that 3 August (2002) was the cover date for the first issue of Pacific Magazines’ What’s On Weekly, competing with the first issue of TV Week to be published by ACP (ending the 20+ year joint venture with Pacific Magazines publishing TV Week on behalf of both Pacific and ACP). And which triggered a battle for ownership of the Logie Awards, as both magazines claimed to have it under their masthead.
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and what a success WoW was. 
I quite liked it.
Problem was there was no real point of difference between it and TV Week. Both had much the same stories and coverage of the week’s programs. Any regular TV Week reader really didn’t have any incentive to try WoW, even though it was being published by the same editorial team that had previously led TV Week.
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Pretty much. Not to mention you could get TV listings from the paper, or online…
Yes the TV magazine was a shrinking market. In 2002, TV Week was recording a circulation of around 300,000 compared to 800,000 in the mid-1980s. But must have still been seen to be lucrative enough for ACP to end up paying $60 million to buy out Pacific’s share of TV Week. (Valuing the magazine at $120 million!)
Perhaps but during this era TV Week and the Wednesday guide were my main two sources of TV news.
I still have a copy of that first issue of WoW. On a side note, I’m actually surprised that TV Week is still being published. I’m guessing there’s still a market for it.
Sell it for a motza and/or put it in a muesum.
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According to its brand profile it still gets around 345,000 readers a week of the print edition and claims a digital audience of 1.2 million. Its biggest demographic is supposedly 35-49 year olds followed by 65+. TV Week - Australia's Biggest & Best TV Guide | Are Media
I’ve got about half a dozen copies of WoW. I reckon put them all together they’d barely be worth a few dollars!
Someone out there is dumb enough to buy them off you. Your ship will come in good sir.
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I’m going to have a look at possibly doing that. I also have a rather impressive comic book collection that I’ve been gathering over the past three decades that I’m looking at offloading as well. Being Mechie Jnr’s Dad is expensive lol.
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4 August 1964: ATV0 launches weekly pop music show Go!!, hosted by Alan Field and featuring regular performers April Byron, Ian Turpie and Colin Cook. The show ended up being shown nationally and ran for three years.
4 August 1978: The Opening Ceremony of the XI Commonwealth Games, broadcast live from Edmonton, Canada, on ABC with repeats in the evening.
4 August 2008: The Nine Network premieres children’s game show Lab Rats Challenge. Hosted by Drew Jarvis and Nicole Dixon.
YouTube: ZeeKay Education
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What a show that was!
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