18 February 1979: Peter Luck’s This Fabulous Century debuts at 6.30pm on ATN7 with a one hour special. HSV7 screens the first show one week later.
The series uses old newsreel footage to tell the story of the people, places and events that shaped Australia in the twentieth century. The ABC had declined to produce the series because colour television had only recently been introduced and the show relied too heavily on grainy, old black and white film. Seven’s Sunday night pairing of This Fabulous Century and This Is Your Life from 7.30pm would be a ratings triumph and call into question the viability of Nine’s recently launched 60 Minutes.
ATN7’s line up on this day in 1979.
18 February 1984: Finally realising smutty double entendres weren’t really appropriate during children’s viewing time, Nine moves children’s show cum light entertainment/variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday from mornings to an adult 9.30pm time slot.
18 February 1985: Multicultural television Channel 0-28 becomes SBS Television and adopts a new image, new schedule and introduces new programs in preparation for expansion across Australia. The network also begins daytime transmission from 11am to 2pm with evening transmission commencing at 5.30pm.
TEN10 terrifies Sydney viewers with telemovie The Day After the day after it is seen by Melbourne viewers on ATV10. The cautionary tale about the outcome of a nuclear attack on an American city is the second highest rating show of the week in Sydney.
18 February 1987: Nine’s drama hopes for 1987 rest with the creative forces behind the initial success of A Country Practice, Lyn Bayonas and Ted Roberts, and two of its biggest stars. Grant Dodwell and Shane Withington star as rogues Charles Willing and Abel Moore in comedy/drama series Willing and Abel. Shot on film around Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross and Pyrmont, the show would be another in a long line of drama flops for Nine. GTV9 had aired the premiere two days earlier.
Don Lane returns to television in blooper/candid camera series You’ve Got to Be Joking on Ten in the same time slot.
18 February 1991: Who killed Laura Palmer? The biggest question of the new television year is posed when Ten premieres hot new US drama Twin Peaks. For the record, it was her father.
18 February 1998: Little is known about a new show from Working Dog Productions due to premiere at 9.30pm on Network Ten. The Panel, from the team behind Frontline, The Late Show and The Castle, is eagerly anticipated and would not disappoint. With a format that is likened to dinner party conversation about the week’s events, The Panel would become one of Ten’s biggest successes of the late 1990s.
