29 April 1985: The Flying Doctors, a three-part mini-series from Crawford Productions, debuts on Channel Nine. It is based on the Royal Flying Doctors Service and set in the fictional outback town of Cooper’s Crossing, and stars Andrew McFarlane. Its ratings success leads to Nine commissioning Crawford to make a weekly drama series. There will eventually be nine seasons broadcast over six years, from 1986 to 1991.
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29 April 1963: ABC launches its first country station, ABEV1 Bendigo. It comes after the launch of ABC3 Canberra in December and is part of a rollout of ABC television to 33 sites across Australia.
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Come 1993, with ratings on the decline, the show would change setting to Broken Hill and was renamed R.F.D.S. The only original cast members remaining were Maurie Fields and Val Jellay. This incarnation would only last one season.
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I don’t think it even lasted that long. It was axed after about 7 episodes AFAIK.
I think Sophie Lee was another cast member to follow to RFDS
30 April 2014 it is announced on Sunrise and Today that legendary newsreader Ian Ross had sadly lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 73.
Seven News Sydney leads its evening news bulletin with the news of his death as well as a tribute from both Mark Ferguson and Chris Bath. Of course, Ross read the bulletin between 2004-09 and took it past Nine News in the local ratings for the first time.
Nine News Sydney has the story as the last story before the first weather check of the bulletin.
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30 April 1988: Network Ten broadcasts the opening ceremony and the first day’s activities from World Expo 88 in Brisbane. Host broadcaster TV0 had also set up its newsroom on the Expo site, allowing visitors the chance to see the news get produced.
30 April 1994: Aggregation launches in Tasmania, with Hobart-based TAS TV expanding into northern Tasmania, and Launceston-based Southern Cross Network expanding south. TAS TV was aligned to the Nine Network, and Southern Cross to Seven/Ten. Aggregation also coincided with SBS expanding into northern Tasmania, and Launceston’s ABC channel ABNT3 commencing broadcast on UHF.
Source: The Mercury
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I remember seeing a video of TV0 working at Expo 88, somewhere in this forum late last year or early this year.
Slightly off topic, did aggregation ever occur in regional SA?
No. The additional commercial channels were awarded as supplementary licences to its incumbent stations.
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I like the stylised drawing of Mount Wellington on the front of the Southern Cross flyer.
Although I’m surprised they didn’t mention the NBL in the sport section, considering that Hobart had a team in the league around this time (the Devils) and Ten had the NBL rights at this time, thus giving them access.
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05 May 1969: Nine’s Today goes “national” when the Sydney and Melbourne versions of the show join forces thanks to the coaxial cable link between the cities. Tony Charlton hosts in Melbourne and also EPs the show. He is joined by newsreader Craig Campbell, reporters John Hart and Bobo Faulkner with Rosemary Margan presenting weather. Diana Ward hosts from Sydney with Brian Bury reading the news. Breakfast television is struggling to attract advertisers and continues to be a loss maker for Nine and Seven.
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Was that the same Craig Campbell that ended up on BTV6, a brief stint at Channel 10 in 1992 and WIN Queensland?
I believe so, this is him on the left
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The first Breakfast Tv in Australia
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technically, the first was Today, hosted by Ray Taylor on ATN7 in Sydney, starting in October 1958.
But I believe the linking of Sydney and Melbourne for Nine’s Today in 1969 as above was the first network (i.e. Sydney-Melbourne) breakfast show. Seven had launched Sydney Today in January 1969 but it did not extend to Melbourne until 1971 (and shortened its name to Today), after Nine’s Sydney-Melbourne Today had well and truly gone and was replaced by cartoons (The Super Flying Fun Show).
Adelaide’s SAS10 had its own local Today show for a number of years in the 1960s.
I don’t think Brisbane had any news-based breakfast programming until it started taking Good Morning Australia from 1981. And Perth was a few years after that before STW9 started taking Today in the mid-1980s, and TVW7 picked up Good Morning Australia from around 1986-87.
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The Today brand has lasted in Australia since 2 years after TV first arrived.
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Except for all the years it didn’t last. 
6 May 1991: Highly regarded newsreader Eric Walters is abruptly sacked from his role at TEN10 but is retained as a consultant to the news division as he had two years remaining on his contract. Walters isn’t confident the phone will ring.
Eric Walters had joined Ten a year earlier after a long stint as newsreader on Nine’s Today. He had pioneered Ten’s second edition Eyewitness News late bulletin during the Gulf War and it had become successful under his stewardship. Media reports at the time suggested he was unhappy with the direction of the 6pm news and butted heads with Ten’s news director because he had far less say in the production of the poorly rating bulletin.
Within days television writers were speculating John Mangos would be signed by Ten to replace Walters. This would come to pass when the one hour Eyewitness News is resurrected. Mangos would be joined by Katrina Lee, one of the newsreaders who had replaced Walters following his first stint as chief newsreader at TEN10 in the 1970s.
Eric Walters turned up at Seven the following year as a reporter on Gerald Stone’s 6.30pm Real Life current affairs show. I always thought it was a pity he was never given any newsreading duties during his stint at Seven.
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1 day late…
5 May 2012 - WIN Gold rebrands as Gold.
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