Didn’t they mostly shoot it in Sydney and just slip in the occasional outdoor Melbourne scene? Plus the establishing shots, of course.
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that was my understanding although i did not realise that at the time it was being made
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Quite interesting history.
I used to watch son and daughters when it was on 7two . my question is : i think beryl used to mention Ararat sometimes on the show. was there a connection to my old home town or was it something that was just named as a random town?
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I was aware at the time S&D was produced at Epping but did take note of the location shooting they did in the suburbs of Sydney- mostly Manly and Dr Edelston’s property at Dural.
There were the obligatory stock shots of trams when the story moved to Melbourne and I do recall outside shooting around that city involving characters on occasion. I vaguely recall vision of Beryl shopping in Moonee Ponds for some reason. I’ve always associated Moonee Ponds with Edna Everage so that may be why I took notice of the scene.
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… the main shoot was in Sydney, but they regularly sent cast to Melbourne because it was not only important to shoot scenes in Melbourne it was even more important to be seen shooting scenes in Melbourne …
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Would this day have been the debut of “The Mission” as the Seven News theme or would Adelaide have been using it since the frequency swap at the end of the previous month when they introduced the Seven Nightly News brand ahead of the other stations in the network?
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It was certainly the debut as far as Melbourne is concerned, although news promos the night before featured it.
As for Adelaide, I don’t know if SAS7 got in early. They may have.
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Where did Ross Symons move to? Weekends?
He seemed to have stuck in there for a few years even after Roger Climpson came back because he was back presenting with Ann.
I remember he was presenting Prime News in Canberra c. 1996. Apparently he used to fly from Sydney to Canberra. Read the news. Then fly back to Sydney each day.
I remember being aware of the relaunch having read the speculation in the newspapers in early December 1987. Symonds was reported to be out but they hadn’t decided who would take his place. Zachariah, Greg Grainger, Don Willesee and even Number 96 actor and former ATN weekend reader Scott Lambert were said to be in contention. I always wondered if Roger Climpson was in the running because Seven had used him to host the first fleet re-enactment. Perhaps he took some convincing to return to his old role.
The last family holiday before I flew the coup took place in the first weeks of January 1988 and I remember desperately wanting to be home from Coffs Harbour by 6.30pm Monday because I’d seen the promos in the days before we left featuring the new team and parts of the NBC News theme. We must’ve made it back on the Sunday because I remember watching the first episode of Home and Away.
He read the news on 11AM and filled in for Zachariah alongside Ann Sanders during 1988. Don Willesee ended up in the host role on that show when Zachariah was appointed to Nightly. Greg Grainger was reading weekend news at that stage but was replaced in August 1988 by Jim Maher who didn’t live up to the hype surrounding him when he made the move from Perth.
He also read the Illawarra Prime News bulletin for periods around that time.
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So Ann Sanders (Sydney) and Jennifer Keyte (Melbourne) both came over from the Ten at the same time?
I believe Peter Mitchell also started reading on weekends at this time.
In Melbourne the anticipation for change came earlier given Seven’s PR disaster in sacking Mal Walden and a one-hour news service that was being beaten by SBS. Christopher Skase when he took over Seven sometime around July made it a key objective to return Seven’s profile in Melbourne after Fairfax had wiped out much of it. One of his first signings was Jennifer Keyte, who I think was announced as early as September but her exact involvement at Seven (that she would be co-newsreader with another recruit, Glenn Taylor) was not known until late in the year.
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One for the “You know you’re a media enthusiast when…” files I think! 
Next question: Did Susie Elelman have a regular presenting role at Seven Nightly News Sydney in 1988 or was she just used as a fill-in?
Because there’s a clip online of Susie presenting the Saturday April 23 bulletin, one from what would have to be a weeknight when she filled in for Ann Sanders alongside Richard Zachariah and I’m pretty sure she also did a stint filling in for Clive Robertson on NewsWorld at some point that year!
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Susie was Clive’s primary fill in for all of 1988 and she contributed the “Susie’s Showbeat” segment to his show. She floated around as a back up presenter on Seven shows throughout that year but seemed to fall out of favour after she presented Nightly with Jim Maher over the summer of 1988-'89. The newspapers were scathing in their assessment of the duo dubbing them “the work experience kids”. I thought that was a little unfair considering she’d been a mainstay on WIN News for years prior to joining Seven. I don’t recall seeing either of them presenting much after that summer. Gina Boon became Clive’s primary fill in at some point in 1989 and Jim Maher became the state politics reporter for Seven.
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didn’t it once rate exactly zero? If so I wonder how.
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I think it was a statistical zero (or an asterisk) as the number of viewers was too low to be picked up by the ratings sample. It is not actually zero. In a city of millions of people you are never going to have a show with literally zero viewers.
But despite the initial PR disaster, Seven’s news ratings did start to improve to at least mid to high single digits, but by then the new management had taken over and it was thought better to just do a clean break and start again with a new timeslot, new presenters, new branding and sets, etc. And it seemed Seven was doing similar in other cities as well.
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19 January 1957: Victorian Governor Sir Dallas Brooks officially opens GTV9. The channel launched with a two-hour variety show. As a sign of the changing times, GTV9’s opening day coincided with the last edition of The Argus newspaper which was closed after it had been taken over by the Herald and Weekly Times group.
Source: Broadcasting and Television (B&T)
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Unfortunately, they were third to launch as a station in Melbourne. HSV7 (first in Melbourne) and ABV2 had already been broadcasting for just over 2 months.
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I don’t think being 3rd to air really mattered at that stage. TV set ownership was only about 5% of households at the time, so it didn’t really matter who was 1st, 2nd or 3rd. By the time most people had a TV set at least those 3 channels were available.
And GTV had sort of been in de-facto mode anyway since about September with its test transmissions including the Olympic Games and special events like Carols By Candlelight.
And despite its perceived underdog status, as soon as it launched IMT and created the whole culture around variety, it was set for life, pretty much. Seven became pretty much fixed in second place in ratings for years.
As Gerald Stone wrote, television may have launched first in Sydney, but it launched -best- in Melbourne, and that would be largely a credit to GTV.
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