Incredible to think what a superior local news service can do to your primetime ratings. The Nanny was the top ratting program in Canberra at the time. Wow.
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This is the TV guide for that weekend:
I have also been directed to this website which includes a review of the Oz For Africa concert which was included in the LiveAid telecast.
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And more on Capital.
February 1995 was when a number of changes were made following the sale from Charles Curran to Southern Cross.
They were:
Axing of weekend local bulletins
Re-introduction of 24 hour a day programming
Re-brand from Capital to Ten Capital
(from the Canberra Times via Trove Mon 13 Feb 1995).
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I remember when that happened. 14 year old me at the time didn’t care much for the internal machinations of a TV station but I did notice one afternoon that the Capital branding had been incorporated into the Ten branding with just the Ten logo being shown on PRG’s and promos.
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7 News Adelaide has a Flashback segment tonight about Digital Television.
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Exactly right, easier for Nine to sell national advertising where the schedule is the same. Plus WIN has to pay for the expensive Nine affiliation so it had to cut its news resources across many of its markets.
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The Sydney Olympic Games in September 2000 was probably the last hope for Prime Local News (in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra).
During that time, it outrated NBN News in Newcastle with the strong Olympics programming bookending it. Probably the only time that ever happened (though the news format was a bit different to the usual with Seven News at 6pm and Prime Local News from 6.25 to 6.45 before the Olympics coverage resumed).
(nb. Trove doesn’t have the Canberra Times past 1995 so there is no info available there sadly but I imagine Prime had similar shares over WIN and Capital there too)
(from the “Newcastle Herald” 27 September 2000).
Sadly, it didn’t change long term viewing habits and just nine months later, the bulletin was axed.
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What About Ten Capital News At The Time Of The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games
I wonder if Prime had of stuck with it, could it have made in-roads on NBN. Although probably never going to be a market leader in the Hunter, the NBN results show NBN winning across all 21 weeks across northern NSW might have been different given they dont broadcast local news in the Hunter, Central Coast or Gold Coast regions
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Even when Prime had local news in those areas, NBN still won that timeslot.
I think a lot of it still comes back to lead in programs, and the size of the Newcastle market compsred to the other areas where there is no metro overlap. The Knights get quite a number of Sunday 4pm games which i think certainly helps a fair bit.
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NBN had a 30 year start on the newcomers
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RIP Hulkster
From when Wrestlemania was on Channel 10
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i wonder where they got that from… https://televisionau.com/2021/06/50-years-since-pick-a-box-ended.html
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It was a long wait for a result if you were tuning in on TVT6!
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Regional TV often got programs well after the metros did.
NBN were one of the worst offenders… ‘Sale Of The Century’ was a week behind TCN-9 for the first few years… And some soaps were way behind… ‘Home And Away’ and ‘A Country Practice’ were about 15 months behind ATN-7, similar with ‘Days Of Our Lives’ being about a year behind TCN-9.
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But then it all varied between regions. In the case of Home And Away, the stations that were to be aligned with Seven under aggregation, at least in NSW and QLD were initially aired the same day as metros but no more than a week behind (due to sports commitments eg B&H World Series Cup).
I will agree with A Country Practice until around 1987-88, Sale Of The Century in markets where it was displaced to another timeslot from 7pm, in the NRTV case, when E Street replaced Richmond Hill on Ten, NRTV didnt first broadcast E Street until February 1991 in the 2:20pm weekday timeslot until it caught up over 2 years of episodes, then taking 7:30pm Wednesday and Thursday in early September 1991. A Country Practice was then axed from the station. E Streets afternoon slot was previously occupied by Young And The Restless.
Regionals, often got the raw end of the deal unless the metros really wanted to push national exposure eg Sale Of The Century being, in many cases aired in simultaneously with Nine.
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And thats if stations wanted to run it at all. Remember, they had to pay for it too.
At least they had access to Sydney stations with the right equipment.
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That only really started when Sale began to include “On This Day” quips, so it needed to be aired on the same date.
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But then it fell by the wayside on regionals again when regionals markets were aggregated because of current affairs programs and sports
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