It was a regular soap opera set in Santa Barbara, California. Like many other American daytime soaps it centred around a rich family, the Capwells. What was funny about it was some of the ridiculous storylines. ![]()
Santa Barbara ran for 9 seasons..
My Mum lived in Belgrave at the time, and she said the picture got worse when ATV changed to Channel 10.
That’s interesting, I imagine she would have been in the minority as I imagine more Melbourne TV antennas would have better suited to the higher channels (7, 9) than the lower channels (0, 2) and that the lower ones were more susceptible to interference.
Most likely the higher frequency of channel 10 made it struggle to diffract over Olinda. ATV-0 was often quite good at bending its signal over the hills.
There’s good reasons why they put UHF translators in at Selby, Upwey, and Upper Ferntree Gully in the mid-1980s.
Monbulk was another location that was notorious for tricky TV reception. It later got its own translator (late 1990s???)
One of the newspaper reports at the time IIRC said that some of these residents could not get the higher frequencies at all, so could only get 0 and 2. So the change to 10 removed any commercial channel option, pending those UHF translators. I guess losing those viewers would have been offset by gains made by the conversion to 10 elsewhere
Looks like there were a few of them.. this one was in ‘The Age’ the week after the change (so 24 Jan 1980).
and From the Age Green Guide 21 Feb 1980.
Given a single dipole antenna tuned to a particular frequency, Channel 0 could be received at a much greater distances than Channel 10. Of course antennas are designed to take this into account. Most instances of no or poor reception could be fixed with an antenna upgrade or modification.
Same in Seymour (as mentioned before), but then again they are in the licence areas of the Bendigo and Shepparton stations (they now have a local repeater of the latter).
Interesting that WIN 4 wouls have gone 24/7.
This was a Friday night. Back in the late 1980s pre-aggregation WIN broadcast until around 3am Sunday to Thursday nights with all night broadcast on Friday and Saturday nights
Correct, date of the WIN-4 guide I uploaded was Friday 12 August 1988.
Wasn’t Meet The Press on in the morning when it first began?
Started as a late night program. Then moved to mornings. I think they realised the show had more chance of hitting the news cycle for Sunday night’s news bulletins by being on in the morning. Similar to what Nine had with Sunday.
Ok, well that explains why I didnt see it until 1994. Once we received Prime and NBN in Lismore, it was usually only Video Hits and E Street we watched on NRTV. The rest of the time it was on NBN and occasionally Prime. Also when my father was away on a weekday, we watched NRTV Evening News until it was axed. Then we always watched NBN regardless.
NBN really benefited from Nines dominance in the early 1990s
The great Paul Bongiorno anchored it for many years, right up until the early 2010s I recall, but would travel from Canberra to TEN-10 Pyrmont studios. That 2008-2011 news set was used open-plan with different elements and angles for the show at that time. Hugh Riminton (then his Parliament House deputy) used to fill-in. Loved the opening jingle!
The show was also moved to Melbourne around 2012-14 with Hugh Riminton presenting.
I’m actually surprised it lasted so long, I mean especially once it hit 10 years, must’ve been pulling in some good numbers or advertisers still in the mid-2000s. Had the luxury of John Howard’s long term as PM including several major global political issues and events, starting with Port Arthur and including 9/11, bombings and tsunamis and the rapid growth of technology.
Even beyond 2010 after the network implemented significant changes and had financial issues and mass axings, I actually can’t recall too much of 2011-2012 but oddly do remember 2009-2010 and Kath Robinson’s brief return to Ten and her incarnation in conjunction with a newspaper for 2013’s.
Remember when the show was paired up with The Bolt Report on Sunday mornings?


