I seem to recall Ten airing movies or shows like Monk during the 2000s / early 2010s in Sydney and Brisbane during the AFL season on Saturday nights (I’d imagine this was when AFL was shown late at night because the Swans and Lions weren’t playing)
Not necessarily, they also aired Monk prior to the 7:30 delayed telecast for a home game with Before The Game airing about 1am (or sometimes not at all).
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Ah, yes. And the afternoon AFL , national 5pm weekend news, Sports Tonight and Simpsons before that?
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In Melbourne, they wouldn’t get that, as afternoon AFL was usually delayed. Instead, Adelaide’s George Donikian (but based at ATV Como) would present a special local 6pm bulletin, followed by BTG at 6:30pm and live AFL at 7 or 7:30pm, with The Fifth Quarter at 10:30 or 11pm and then a late movie.
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In Brisbane we were getting Saturday night AFL on Ten every week live or near live from the mid 00’s. Sydney was quite a few years later, but defs had it before 10 lost the rights.
Edit: From the Wayback machine. Rd 2, 2007
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I know this is an old post, but I remember being at the Fox Footy studios in Southbank around 2005 and I was sitting in the promo suite while they were cutting their promos and remember watching them cut 6 different promos for each state + 1 generic feed
Their version of the master control room was also interesting, with 6 TV’s showing the 6 different feeds - some of them were only mere seconds apart (which was highly confusing)
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Was that when it was on One HD? I think I recall they started showing Saturday night AFL games live on One in Sydney.
Nah on Ten, predating One. It happened in Brisbane years before Sydney given the success and popularity of the Lions in the early 2000’s.
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That’s pretty much how i remembered it. Brisbane has always been more accepting of AFL than Sydney, and that’s even more true in 2025. I also remember growing up on the Gold Coast, where AFL and NRL are pretty much a 50-50 split, I would get a lot of games live on 10, but i think it was southern cross 10 at the time? But if i went up to Brissie, it wouldn’t be on at all. Actually, now that I remember it (and looking at the above schedule) I always found it odd as a child that Gold Coast would get a lot of games live, while Brisbane always had some sort of delay.
It helped that the Brisbane Lions won three consecutive flags between 2001-03, which boosted the popularity of the sport in the sunshine capital. The on-field resurgence we have come to enjoy in the last six-or-so years (culminating in last year’s flag) has unsurprisingly revived the popularity of the code up north in that period, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they get rewarded with Gather Round hosting rights in 2027.
On the flipside, a 2005 match between St Kilda and the Sydney Swans proved a turn-off in the local Sydney ratings (IIRC the match was on a half-hour delay on Ten); it is well documented that the Swans played so badly in that match after which Robert Walls wrote them off as premiership contenders (this is also documented in the four-part doco Shaking Down the Thunder).
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Courtesy: SpiralWorksltd
Found some footage of the Network Ten doco “Shake Down the Thunder” which would’ve aired on April 15, 2006, just before the Swans played Carlton at Telstra Dome in the evening.
You can hear the voice of Robert Walls, who was highly critical of Paul Roos after the Swans lost to St Kilda midway through the 2005 season.
No doubt footage from this documentary would’ve been recycled/reused for Seven’s Shaking Down the Thunder doco of which only the first episode (out of four) aired on 25 June.
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On social media today:
https://x.com/maxblake9and44/status/1970983493275664562?t=6LuPnWDXAxjyHp4SmFOnxQ&s=19
10s finals coverage over the years was the benchmark and still holds up today. Much better than what is dished up by seven in recent times.
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Channel 10’s 2009 intro
Does anyone else recall for Ten’s final year in 2011, unlike their much bigger and better coverage for 2009 (first year of ONE HD), they opted for an external glass-enclosed soft set studio on the Yarra Park concourse for the pre shows for the Grand Final.
You could see the pavement and fans streaming by in the background. Carrie Bickmore and I think Charlie Pickering hosted, with a series of guests. Before the AFL team of Michael Christian and Tim Lane (who didn’t call the game that year) took over. Might’ve had some other Ten personalities from the time too, such as Gorgi Coghlan or Chrissie Swan fromThe Circle, but I can’t quite remember. I do remember lots of plugs for 2012 shows, including a live-cross between Stephen Quartermain and Johnny Young for the YTT re-boot.
But don’t think they used it for half time or post game, they used their internal studio instead (as seen for 2009, 2007 and maybe 2006 and 2005 and Anzac Days which would change colours).
Don’t think I’ve ever seen caps/clips from this, would be nice if somebody had or found them, even for future archive purposes.