TV History - Questions

Was ABC-2 a legitimate callsign used by the ABC on a TV station?

No. In Canberra they had ABC3. Other cities and regional areas had their own ABx(xx) call-signs though all have now been abolished and “ABC” is just used everywhere now

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Did NBN ever air Nightline? And did Prime 7 ever air Today Tonight in the markets where they had bulletins before Today Tonight was axed?

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As far as I know, NBN never aired Nightline. They always did their own thing. As for Prime, I think they ran Today Tonight in a daytime slot in areas where they had local news. I could be wrong

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Back when Nine/Ten and Seven/Ten had AFL rights from 2002-2006 and 2007-2011, who would get Thursday/Monday games (etc. ANZAC Day, Easter Monday, Season Openers) I know Nine/Seven had Friday/Sunday games and Ten had Saturdays but I was just wondering as Thursday/Mondays weren’t regular matches.

I think NBN only did after their late news was axed. I don’t think Prime7 aired Today Tonight in full-bulletin markets except at late night.

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Usually 10 in exchange for the Saturday arvo match. ANZAC day I think rotated from memory.

I think Prime tried to put Today Tonight in various afternoon slots in the areas that took Prime News probably at the request of Seven but I don’t recall it being on at any particular timeslot for any length of time or any consistency but I could be mistaken. Most of the time Prime just didn’t take the program. I don’t blame them, trash program it was.

Yes that’s correct…. I don’t think it was very long after that before Nine axed Nightline too.

When Ann Sanders and Ross Symons were removed from 7 News Sydney, did they get a tribute package? And who was the replacement anchor until Ian Ross took charge over?

I think he took over straight away. Ross and Ann’s final bulletin was on youtube but I can’t find it.

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Why did SBS air South Park? Considering the type of jokes that South Park makes, it just confuses me as why SBS would air it.

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Comedy Central shows were commonly aired on SBS before the CBS/10 acquisition, stretching all the way back to when MST3K was still running. I’m guessing it was because the shows tended to be more of a edgy type of comedy, not like the more safe sitcoms and sketch shows of the main commercial networks, which rated well on SBS.

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Wasn’t South Park also the biggest hit SBS had when it premiered as well?

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I remember an interview where Seven, Ten etc. didn’t want it so Comedy Central/Trey and Matt went to SBS and they signed a deal. The movie however was on Nine due to their WB deal (WB distributed in international markets while Paramount did in US/Canada. SBS Viceland and 10 Shake share rights but the latter has S24+ exclusively.

SBS often picks up edgier content even back then. And SP was not really mainstream it would have been considered too alternative for the commercials. It also gave viewers who don’t normally tune in to SBS a gateway in to the network.

SP was a big success and the ad revenue it brought in allowed it to fund local productions like Going Home.

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SBS also aired the adult puppet show Crank Yankers.

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Each Queen’s Birthday and Easter Monday match from 2002-2011 were Channel 10 games, with many of the Easter Monday games having coverage of the Stawell Gift preceding the game and the Gift Final being shown at HT. ANZAC Days saw 9 getting 2002, 2003 (with surprisingly 10 doing the Friday Night game later that night between Sydney and Melbourne), 2004 (held at the early time of 1:15 due to NRL commitments for the Northern States being a Sunday), 2005 and 2006. 10 got the game in 2007, 2008 (7 covered the game between Fremantle and Geelong that night being a Friday), 2009 and 2011 with 7 covering the game in 2010 when it fell on a Sunday (their regular coverage day).

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I think it was rating 1m by late 1998 in the 9:30pm slot. Absolutely gigantic by SBS standards.

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Yes, I would say South Park helped promote SBS to more mainstream audiences.

i was certainly popular by SBS standards but I’m not sure it was near the 1m mark (5 cities).

EDIT: I may stand corrected but there are a lot of unknowns, still. The SBS Annual Report of 1998-99 reported that SP had achieved the highest ratings for any series in SBS history – which I don’t think anyone doubted. It lists 1.338m viewers for South Park. But I could not find if this is metro+regional or just metro, but I am inclined to think this is a metro+regional given SBS’ national coverage. It also doesn’t clarify if this is a figure of reach or an average. I suspect but can’t confirm that it is a reach (i.e. total number of viewers who watched at least x minutes of program over the course of the year) rather than an average per episode which would be much lower than the reach figure (but still high for SBS). The report mentions that SBS had a “reach” of 5.9 million viewers a week, so it may be using “reach” as its ranking.

EDIT EDIT: In the 1999/2000 Annual Report, it lists SP with an average per minute of 1,067,000 viewers. This would also be metro+regional.

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