TV History - Questions

What was Return Link on Seven?




Was it just internal to Seven?

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Probably if it has only an internal extension number 7077?

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Hi, long time, first time.
When did the solus market and dual affiliation stations start going to full one network outside of Sports schedules?
I know Imparja went full Nine in 2008 and WIN West held out untill near digital, but when did the others change.

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A scheduling question if anyone can help?

I’ve been trying to find out any information about when Prisoner returned in 1981 in the Sydney market. The SMH listings leave an anomaly.

According to The Age and the SMH, both Melbourne and Sydney ended 1980 on episode 165, which makes sense as it seems to have been intended as the season final with a tunnel collapsing on some inmates who were trying to escape. Melbourne: 12 Nov 1980; Sydney 10 Nov 1980.

The series returned in Melbourne on Wed 4 Feb 1981 at the new time of 7.30pm (episode 166), then continued on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm. In Sydney, there is no mention in the SMH of an episode on 4 Feb - it appears to resume on Tues 10 Feb in the same time slot as Melbourne and run Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the first time in Sydney. However, the synopses in the SMH refer to episodes 167 and 168 playing that week, and 169 and 170 the next week. They soon stop including synopses so it’s difficult to deduce if those synopses were possibly incorrect. The issue is I can’t find any evidence of episode 166, the intended season return, playing in Sydney either in late 1980 or early 1981 - but I can’t imagine they skipped it just to be in sync with Melbourne. Possibly it was shown on 4 February along with Melbourne or elsewhere that week as a late program change?

I doubt anyone knows for certain, but any listings from early 1981 in Sydney from eg TV Week may help confirm which episodes Sydney were showing and whether or not they were in sync with Melbourne or an episode behind.

It seems that ATV10 and TEN10 made a point of showing episodes of Dallas on the same night in 1981 (previously Melbourne had been some months behind) so it’s not unlikely they squeezed an extra episode of Prisoner in somewhere to keep that show in sync with Melbourne too.

Sorry for the long post!!

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The transitions happened over a number of years with the introduction of the supplementary licences as a joint venture between the two existing or one solus commercial operator. I believe some held out or gradually reduced their offerings like Southern Cross Tasmania while others like WIN WA once they deemed access to be sufficient to flick the switch to sole running which was in itself a cost saving initiative for them.

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Just to advise those who are interested that I’ve finally resolved this query. Sydney ended 1980 with a double episode on 10 November, 165 and 166, putting them an episode ahead of Melbourne at the end of the year. Melbourne played episode 166 on 4 February 1981 then both cities were in sync from Tuesday 10 February until Wednesday 20 May. Sydney then moved the series back to Mondays and Tuesdays at 8.30 from 25 May, while Melbourne continued with Tuesdays and Wednesdays, initially still at 7.30. Sydney remained a day ahead (though showing the same episodes as Melbourne each week) for the most part until both markets ended the year on 10 and 11 November 1981 respectively, with episode 246 (which, incidentally, didn’t feature a major cliffhanger).

Showing what’s usually considered the 1981 season return as the last episode of 1980 seems an odd decision, but the channels were notorious for doing thjngs like this with their soapies (Young Doctors springs to mind!). To be fair, the cliffhanger wasn’t fully resolved until the second episode of the year (168) as some of the inmates were still trapped underground.

So there you have it - you’ll be able to sleep well tonight! :winking_face_with_tongue:

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Has there ever been any reports of any network trying to poach Sandra Sully from Ten?

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Hello,

I am looking for the Logies 1997 broadcast on Australian TV. Its our TV awards show. Before I place a request with NFSA I thought I’d try here.

Thanks in advance.

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I doubt that NFSA will hand you a copy unless you had a reason for it. You might be better off emailing archives@nine.com.au but you’d probably have to offer money for it.

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I got two - we all know ENT had to sell either TVT or TNT in the lead up to aggregation, but was there ever a chance that they could’ve held onto both and have a new station start instead? Keeping the TVT/TNT couple in one piece and have a new station start in 1994?

Also, was there ever talk of the Ten affiliation being shared? Or did Southern Cross’s links to Ten preclude that? Obviously SCTV didn’t air all of the Ten shows, a Perth-style arrangement could’ve happened?

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From what I have been told, although WIN had the Nine affilliation they were welcome to take any Ten shows that Southern Cross didn’t air.

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I think that was an option should ENT opt not to split Tas TV up. But the money to get from a sale of TNT might have been too good to pass up.

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Although I live in Melbourne, whenever people talked about more commercial TV stations for Tasmania, they always talked about extending each station (TVT & TNT) to the part of Tasmania they weren’t in.

Isn’t that what aggregation was about - to aggregate single commercial channel markets into a larger market with 2 or 3 commercial channels by extending existing stations’ (or a group of commonly owned stations’) coverage into the rest of the aggregated market?

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Yes but TVT and TNT had one owner, and had that owner not opted to sell TNT to split the two channels, then that might have forced the licencing of a new statewide service.

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I think the end result would have been a WA style arrangement with WIN coming in given Bruce Gordon wanted WINs footprints everywhere

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Would’ve been handy if SCTV didn’t air the NBL - Tas TV/WIN did have d a long tie-up with the Devils, judging by the signage at the DEC. Plus Tas TV did air the coverage as well prior to aggregation.

That’s true. The money from TNT’s sale would’ve helped with the expansion.

That’s what I was getting at. You’d think someone like a Prime or Southern Cross would go in for that new Tassie statewide license.

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had ENT held onto both TVT/TNT then it’s very possible other operators Prime and Southern Cross would have been interested to pursue any new licence. But as it turned out Southern Cross got in by buying out TNT, but potentially Prime could have been a bidder for that, too, for all we know.

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Is this from when TVW-7 were doing color test transmissions?

YouTube: Australian Television Archive

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