General TV History

Just found the Monday “Special Event” on a tape. It was highlighting the big award nights (Logies, Academy Awards).

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Would anyone here be able to source any episode of Tonight Live with Steve Vizard from 1990? I’m just curious to see just how much of David Letterman’s Late Night show he ripped off.

Specifically, I’m talking about bits that are not musical performances or guest interviews. I’ve read that in the last few years of the run, the show became a bit more original, and that’s why I’m looking for eps from 1990.


When Foxtel became solely digital…

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From memory the set was similar, a sidekick band leader (“Count” Paul Grabowsky) that he played jokes off and he did have a top 10.

The major difference was the inclusion of a newsreader on set (Jennifer Keyte and later Naomi Robson).

Here’s a complete ep from 1992. There is lots of other content on Youtube…

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The most shameless rip-off was the Letterman fist pump - with drumroll - to go with jokes.

When did Letterman’s show first air in Australia?

The first reference I can find in TV guides is in 1994 when Nine began broadcasting it, but the man himself clearly says that it was broadcast some time in 1988 on Seven in this clip:

According to my research looking through old SMH TV guides, Seven had the rights to air Late Night with David Letterman, but they never put it on air for Australian viewers.

The Late Show with David Letterman first premiered on Nine on Tuesday 11th January 1994 at 11pm. It moved to Ten in 2007 when they picked up the output deal with CBS from Nine.

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Yeah, that’s exactly what I was seeing on the TV guides. I guess they must have purchased the rights, but never actually broadcast the show.

The ABC did indeed broadcast the first Carols in the Domain, which was a 45-minute highlights program, airing on Christmas Eve of 1983 at 10:55pm. In the following year, on 22nd December 1984, it got a live 1-hour prime-time airing at 8:30pm, as well as in 1985, both on the ABC. The 1986 & 1987 Carols in the Domain wasn’t broadcast on television.

Carols on the Domain returned to television in 1988 when Seven picked up the broadcast rights, which was a live 2-hour telecast.

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I’m not sure if it’s still online but I actually managed to come across an ABC-TV promo for Carols in the Domain from maybe 1982 or 1983 (ie, the first or second one) in a recording of a promo break on YouTube. If I find it again, I’ll link to it.

As far as I can tell, there may have been a period of time when the event wasn’t shown on TV (at least here in Sydney) until the first of the Channel Seven broadcasts in 1988. Even for that first broadcast of Carols in the Domain on Seven there were signs of the event being commercialised and a vehicle for network personalities with petroleum company Esso being the naming sponsor and Ian Turpie (who I think was still associated as being a Channel Seven personality at that point in time) being the host!

1989 and even though it was the first Christmas with regional TV aggregation in Southern NSW/ACT, Prime actually didn’t air Carols in The Domain regionally along with Seven Sydney. It seems that 1990 saw the 1st Seven-produced Carols in the Domain to be shown on Prime in at least Southern NSW & the ACT (not sure about Prime in the Tamworth & Taree/Port Macquarie markets, which were still to be aggregated at that time).

Aside from that, all the info I can gather online about Carols in the Domain points to a very long history of various naming sponsors and Seven Network personalities presenting the show from the 1990s to the 2000s and the current decade. It seems those elements have pretty much always been part of Carols in the Domain while Seven has had the broadcasting rights, so one wonders if the social media era has simply popularised the heavy criticism…

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Wow. Didn’t know that. So it was on Seven, Nine AND Ten!

…where is @Underarm when it come to these debates?

One of my favourite memories of watching cricket in the 1980s in regional Australia when the ABC telecast test matches and the “other” channel took Channel 7’s tennis instead of Channel 9’s coverage. Growing up in the country as a cricket fanatic this was my summer soundtrack.

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A history of Australian television bloopers, 2017.

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pre-TVSN
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ACA classic story by Ben McCormack in 2012 when he falsely reported that Castle Towers owner QIC was turning their smaller centre across the road Castle Mall into an “All-Asian Mall”.

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Aside from the now infamous reporter and the choice of Pauline Hanson as an interviewer, that segment resulted in a breach of the ACMA commercial TV code of practice in 2013 and a fairly half-hearted on-air apology on a quiet Friday night edition of the program by Leila McKinnon (because for whatever reason, Tracy Grimshaw was absent that night) in September that year.

I also seem to recall “The Hamster Wheel” (gee I miss that show) tearing that “report” apart!

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Yep:

(from 9:50)

Including some very unfortunate and unintentional foreshading about Ben McCormack at 17:15.

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NBC News Special Report on the Blackout of 2003 which left tens of millions without power. It was apparently a miracle that they could get on air at all.

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Generators were there to save the day

I can imagine a similar situation in Australia today