General TV History

When did ABC-TV when 24/7?

Sometimes in 1993. Don’t have the exact date on hand.

How about SAS7?

I can only narrow it down to sometime in 1992 or 1993. Someone else here might know more.

  1. The TV Guide still said that SAS7 closed down as late as 1993.

Or how about Prime? The stations reduced the broadcast time around 1 or 2 years after aggregation.

Don’t know. There were lots of variations for Prime.

I did find though that it was Sunday 7 March 1993 that ABC first broadcast overnight that wasn’t Rage. So their last “shutdown” was on Thursday night 4 March, with Rage overnight on Friday and Saturday nights.

Source: TV Week

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They could’ve had another channel…9 F**KED. Geddit? :rofl:

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Since we’ve been talking about when TV channels started 24/7 broadcasting, here’s how it played out on the Sydney commercial stations for what it’s worth:

*Channel Nine was on the air for 24 hours during the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and I think decided to broadcast around the clock from that point on? Presuming that’s the case, I wonder if they’re one of the first TV stations in the world to do regular 24/7 broadcasting…

*Channel Ten was on the air for 24 hours from May 1983 for the imaginatively titled “Music Video” (axed in Early 1984 due to cost cutting, but had enough of a following to be revived nine weeks later) on Friday & Saturday nights, but were still closing down the other five nights of the week until March 1987 and the launch of the seven night a week “Night Shift” music video program.

*Channel Seven was on the air 24 hours a day from Sunday to Friday with “News Overnight” from January 1985, but were still closing down on Saturday nights until June 1989.

From the information I can gather about Regional NSW/ACT…

*Prime Southern NSW/ACT closed down of a night after the first full year of aggregation and resumed 24/7 transmission in March 1993 (a couple of weeks after ABC-TV went 24/7). If I was to guess, Prime Northern NSW/Gold Coast probably closed down of a night from Day 1 of aggregation in the market until around the same time that the Southern NSW/ACT stations resumed 24/7 broadcasting.
*WIN has been doing continuous 24/7 transmission for Canberra and the Illawarra since aggregation, but closed down of a night in the Central West (and probably the Riverina too) until March 1993.
*NBN started 24/7 broadcasting at aggregation.
*Aside from a brief period between January & March 1991 for overnight CNN coverage of the Gulf War, Capital closed down overnight from July 1990 until February 1995 - around the same time as the rebrand to Ten Capital happened.

One I’m not sure about is when Ten Northern NSW (as it would’ve been known as back then) started 24/7 broadcasting.

The “flying ribbons” on air look launched on Nine on this day 6 years ago with the premiere of “The Voice” also occuring on the same night

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sometime between 1993 and 1995. I am thinking early in 1994 but not sure. Initially it aired the same as Ten Sydney but then moved to screen religion and extending infomercials over programming such as General Hospital in the early hours.

I do remember in 1995, Ten broadcast the Australian Cricket Tour of West Indies

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I was in Canberra some time around 2002 or 03 and Ten Capital essentially shut down at 2am while Ten metro was showing infomercials. Capital just had a slide up on screen saying that they would be back from 4am (IIRC). Perhaps they weren’t getting a cut of the infomercial revenue :wink:

IIRC in Victoria Prime, Vic TV and SCN didn’t do 24/7 at aggregation. Surprisingly I seem to recall that SCN was the first of the 3 to do so? Someone maybe remember that better than I

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Capital closedown from July 1990? WTH? What did the closedown sequence at that time like? (I mean until Jan 1991)

I can’t remember when SC Tas went 24/7 but I can remember the ad for it, it had a lot of clocks sort of flying around the screen and they were talking about how things are always happening 24 hours a day and so Southern Cross would now be broadcasting 24 hours a day.

I remember getting up to watch the ABC start for the day around 5:50 every morning it would start up with the test pattern and “This Old Man” and a couple of other songs and then into the cartoons from 6.

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SC Tas when 24/7 after aggregation (I think, because the TV Guide of 1993 said that SC Tas still closed down overnight, but the TV Guide of 1995 said that SC Tas were broadcasting 24/7)

That would be about right, it might have been a bit after aggregation in mid-late 1994 but I can’t remember.
Same with TasTV/WIN, I can’t remember when that one happened.

I do remember always wanting to watch on Easter and Christmas though, would always see the metro branding on TV until later in the morning, often around 9-10am.

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Best package Nine has had.

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7 Perth continued to close daily between 3am and 6am right through til early 2000.

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Notice: this is from 2001
image

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Best since the 2002-06 era with the 7 colours for 7 days which was my favourite on air package for any network.

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