General TV History

And the Lamb family who sold 2UE to Packer and then bought it back from him at a much lower price are alleged to have said “You only get one Kerry Packer in your lifetime…”

2 Likes

I didn’t realise it was that early in the year. Must have felt like a day of mourning at Nine having had Packers running the place for 30 years (and close to that in Melbourne)

Meanwhile, 20 January is also that famous date when Arcade debuted across the Ten Network and coincided with the launch of Channel 10 in Melbourne.

So much positive press for a show before anyone had seen a single preview episode. Channel Ten apparently didn’t issue any previews to the media which should have been enough of a hint that perhaps the show wasn’t quite going to match up to the hype.

God that was an awful show…

1 Like

in regional Victoria all the regional stations had local morning shows:
AMV4 Albury: “At Home”
GMV6 Shepparton: “The Morning Show” hosted by Jan Deane
BTV6 Ballarat: “The Morning Show” hosted by Jenny Tudor
BCV8 Bendigo: “Wednesday with Heather” hosted by Heather Lindsey
GLV8 Traralgon: “Gippsland Today” (an entire episode is up on YouTube)
STV8 Mildura also had a similar morning show.

and others:
GTV9 Melbourne had Ernie and Denise/In Melbourne Today
ATV10 Melbourne had Good Morning Melbourne/Everyday
SAS10/7 Adelaide had A Touch of Elegance (in the mid-2000s they had Adelaide AM with Anne Wills before it was dumped to make way for the national Morning Show)
ADS7/10 Adelaide had the Lionel Williams Show.
TVW7 Perth had Good Morning Perth with Jenny Seaton

1 Like

I quite liked it but I was 8 years old and probably still enjoying the novelty of having a “new” TV channel (even though it wasn’t) and watching a new TV soap from scratch. I was disappointed when the show suddenly disappeared.

I always said there are so few episodes made that they could release the whole lot as a single DVD release! Particularly as there are still episode that to this day were never aired. Apparently the National Film and Sound Archive has the series.

Just looking at that clip, the show followed the formula of the time, not just in the story; gather a diverse group of characters in a single location, but also in production values.

It certainly looks cheap and nasty through today’s eyes but it probably wasn’t that bad at the time.

1 Like

Denise Drysdale hosted the GLV show for a time in the late 1980s. She lived for many years within the GLV viewing area.

And the plethora of former names that were all basically the same show, just the name changed whenever a new producer came on board. Chit Chat, Morning Magazine, Roundabout, In Melbourne Today, The Roy Hampson Show… Strange that GTV9 and HSV7 for years never really tried to do the same sort of show, although HSV7 did have The Charles Skase Show in the mid 1970s. And GTV didn’t really bother much until In Melbourne Today in 1989, I guess to fill the gap left by Good Morning Melbourne’s demise.

I met Roy Hampson a few years ago. He said even in the early days the show was never allowed a budget. It would only continue if it paid for itself, hence the infomercials. I guess some things in daytime TV don’t change.

TVQ0 in Brisbane also had A Crook Affair, later The John Crook Show, that went for about a decade. Later replaced by Good Morning Brisbane and Living.

In Darwin there wasn’t much of morning TV from the local channel NTD8 but it did have an afternoon show 1330 that went to air I think once or twice a week.

2 Likes

Out of the 50 episodes filmed for Arcade, only 30 ever made it to air.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Radio History

While Arcade often carries the reputation for being our biggest drama flop, there are others that had even shorter stays on air, such as The Unisexers on Nine in 1975. It was a 6.00pm series that began in February 1975 and didn’t even last long enough to see colour a month later! Only lasted 3 weeks on air, but I suppose Arcade carries the bigger reputation as its fall came from such a staggering height of confidence that it was going to be the biggest hit of the 1980s.

YouTube: TheMercadotv

2 Likes

I can remember when that started and my parents saying how outrageous it was to have a show like that early in the evening “when the children could see it”. Too young to remember anything about it apart from that. I think my parents were just outraged that it had a word which contained “sex” in it. :joy:

Mind you they took great pleasure in watching Number 96 and The Box after dark, so how dare they. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

3 Likes

Ah the Unisexers, I remember thinking the show sounded sexy and I was quite looking forward to it.

Mind you I was under 10 so my concept of sophistication and sexiness wasn’t too developed.

Looking back at it now it’s a complete embarrassment, I’ll bet no one involved in that show puts it on their CV.

Given this was the same time as Number 96 which was genuinely raunchy and shocking for the time, the Unosexers was bland, sterilised crap even for the 1970s.

2 Likes

A newspaper ad for the Nine on 5 campaign from June 2016:

5 Likes

Back in 2016, I was very happy that WIN Severed ties with the Nine network affiliation after 27 years. Since the start of 2006, WIN removed the dots. At the start of 2010s decade, they didnt have the dots back. WIN Network has been beaten by Seven Affiliates. Since the start of the 2nd half of 2016, WIN took over Network Ten affiliate, while Southern Cross took over Nine affilate programming (Regional QLD, South NSW, Regional VIC, Tasmania). The reason why I like the Nine branding in regional areas, is that they have the dots. Therefore, having the dots in regional areas is significant. Nine Regional Affiliates (Mildura, Griffith, Regional SA and Regional and Remote Western Australia) got the dots back.

1 Like

What?!?! I’m seeing dots!

1 Like

I have to say, I got a sense of satisfaction when I was watching Nine West in the weeks after the Great Swap of 2016, knowing WIN was no longer tainting Nine.

5 Likes

I think he may have measles.

1 Like

Errrrr…what about the programming? If you avoid watching a channel because you don’t like their logo - you need to seek help.

To me, the switch was like swapping one piece of shit for another. Australian television needs to be blown up with several tonnes of dynamite.

5 Likes

At least WIN bothered to carry 9LIFE even if it was all for 15 minutes

I think the swap set us back a bit in terms of regionals getting all the new multi channels though. Unless you’re in Regional QLD/NSW/VIC.

1 Like

You might be on the watchlist now dude!

1 Like