That was during Ten’s infamous News Revolution
A 90 minute bulletin of Ten News at Five, the short-lived 6:30 with George Negus then the Project (nee 7PM Project).
One of the biggest mistakes in Ten’s history. Axing The Simpsons for another half hour of News and a current affairs show. Thankfully it was short lived
The Simpsons wasn’t axed, it moved to Eleven (regardless of whether or not the show retained the 6pm timeslot) along with Neighbours. In any case, I personally think that the idea of Ten’s News Revolution wasn’t a bad one but rather the execution of it was what really sucked.
An ABC/SBS-style current affairs program with George Negus up against Seven/Nine News and later Today Tonight/A Current Affair was always doomed to fail. The 90 Minutes of News could’ve worked if Ten properly split up the 5pm/6pm segments with different completely 5pm/6pm presenters and whatnot (think early evening TV in the United States), but I don’t think they ever really did that.
If it never happened, one would think that Ten might be in a better position than today…
It was quite simply bizarre to think highbrow current affairs would work on a commercial station (let alone Ten) at 6pm. Once it was out the damage was already done in the sense that any tweaks they did after that made little difference.[quote=“BigVic, post:1512, topic:137”]
One of the biggest mistakes in Ten’s history. Axing The Simpsons for another half hour of News and a current affairs show.
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Funnily enough the logic at the time was that The Simpsons was too costly and that news would be cheaper (and rate higher). Of course the latter didn’t happen so it all fell down not long after.
I think the most damaging thing they did wasn’t even the weekday news revolution - it was moving weekend bulletins to 6pm. Nine took advantage of it literally the week after and then Ten hurriedly added the 5pm bulletin back in addition to the 6pm one in the following weeks. The weekend news ratings never recovered after that.
$25,000 per repeat, lol.
IIRC they did a couple of 90 minute bulletins in 2009 and 2010 during major news events, and no surprise, the extra 30 minutes at 6pm failed. The idea should’ve died then and there.
The repeat of Simpsons returned on 2/12/2012 and was short lived when it was replaced by repeats of Modern Family in 2013.
Didn’t Simpsons come back briefly in 2014 before Family Feud?
Yup. The “Homer is Home” promo was used for when they brought it back.
Fun fact: The Sifon changed his profile pic from the old Nine box to that promo back then, and it has remained ever since.
2014
Simpsons was on for over a year.
Simpsons was replaced by that stupid Sochi show during the 2014 Winter Olympics. Then it was Modern Family with All New Simpsons on Saturdays for a few months before Family Feud.
The thing about non-ratings 2012-13 is that they repeat The Simpsons over and over again everyday! Ten should stop playing Simpsons repeats as it has been played 89 times.
Luckily I’ve only ever seen one full episode, that abomination set in Australia.
Just as well it’s not 2012-13 anymore? 
The ABC have uploaded the full first episode of This Day Tonight:
Not sure if this has been shared yet.
Just published by me. Enjoy.
Made a quick compilation showing ABC News openers through the years…
Slightly incorrect - 1985 was the year of “The National”, with “ABC News” returning in 1986.
Yeap, mentioned in the description.
Not sure if there have been any Good Friday Appeal clips floating around here from the past but here’s one from my collection in 1994.
