On This Day — 31 December

31 December 1969: Barry Crocker (Barry Crocker’s Sound Of Music)

31 December 1977: Paul Hogan and Delvene Delaney (The Paul Hogan Show)

31 December 1988: Annie Jones (Neighbours)

31 December 1994: Grant Bowler, Lisa McCune, Damian Walshe-Howling (Blue Heelers)

31 December 1959: All three Melbourne channels present variety shows for New Year’s Eve, including GTV9 running an extended edition of In Melbourne Tonight.

31 December 1974: The Nine Network and News Limited launch a 28-hour telethon to raise funds for the victims of Cyclone Tracy that had destroyed the city of Darwin just days earlier on Christmas Eve — Cyclone Tracy: ‘The day Darwin died’ [2014]

31 December 1979: Includes the Festival Of Sydney New Year’s Eve Concert from the Sydney Opera House, hosted by Grahame Bond and including performances by Rolf Harris, Marcia Hines, Jon English, John St Peeters and The Angels.

31 December 1989: SBS begins its now-traditional New Year’s Eve presentation of the German comedy sketch Dinner For One — An unlikely New Year’s tradition [2007]

31 December 1990: Aggregation arrives in regional Queensland with local commercial networks Sunshine, WIN and QTV — Queensland TV stirred up by aggregation! [2010]

31 December 1991: Aggregation arrives in Northern NSW and the Gold Coast with local commercial networks Prime, NBN and NRTV — Aggregation anniversaries: NNSW and VIC [2011]

YouTube: TelevisionAU

31 December 1999: ABC is one of the worldwide consortium of 60 broadcasters to partake in 2000 Today, a 28-hour television event covering New Year’s midnight celebrations from around the world and capturing the first dawn breaking for the year 2000. The Nine Network presents Millennium Live, a similar program covering New Year’s celebrations from Australia and overseas — Back to the Millennium [2019]

31 December 2000: Digital television commences at midnight, but with few digital receivers in the market it was introduced with barely a mention — Digital TV turns 20 [2021]

31 December 2003: New TV Station — Southern Cross Ten, Spencer Gulf North, South Australia and Broken Hill, New South Wales — Ten years for Ten affiliates [2014]

31 December 2013: Pay-TV channels TV1 and SF sign-off — Goodbye from TV1 [2014]