Victoria’s television stations are forced to be restricted to only two hours of programming between 6 and 8pm in a bid to stem widespread power usage across the state following a snap strike called by power workers in the Latrobe Valley.

The restriction forced HSV7 to postpone the final episode of its major mini-series A Town Like Alice to the following Sunday. ABC shifted Nationwide and The Inventors from their usual later timeslots to air in the two-hour timeframe.

GTV9, being the only 24-hour channel in Melbourne, was able to resume transmission at midnight as the 24-hour strike was lifted.

Source: The Age, 22 July 1981

	ABV2	HSV7	GTV9	ATV10	SBS0/28
6AM
7AM
8AM
9AM
10AM
11AM
12PM
1PM
2PM
3PM
4PM
5PM
6PM	6pm The Inventors	6pm The Muppet Show 6.30 Seven National News. Mal Walden	6pm News 6.05 The Young Doctors 6.30 National Nine News. Brian Naylor	6pm Eyewitness News. Jana Wendt, Rod McNeil	6.27pm News Headlines 6.30 Soccer: Philips Soccer League. Les Murray
7PM	7pm ABC News. Geoff Raymond 7.30 Nationwide. Peter Couchman	7pm Willesee At Seven. Mike Willesee 7.30 The Australians. Peter Luck	7pm Sale Of The Century. Tony Barber, Victoria Nicolls 7.30 Superquiz. Bert Newton, Patti Newton 7.55 News	7pm The Restless Years 7.30 MASH	7.30 World News. George Donikian
8PM	8pm Close	8pm Close	8pm Close	8pm Close	8pm Close
9PM
10PM
11PM
12AM			12am Movie: Our Miss Fred [IMDB]
1AM			1.50 Movie: Brothers-In-Law (B&W) [IMDB]
2AM
3AM			3.50 Movie: Strange Homecoming [IMDB]
4AM
5AM			5.10 Danger Man (B&W) (Continues to 6am)