Aug 20 2020

What we watched: August 2003

  • 20 August 2020

Another random snapshot of what we were watching on TV. This time it’s the week ending 2 August 2003.

The new reality series The Block was the latest breakout hit, there was tragedy in Neighbours, and we were introduced to the first batch of budding pop stars in a new format called Australian Idol.

The Nine Network topped the prime time ratings (OzTAM, 5 cities, 6pm-12mn) for the week — scoring 30.6%, followed by Seven (25.8%), Ten (22.7%), ABC (16.5%) and SBS (4.4%). Digital TV was still in its infancy, with the only multi-channel being the SBS World News Channel, and ABC had not long shut down Fly TV and ABC Kids, amid budget cuts.

Nine won all nights, except Tuesday which went to Seven. Ten’s best night was Friday, where it just pipped Seven into second place. Ten was in third place every other night. ABC ranked fourth every night but its best night was Saturday. SBS was well down in fifth place each night, though its best night was Sunday, which included the final of the Tour de France.

Nine won the week comfortably in all cities except Perth, which was won by Seven.

In regional markets across Queensland, Northern NSW, Southern NSW/ACT and Victoria, the Nine Network affiliates (WIN/NBN) won with a market average of 33.4%, followed by Seven affiliates Prime/7Qld (26.3%), Southern Cross Ten (20.1%), ABC (15.5%) and SBS (4.7%).

In Tasmania, Southern Cross Television (representing both Seven and Ten networks) rated 40.7%, ahead of WIN (34.9%), ABC (20.0%) and SBS (4.3%).

The Top 20 shows for Week 31 (27 July-2 August, 2003):
Rank Program Network Day(s) Viewers*
1 The Block Nine Sun 2417000
2 National Nine News Nine Sun 2143000
3 Room For Improvement Seven Tue 1759000
4 Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show Nine Sat 1757000
5 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Nine Mon 1694000
6 This Is Your Life Nine Thu 1692000
7 National Nine News Nine Sat 1680000
8 Better Homes And Gardens Seven Tue 1669000
9 Australian Idol (Premiere) Ten Sun 1639000
10 McLeod’s Daughters Nine Wed 1638000
11 National Nine News Nine M-F 1580000
12 CSI Miami Nine Wed 1573000
13 Hot Property Seven Wed 1555000
14 Getaway Nine Thu 1553000
15 CSI Crime Scene Investigation (Rpt) Nine Tue 1489000
16 60 Minutes Nine Sun 1480000
17 A Current Affair Nine M-F 1475000
18 Blue Heelers Seven Wed 1473000
19 Law And Order SVU Ten Thu 1464000
20 Friends Nine Mon 1462000
* Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth
Source: Mediaweek, as supplied by OzTAM.

The Nine Network dominated the national Top 20 with 18 shows. The Seven Network had four shows and Network Ten had two — including the premiere of the first season of Australian Idol, hosted by Osher Günsberg (then Andrew G) and James Mathison (pictured).

ABC’s highest ranked program was British drama The Bill on Saturday night, ranked at 34th spot with 1.332 million viewers.

SBS did not have any programs in the Top 100.

The weeknight 6.00pm timeslot was won by National Nine News (#11, 1.580m), followed by Seven News (#41, 1.276m) and The Simpsons (#69, 1.001m).

At 6.30pm, A Current Affair (#17, 1.475m) was ahead of Seven’s Today Tonight (#30, 1.363m) and Ten’s Neighbours (#52, 1.112m), the latter including the wedding of Dee and Toadie (Madeleine West and Ryan Moloney, pictured), which ended in tragedy with Dee presumed dead after the newlyweds’ car plunges off a cliff into water.

At 7.00pm, Seven took the lead with Home And Away (#23, 1.437m), followed by Frasier repeats on Nine (#37, 1.307m), ABC News (#43, 1.180m) and Seinfeld repeats on Ten (#95, 724,000).

The battle of the Sunday night movies was won by Seven’s Shaft (#68, 1.004m), followed by Nine’s The General’s Daughter (repeat) (#71, 977,000). Despite the huge lead-in from Australian Idol, Ten’s Sunday night movie, a repeat of the 1999 film Girl Interrupted, did not make the Top 100. Curiously, the highest ranked movie for the entire week was a repeat of the 1994 film True Lies on Ten on Friday night (#53, 1.102m)

Seven’s Wheel Of Fortune (#89, 745,000) ranked ahead of Nine’s The Price Is Right (#100, 689,000), but both were beaten by Ten News (#60, 1.057m).

Other notable rankings include All Saints (#28, 1.381m), Deal Or No Deal (#29, 1.363m), Rove Live (#48, 1.128m), Enough Rope With Andrew Denton (#51, 1.112m), Kath And Kim (#61, 1.043m), The Mole In Paradise (#70, 986m), The Panel (#84, 822,000), Micallef Tonight (pictured) (#90, 737,000) and Four Corners (#98, 719,000).

Sydney’s top shows for the week were The Block (768,000), National Nine News (Sunday, 631,000), Getaway (541,000), This Is Your Life (520,000) and Room For Improvement and Rugby Union Tri-Nations: Australia v South Africa (both 489,000).

In Melbourne, The Block (750,000) was followed by National Nine News (Sunday, 741,000), Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show (683,000), Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (629,000) and National Nine News (Saturday, 627,000).

In Brisbane, The Block (426,000) was followed by McLeod’s Daughters (364,000), National Nine News (Sunday, 353,000), National Nine News (weeknights, 350,000) and Room For Improvement (340,000)

In Adelaide, National Nine News (Sunday, 285,000) was followed by The Block (247,000), Sunday Afternoon AFL (225,000), Room For Improvement (210,000) and Better Homes And Gardens (207,000).

In Perth, Australian Idol (237,000) was followed by Seven News (Sunday, 234,000), Room For Improvement (228,000), The Block (226,000) and National Nine News (Saturday, 221,000).

Source: Mediaweek, 11 August 2003, with ratings data supplied by OzTAM (metro) and ATR Australia (regional). TV Week, 26 July 2003.

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/08/what-we-watched-august-2003.html

Aug 16 2020

The last TV Times

  • 16 August 2020

Cop Shop stars Peter Adams and Joanna Lockwood on the cover of the last TV Times. 16 August 1980

It is 40 years since the last TV Times rolled off the presses.

The final edition, with Cop Shop stars Peter Adams and Joanna Lockwood on the cover, featured a double-page article on the two actors leaving the series after nearly three years and their characters, ‘JJ’ and Valerie, getting engaged, leading to their exit from the series.

The magazine also previewed the upcoming wedding of characters Olivia Baxter (Zoe Bertram) and Dr Bruce Russell (Malcolm Thompson) in The Restless Years.

The front cover tease of ‘the documentary too good for you to see’ referred to Front Line, the story of ABC cameraman Neil Davis, who filmed the Vietnam War from 1963 to 1975. The documentary had won awards at the Sydney and Melbourne film festivals and at the American Film Festival in New York. It had also been broadcast in the United Kingdom, United States, France and Scandinavia, but was not picked up by any networks in Australia. Networks here cited that the asking price was too expensive and that “55 minutes of the Vietnam war are too hard to schedule in prime time”.

The final TV Times also reported:

  • Network Ten‘s commissioning of Punishment, a ‘male version’ of its top-rating women’s prison drama Prisoner. The new series, to be produced in Sydney, starred Mike Preston, Brian Wenzel, Michele Fawdon, Penne Hackforth-Jones and a young Mel Gibson.

Punishment: Ralph Cotterill, Brian Wenzel, Mel Gibson

  • The Federal Government is determined to have its new multicultural channel on air on United Nations Day, 24 October, although uncertainty continued over what authority would control the new channel. The Government’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) was almost set to be replaced by the Independent Multicultural Broadcasting Corporation (IMBC), but delays in passing the legislation put its future in doubt. As it turned out, the IMBC legislation failed to pass and SBS retained control of the new channel which launched as scheduled.
  • Features on American actor Greg Evigan, from the series BJ And The Bear, and English comedian Jasper Carrott, who had recently completed a tour of Australia.

TV Times, which was born in the late 1950s as TV News-Times out of an early merger of two titles — TV News and TV Times — had 20 years later become swallowed up by a merger with TV Week.

TV Times had long been published in a partnership between Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) and the ABC.

By May 1980, the ABC had assessed that falling circulation and an increase in competition had no longer rendered TV Times financially sustainable. ABC then sold its share of the magazine to ACP. The last issue to be published under the ABC/ACP partnership was dated 28 June 1980.

ACP then went and took TV Times to Southdown Press, publisher of TV Week, and entered into an agreement for Southdown Press to publish TV Week as an amalgamation of both titles on behalf of both owners.

At the same time Southdown Press, then owned by News Limited, had also taken control of the Australian version of TV Guide, which had commenced national publication a year earlier as an expansion of the long-running South Australian magazine of the same name.

The result was all three national magazines — TV Week, TV Times and TV Guide — being merged into a revamped TV Week, with the TV Week masthead incorporating the other two titles in its masthead:

TV Week’s editor Tony Johnston welcomed new readers in the first amalgamated issue — 23 August 1980:

While the amalgamation of three titles into one for TV Week was done on a national scale, the exit of TV Guide from the national market prompted South Australia publisher Messenger Press to launch a new local title — TV Radio Extra — incorporating a similar format and features of the former TV Guide for the local market. Many of the staff that produced the South Australian edition of TV Guide went on to TV Radio Extra.

TV Radio Extra continued publication in South Australia until 1988.

Source: TV Times, 28 June 1980. TV Week, 23 August 1980. TV Radio Extra, 16 August 1980. 48th Annual Report of the Australian Broadcasting Commission 1979-1980.

 

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/08/the-last-tv-times.html

Aug 11 2020

Ten makes cuts to News, Studio 10

  • 11 August 2020

It seems an all too familiar headline, not just for Network Ten but for so many other media outlets.

Today, Ten has announced widespread cuts to its news portfolio, also impacting Studio 10.

From 14 September, presentation of Ten News First will be centralised to Melbourne and Sydney only, with Adelaide’s news presented by Melbourne newsreader Jennifer Keyte, and Brisbane’s news by Sandra Sully in Sydney.

New presenters for the Perth bulletin to be read from Sydney are to be announced.

Sport will be presented by Matt Burke in Sydney and Stephen Quartermain in Melbourne.

The change means that many Ten presenters, some who have been with the network for close to 30 years, will soon have to bid farewell.

Among the presenters to go include Georgina Lewis and Josh Holt from Brisbane, Rebecca Morse, Will Goodings and Kate Freebairn from Adelaide, Monika Kos and Michael Shultz from Perth, Tim Bailey from Sydney and Mike Larkan from Melbourne.

Studio 10 presenters Kerri-Anne Kennerley and Natarsha Belling are also to go, with further changes to the show still to be announced. There are reports that Joe Hildebrand is currently negotiating his future with the program.

A number of production staff are also affected by redundancies.

Ten News First‘s weekend bulletin and The Project appear to be left unchanged.

Despite the news bulletins now based in Sydney and Melbourne, local reporters, camera operators and operations staff will continue to file stories based in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

In centralising News presentation, Ten will soon appoint a national weather presenter for the network, rather than employing individual presenters in each city.

The move mirrors a similar change made by Ten almost twenty years ago, when it shifted presentation of its Adelaide news to Melbourne, and Perth news to Sydney. The cost of digital conversion was cited as the reason for the shift at the time. Ten eventually reinstated local presentation in Adelaide and Perth about a decade ago.

Source: The Age, TV Tonight, Mumbrella

 

 

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/08/ten-makes-cuts-to-news-studio-10.html

Aug 10 2020

Seven Tasmania newsreader’s late farewell

  • 10 August 2020

Seven Tasmania newsreader Rachel Williams was meant to sign off from her final Nightly News bulletin on Sunday night — until a power failure saw the Launceston-based studio taken out of action halfway through the bulletin.

Tasmanian viewers were left to view a blank screen and some ads before Seven switched unannounced to a relay of the Melbourne-based Seven News in progress.


YouTube: TVTNT 69

The glitch meant that Williams did not get to bid farewell to viewers after ten years presenting weekend news for the station.

She was invited back to the news desk on Monday night to give a belated farewell to viewers and to share some highlights and bloopers from a decade at Seven Tasmania, formerly Southern Cross.

Williams announced her resignation from Seven Tasmania a few weeks ago, which came five months after her weeknight colleague Jo Palmer also left the top-rating bulletin.


YouTube: TVTNT 69

Source: Nightly News Seven Tasmania, Rachel Williams

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/08/seven-tasmania-newsreaders-late-farewell.html

Jul 29 2020

Nine News Regional returns with job cuts

  • 29 July 2020

Earlier this year, Nine News suspended production of its regional news bulletins due to the coronavirus pandemic. The regional bulletins, broadcast through Southern Cross Austereo‘s Nine Network affiliated stations in Southern NSW/ACT, Regional Queensland and Regional Victoria, were replaced by a relay of the 6.00pm Nine News from their capital city.

Nine, which produces the bulletins on behalf of Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), has announced that the bulletins are now set to return from 10 August, but in a reduced format.

Instead of each region receiving a one-hour bulletin of national news with local news inserts, Nine News Regional will return to cover only local news from 5.30pm, leading in to the relay of the 6.00pm capital city Nine News, as is now happening.

In an email circulated to affected staff, Nine’s managing director for Queensland and northern NSW, Kylie Blucher cited that ratings were not largely affected by Nine News replacing its regional bulletins with each state’s capital city bulletin, but is committed to maintaining SCA’s licence obligations in providing a local news service.

Around a dozen staff are reported to be let go, with Nine stating that the number would have been higher had it not been for the Federal Government’s $50 million assistance package to regional media.

Nine launched the regional bulletins in 2017 after it formed an affiliation with SCA. At the time it hired around 80 staff to resource the news gathering and production for bulletins covering 15 SCA regions across Queensland, Southern NSW/ACT and Victoria.

The shift of Nine News‘ regional news to 5.30pm may deliver a small benefit to the Ten-affiliated WIN News, which continues to present a half-hour regional news at 6.00pm across many of its eastern states regions.

Source: ABC, B&T

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/nine-news-regional-returns-with-job-cuts.html

Jul 21 2020

Obituary: Rob Gaylard

  • 21 July 2020

Rob Gaylard, former TV and radio presenter and prominent racing identity, has died suddenly at the age of 70.

He had been a sports presenter at BTV6 in Ballarat in the 1980s, later moving to National Nine News in Melbourne.


YouTube: rubicon nz

He also worked as a newsreader at Bendigo-based Southern Cross Eyewitness News when it launched a statewide bulletin following aggregation in 1992.

When Channel 31 began in Melbourne in 1994, he hosted the channel’s Saturday night harness racing coverage. He continued in the role through to 2000.


YouTube: kylegalley

He worked extensively as a host, MC and race caller for various racing clubs and was also a media consultant to the racing industry.

Rob Gaylard is survived by wife Karen and daughter Casey.

Source: Bay 93.9, Racing Victoria, Racing.com

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/obituary-rob-gaylard.html

Jul 19 2020

Obituary: Ralph Baker

  • 19 July 2020

Ralph Baker, the TV producer and floor manager who became a late-night favourite as Melbourne’s Deadly Earnest, has died at the age of 80.

He was diagnosed with myeloma in 2014.

With an early interest in amateur theatre, Baker gained some experience appearing in sketches on GTV9‘s In Melbourne Tonight. He then gained a job in the props department and became a floor manager and producer at ATV0, working on shows including Go!!, Kommotion and Uptight.

Baker, who’d made some minor appearances on shows like The Magic Circle Club, then found himself in the unlikely on-air role of playing the ghoulish character Deadly Earnest, introducing late night B-grade and horror movies on Friday nights. The first film he presented was The Beast With A Million Eyes, on Friday 20 October 1967.

Although in a TV Times interview in November 1967, Baker feigned ignorance at any connection between him and the on-screen character: “I don’t know where people get the idea that I’m Earnest. The fact is that Earnest was born in Transylvania, the son of respectable werewolf parents, during the 15th century.”

“I began life in Lamington Street, Highett (Melbourne) in 1940.”

“I will sometimes admit that Earnest is sometimes seen emerging from the makeup room, an hour after I’ve gone in. But we won’t be sharing for long. He’ll soon have his own dressing room with a scar on the door.”

“It is true, also, that coffin from which he comperes the show fits me like a pinewood glove. But to accuse me of being Earnest would be as absurd as claiming that Mary Poppins is really Julie Andrews.”

Deadly Earnest — the character devised in Perth and adapted with different performers in each capital city — became a popular attraction, particularly for younger viewers.

Baker, who also produced sitcom Good Morning Mr Doubleday, continued to play Deadly Earnest on screen until 1973.


YouTube: RobertJ42

He then created the Pinnacle Puppet Theatre, which continued through to the 1980s.

Baker reprised the role of Deadly Earnest to present Horrorpalooza! at the St Kilda Film Festival in 2011.

Ralph Baker is survived by son Davin Baker, daughter Naomi Miller and second wife Mariam and her daughter Melina Macdonald.


YouTube: Lushscreamqueen — Schlock Treatment

Source: TV Tonight. Funeral Guide. The Professor’s SF & Horror Host Tome. The Age, 19 October 1967. TV Times, 15 November 1967

 

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/obituary-ralph-baker.html

Jul 18 2020

Obituary: Quentin Fogarty

  • 18 July 2020

Quentin Fogarty, the Logie award-winning journalist who attracted international attention reporting on a UFO sighting in New Zealand, died suddenly earlier this month at the age of 73.

Born in New Zealand, he started his career at the Dunedin Evening Star newspaper. Coming to Australia, his career included working for ABC, Seven, Nine, Ten and SBS.

In December 1978 Fogarty, while employed by ATV0 (now Ten) in Melbourne, was holidaying in New Zealand with his family. His boss in Melbourne had heard reports of pilots witnessing strange lights over the skies in New Zealand, and summonsed Fogarty to cover the story.

Fogarty, accompanied by a New Zealand film crew, was then on board a freight aircraft which filmed several bright objects that were also tracked on radar.

The footage and Fogarty’s report was broadcast in Australia on New Year’s Day 1979, and made news around the world as a possible UFO sighting.


YouTube: Dumbbell Dumbbase

A dispute with ATV0 over copyright of the New Zealand footage saw him resign from the channel a few weeks later.

The report also went on to feature in the US science series, In Search Of.

In the early 1980s, Fogarty wrote about his experience in the book Let’s Hope They’re Friendly, and at the time of his death had been working on computer analysis of the footage with the hope of finding a definitive explanation for the sightings.

During his career he also made documentaries, provided media training to politicians and executives and worked in issues management, corporate and government communications.

In 1985, Fogarty won a TV Week Logie Award for Best Documentary for Frontline Afghanistan, produced for ABC. The program told the story of Raffaele Favero, from Victoria, who was killed when he visited Afghanistan in 1983 to film the war. At the time, Fogarty described the documentary as “the best thing I’ve ever worked on”.

Quentin Fogarty is survived by former wife, journalist Sue Ahearn (who wrote the tribute linked below for the Sydney Morning Herald), sons Daniel, Ben, Sam and Jason and seven grandchildren

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, TV Tonight, New Zealand Herald. The Canberra Times, 20 January 1979. TV Week, 4 May 1985. 

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/obituary-quentin-fogarty.html

Jul 13 2020

Ten to launch new channel: 10 Shake

  • 13 July 2020

Network Ten has announced plans to launch a new multi-channel, 10 Shake.

The new channel will have a defined focus on children’s programming from 6.00am to 6.00pm, then the channel moves to adult programming aimed at the under-40s.

10 Shake will sit alongside existing channels 10 Bold and 10 Peach and will bring it closer in line with Seven‘s three multi-channels (7Two, 7mate, 7flix) and Nine‘s four (9Go, 9Gem, 9Life, 9Rush).

10 Shake’s children’s programming includes Bubble Guppies, Henry Danger and Ready Set Dance, SpongeBob SquarePants, iCarly, Breadwinners, Dora the Explorer, The Loud House, Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn, Sam & Cat, Sanjay and Craig, Shimmer and Shine, Team Umizoomi, The Thundermans, Top Wing and PAW Patrol.

Australian-made shows include Totally Wild (now in its 28th year), Scope, Crocamole and children’s drama — moving across from 10 Peach.

PAW Patrol

Prime time programming for the bigger kids includes Ex On The Beach, Lip Sync Battle, South Park, Just Tattoo Of Us, The Charlotte Show, Catfish: The TV Show, Pimp My Ride, Bojack Horseman, Inside Amy Schumer,  The Daily Show With Trevor Noah and The Late Late Show With James Corden.

In a media release issued earlier, Ten’s Head of Programming, Daniel Monaghan, said: “We are thrilled to be adding 10 Shake to our family of channels. It is a fantastic proposition for Australian viewers and includes a great array of content from ViacomCBS, a lot of which has never aired on free to air television before.

“10 Shake daytime will boast over 84 hours a week of the biggest kids’ TV shows on the planet including SpongeBob SquarePants, PAW Patrol and Henry Danger. It will provide a wonderful world of entertainment just for kids.

“10 Shake prime time will be the destination for mischievous big kids who love escapism television with plenty of bite, comedy and fun. With shows like The Charlotte Show, Catfish: The TV Show and Lip Sync Battle forming part of the schedule, it will be self-indulgent TV at its best.”

10 Shake is set to debut in September. It is unclear if the new channel will also be carried on regional affiliates such as WIN, Ten Darwin and Ten Central.


YouTube: 10 Insider

Source: ViacomCBS (Ten)

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/ten-to-launch-new-channel-10-shake.html

Jul 09 2020

50 years since Project Australia

  • 9 July 2020

The launch of the microwave link network between the east and west coasts of Australia in 1970 marked the most significant development in Australian domestic communication since the launch of the coaxial cable between Sydney and Melbourne eight years earlier.

The network of microwave circuits formalised the facility for television programs to be relayed in an instant between the east and west coasts of Australia. Previous ventures to link Western Australia to the east coast included the infrequent, and expensive, use of circling aircraft to bounce long-range signals back to ground.

And a year before the microwave network launched, engineers from ABC, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, the Postmaster-General Department and NASA worked together to provide a complex once-off link via international satellites to allow Western Australian viewers to see the Apollo 11 moon landing live. Had it not been for their efforts, Western Australia would likely to have been one of the few areas in the western world not to see the moon landing as it happened.

Like the coaxial cable between Sydney and Melbourne, the new microwave network that would span from Cairns right across to Carnarvon and eventually include Mount Isa and Darwin also improved national telecommunications, allowing telephone users in the eastern states to direct dial calls to the west and vice versa without going through an operator.

Project Australia, broadcast live on ABC on 9 July 1970, was the program designated to inaugurate the new communications network and the first TV program to be live across all states. Hosted by reporter Richard Oxenburgh in Sydney, Project Australia featured live segments from across the country — from points as far as Cairns, Hobart and Perth. Segment hosts included Earl Reeve in Carnarvon, Claire Dunne and Michael Brock in Kambalda, Patrick Amer (Melbourne), Bob Moore (Adelaide), Bill Brundle and Ken Short (Hobart), Keith Adam (Canberra), Garry Ord and Bruce Short (Brisbane) and John Marshall (Cairns).

Viewers became witness to various snapshots of Australia, including a live televised brain operation from a Melbourne hospital, an interview down a mine shaft in the Western Australian desert, a performance from Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at the site of the Sydney Opera House, a visit to a Sydney nightclub, and a choir at St Peter’s Cathedral in Adelaide.

The telecast of the brain surgery proved to be too graphic for one outside broadcast engineer, who collapsed during the program. But as the old saying goes, the show must go on, and the fainthearted employee was calmly moved aside by his colleagues and the segment continued on air without missing a beat.

The ballet segment from the Sydney Opera House was also a challenge for ABC technicians having to prepare and rig up lighting from the building that was still under construction.

Logistically, the one-hour program involved thirteen large and small outside broadcast vans, 36 studio and outside broadcast cameras, 21 portable microwave link systems and also accessed the Pacific Ocean Satellite through the Moree and Carnarvon Earth Stations. Controlling the complex telecast were producers Humphrey Fisher and Bruce Buchanan and director Alan Bateman, based at ABN2‘s Gore Hill studios in Sydney.

So complex was Project Australia in linking so many parts of the country together in real time, it was almost twenty years later — and the advent of a domestic satellite — before a similar program, Australia Live, was made.

Source: Honeysucklecreek.net. TV Times, 8 July 1970, 22 July 1970. The Age, 2 July 1970. 39th Annual Report, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1970-1971. Aunty’s Jubilee: Celebrating 50 Years Of ABC TV, Tim Bowden and Wendy Borchers, 2006.

 

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/07/50-years-since-project-australia.html