Jan 20 2020
By the turn of the ’80s it was the unofficial benchmark for each commercial network to have two successful soapie dramas in the schedule. Seven had Cop Shop and Skyways, and Nine had The Sullivans and The Young Doctors. The then 0-10 Network had the popular Prisoner and teen drama The Restless Years. For some reason, …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2020/01/arcade-going-from-hero-to-zero.html
Oct 14 2019
Actor Patrick Ward, star of various Australian films and television series, has died at the age of 69. He left school in Sydney at the age of 14 and at the age of 16 began as a dancer before joining the Independent Theatre in Sydney and trained as an actor. He starred as lawyer Mike …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2019/10/obituary-patrick-ward.html
Jun 02 2018
The Eighties and Nineties sure brought some soapie clunkers to the otherwise top-rating Nine Network. After the demise of former hit series The Young Doctors and The Sullivans, each year brought the promise of a new arrival that would, inevitably, die a ratings death and play out its remaining episodes in the summer non-ratings period. …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2018/06/paradise-beach-where-sand-gets-in-the-soap.html
Aug 17 2015
The 1959 Australian visit by Princess Alexandra (pictured) was cause for Sydney’s three TV channels to jointly cover some of the official events during her brief stay in Canberra. Covering events from the national capital was a considerable technical exercise for ABC in setting up local outside broadcast facilities and getting pictures sent direct from Canberra to Sydney …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2015/08/classic-tv-guides-the-1959-royal-tour.html
Jun 30 2015
Cover: Nicky Buckley (Sale Of The Century) How Sale sank the soaps! It was meant to be the battle of the soaps — Seven‘s Home And Away versus Ten‘s new Echo Point — but the winner of the 7.00pm timeslot has been Sale Of The Century! Ten’s new effort has debuted to ratings that have …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2015/06/1995-june-24-30.html
Apr 05 2015
Continuing the early history of TEN10, Sydney. Refer also to Part I and Part II. Leading into the ’80s, TEN10 and the newly-relaunched Network Ten had its hopes stacked on its new soapie — Arcade. With a $3 million budget, the main studio decked out to portray a shopping mall, an impressive cast of fresh and mature talent …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2015/04/ten10-from-arcade-to-e-street.html
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2015/01/networks-its-time-to-go-retro.html
Nov 14 2014
A little while ago an American TV blog, Comfort TV, ran a series of articles listing its favourite TV themes of each decade from the 1950s to 1980s. Many were of shows very familiar to Australian audiences, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Happy Days, The Love Boat, Cheers, Moonlighting, Twin Peaks and Highway To …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2014/11/top-10-aussie-tv-themes.html
Oct 31 2014
Mike Dorsey, the actor best known for playing Reg “Daddy” MacDonald in Number 96, has died in Western Australia. Number 96 writer David Sale tweeted news of Dorsey’s passing earlier this week. Born in England, Dorsey migrated to Australia in the mid-1960s and soon started appearing in guest roles in various TV series including Hunter, …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2014/10/obituary-mike-dorsey.html
Jul 30 2014
[Part III of this week’s theme commemorating 50 years of Network Ten which made its first appearance on 1 August 1964 with the launch of ATV0 (now Ten) in Melbourne. Refer also to Part I and Part II posts] The dawn of the 1980s marked a significant chapter in the life of ATV0 as it …
Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2014/07/atv10-a-new-decade-a-new-channel.html
Jan 25 2015
Networks, it’s time to go retro
25 January 2015
The advent and conversion to digital television has opened the market right up to new opportunities and niche markets as broadcasters can now cram more digital channels in the same space that in the past used to only accommodate one analogue channel. In the United States, the conversion to digital television has opened up a …
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