1992: January 25-31

Jana: ‘I welcome the challenge’
A Current Affair host Jana Wendt (pictured) talks to TV Week about the changing news and current affairs environment taking place – in particular, the launch of Real Life, produced by her former 60 Minutes boss Gerald Stone, going head-to-head with ACA.  “I think anything that increases the competition is good,” she said.  “It will sharpen our edge and I welcome that.  I’m confident we can deliver.  I don’t want to sound masochistic, but I welcome the challenge.”  Not only will ACA be duelling with Real Life, but it will also have Derryn Hinch’s new Network Ten show at 6.00pm, giving him a half-hour head start on ACA and Real Life for the day’s big stories.  Ten has also re-launched Ten Eyewitness News as a 5.00pm bulletin, and Nine has its own 5.30pm local news programs coming soon in each state.  Asked how she feels about this changing landscape, Wendt said: “We’ll have to wait and find out, but Nine believes there is a market for news at 5.30pm, so perhaps there is at 5.00pm.”

Stan: ‘It’s the only gig in town’
Former ABC reporter Stan Grant (pictured) said that he had been made offers before to change to commercial television but had always knocked them back in loyalty to the national broadcaster, but then the offer to front Seven’s new Real Life came “out of the blue”.  “This offer came along initially as a reporter,” Grant told TV Week.  “Then (producer) Gerald Stone came to me and said, ‘How would you feel about presenting it?’  It basically came out of the blue, and I said, ‘Yes’.  I’d given presenting a bit of thought at the ABC.  I’d piloted a program there.  I’d also read news updates during the Gulf War, but I was committed to Real Life.  This was to me the only gig in town.”  But although Grant will be the front man of the new show, he emphasises that Real Life is a team effort.  “There’ll be a lot of interaction between myself and the other reporters.  You’ll get a sense of a team at work here, as opposed to a presenter and a lot of sort of faceless, nameless reporters.  It’s definitely not the Stan Grant Show, but I think A Current Affair is the Jana Wendt show.”

Kym’s rockin’ role
A Country Practice star Kym Wilson (pictured) has signed on as the new co-host of Seven’s Saturday morning Video Smash Hits.  Wilson replaces Emily Symons who recently left the show after a two-year stint to pursue acting full time, and will be leaving Home And Away later this year.  “It’ll be interesting to meet the people whose music I love,” Wilson told TV Week.  “I’m an avid music listener.  It’s going to be great fun.”  Wilson, who previously starred in Brides Of Christ, will be continuing in her A Country Practice role as Darcy Hudson.  “I just hope people don’t forget about my acting and consider me just a TV personality,” she said.

Briefly…
Andrew Daddo (pictured) is making his return to Australian television in Nine’s new ‘whodunnit’ game show, Cluedo.  Daddo, who has returned from the US after a year with MTV, will join Frank Gallacher, Jane Badler, Nicki Paull, Joy Westmore and Peter Sumner as the principal characters based on the Cluedo board game.  George Mallaby is also tipped to be joining the show, but this has yet to be confirmed.

E Street star Toni Pearen, whose character Toni is the next potential victim of mass-murderer Mr Bad (Vince Martin) in episodes to air this week, says that the serial killer storyline has done wonders for the show’s ratings.  “Every soap has mediocre times and E Street was going through such a period when, all of a sudden, this serial-killer storyline comes along,” she told TV Week.  “I just think it is something that no other soap has done before, so viewers have really taken to it.”  When it is pointed out that in the Seventies, Number 96 shocked the nation with its pantyhose strangler mystery (pictured), she is nothing less than amazed.  “Wow, a pantyhose murderer!  Okay, so I wasn’t around then.  This serial killer thing is new to my generation.”

Actress Tammy MacIntosh (pictured) is looking forward to her new role in the ABC series Police Rescue after a year of setbacks.  After quitting The Flying Doctors in 1990, a collarbone injury saw her withdraw from a role in the $4.5 million film Garbo.  Then a role in feature film It’s Now Or Never, alongside Jason Donovan, came to an abrupt end when the film’s finance fell through.  Things looked better when she signed on for Nine’s Chances, but a controversial incident over a nude scene saw that role short-lived.  “I rang my agent every day for a month to find out if I’d got the Police Rescue part,” she told TV Week.  “When I found out I had the role, I just burst into tears.  I couldn’t believe it.  I feel very lucky about the way things have turned out.”

The Nine Network has announced that Lisa Patrick (pictured) will replace Jacki MacDonald as host of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show.  “I just feel so privileged,” she said.  “I’ve watched Jacki for years and she always made me laugh.  Now, to go in after her… well, I don’t quite know what to say.” Patrick, 26, was a former model who hit the big time in 1989 with a role in the US sitcom Live In, although the series was axed after ten episodes. 

John Laws says…
”You have to admire the tenacity of the people behind Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  I’ve lost count of the number the times the series has almost crash-landed.  Yet – amazingly – it remains airborne, its continuing survival achieved by switching the route and turning a handful of hapless actors into free-fall sky divers.  But, in television, and especially in the soapies field, survival is the name of the game.  Any actor who joins a soapie realises only too well that he or she could be out on their ear in weeks or months, depending on the acceptance level of their character.  In the latest shake-up, there appears to have been a casting slaughterhouse, with one actor – Sarah Chadwick – already gone and six others, described as playing “favourite” characters, pencilled in for departure.  This is draconian, even by soapie standards.  Crawfords, though, are old hands at the soapie business and the tendency is to believe that they know what they’re doing.  In the case of The Flying Doctors, let’s hope so, because it has been around a long time, providing employment for hundreds of people, and enjoyment by millions.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, January 25-31):
Saturday:  Saturday afternoon sport includes tennis (the Women’s Singles Final for the Australian Open) on Seven, test cricket on Nine and golf followed by lawn bowls on ABC. 

Sunday: Australia Day is dominated largely by sport – more golf on ABC, more cricket on Nine, and the Men’s Singles Final of the Australian Open on Seven.  ABC presents the Australia Day Address by the Governor-General just before the 7.00pm news.  Sunday night movies are The Fremantle Conspiracy (Seven), City Heat (Nine) and Stealing Heaven (Ten), up against soccer (Australia versus Sweden) on SBS, and ABC’s tribute to conductor, the late Stuart Challender on Sunday Stereo Special.

Monday:  ABC crosses to Minnesota, USA, for live coverage of the NFL XXVI Superbowl, hosted by Don Lane.  Seven’s morning news program Eleven AM returns for the new year, as does ABC’s evening current affairs program The 7.30 Report.

Tuesday:  Beyond 2000 (Seven) returns, with Simon Reeve reporting on Jamaica’s solution to pollution from bauxite mining.  Amanda Keller takes a ride on a turbo swing, and Bryan Smith discovers growing food in space is a tricky business.

Wednesday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Sally’s (Kate Ritchie) first day at high school does not go well. 

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), an anxious neighbourhood awaits news on Toni (Toni Pearen, pictured), who is missing and has found herself trapped in dense bush and tied to her car bumper by serial killer Mr Bad (Vince Martin).

Friday:  Blackout (ABC) looks at the topics of assimilation, adoption and sexual abuse in the Aboriginal community, and how these circumstances have prompted the creation of addictive personalities.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  25 January 1992.  Southdown Press

1992: January 4-10

Goodbye E Street
Alyssa-Jane Cook (pictured) says that now is the best time to leave E Street after the string of tragedies that have struck her character, Lisa Bennett.  “After everything the character has been through she definitely needs a break, so she heads to Queensland to contemplate life,” Cook told TV Week.  “But I think I’ve been there three years and I just think it is time to have a look around and see what else is happening, and to look at my life and decide which way I want to go next.”  Although Cook describes her character’s departure from the series as “scary, thrilling, hot and cold”, she is not ruling out a return at a later date.  “If Lisa Bennett comes back, let’s hope she smiles a lot more,” she said.

Coopers Crossing crisis!
Despite the show going into an extended “production break” two months ago, the Nine Network has given the go-ahead for thirteen more episodes of The Flying Doctors – but six of the show’s cast will not be returning.  Robert Grubb, who plays Dr Geoffrey Standish, is unavailable to do the new episodes, while co-stars Lenore Smith, David Reyne, Nikki Coghill, Paul Kelman and Chris Stollery have reportedly been axed.  Producers have confirmed that Sophie Lee and showbiz favourites Maurie Fields and Val Jellay (pictured) will be staying.  With the current backlog of episodes set to resume broadcast in February, production on the new series is due to start in March and the new episodes should screen by the end of the year.

Ian’s the prime suspect
Cluedo, a new game show based on the popular board game, is set to begin production for the Nine Network next month.  The hour-long show will be hosted by Ian McFadyen (The Comedy Company) and will have a regular cast who will play various roles in a murder mystery.  At the end of the episode, members of the studio audience – each equipped with computer-linked electronic selectors – will be asked to nominate who the murderer is, how he or she did the crime, and where.  The first to guess all criteria correctly wins the prize.  Cluedo is being produced by Crawfords Australia and will debut on Nine later in the year.

Briefly…
TV Week has opened voting for the 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards, to be held at the Radisson President Hotel, Melbourne, in March and telecast via the Seven Network.  As well as the Gold and Silver Logie categories – for most popular personality and most popular actor/actress respectively – TV Week readers will be asked to vote for their favourite drama series, mini-series or telemovie, light entertainment/comedy program, public affairs program, lifestyle program, sports coverage, music video and children’s program.  Other categories open to the public vote are Most Popular Actor and Actress in a Telemovie or Mini-series, Most Popular New Talent as well as state-based awards for Most Popular Personality and Most Popular Program.

Former Young Talent Time cast member Debbie Hancock (pictured with YTT host Johnny Young back in the ‘70s) made a recent return to television as a contestant on Network Ten’s Blind Date, and since returning from the trip to Italy that she won with her date Mike Neat, the couple have announced their engagement.  “I never expected to find a man on Blind Date,” she told TV Week.  “Having had failed relationships, this is fairytale stuff.”

Network Ten drama Neighbours makes an early season return for 1992 – with Glen Donnelly (Richard Huggett) taken to hospital in a coma following a fall from a building site in the 1991 season cliff-hanger.  Glen wakes to learn he is paralysed from the waist down.  The storyline will lead to Huggett’s exit from the series, making his last appearance on screen in February.  “I am glad I left with something dramatic rather than just wandering out,” he told TV Week.

John Laws says…
”Does the title of Gerald Stone’s new current affairs show on the Seven Network (Real Life) imply that until now we have been experiencing something less than actual reality?  But let’s not be unkind to Gerald.  It’s quite a task to promote a new current affairs program these days – and promote it in such a way that the viewing public ends up believing it’s going to be something completely different.  But where will Real Life fit into the scheme of things, and just how different will it be?  If you look closely at the advance trumpeting you could be excused for thinking that, well, isn’t it all just a teeny-weeny bit A Current Affair-ish?

Program Highlights (Melbourne/Regional Victoria, January 4-10):
Saturday:  Seven (and regional affiliate Prime) has more tennis with the semi-finals of the Australian Women’s Hardcourt Championships, live from Brisbane, in the afternoon, and the Australian Men’s Hardcourt Championships, live from Adelaide, in the evening.  Nine (and regional VIC TV) crosses to Sydney for Test Cricket – the Third Test between Australia and India. 

Sunday:  Seven/Prime cover the final of the Australian Women’s Hardcourt Championships in the afternoon, and the final of the Men’s competition in the evening.  Nine/VIC TV has more Test Cricket from the SCG.  After Seven Nightly News, Seven/Prime debuts children’s drama Clowning Around – the story of a boy who fulfils his dreams against all odds – starring Noni Hazlehurst, Ernie Dingo, Rebecca Smart and Clayton Williamson.  Sunday night movies are Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (Nine/VIC TV) and Baywatch: The Trophy (Ten and regional Southern Cross Network).

Monday:  Aussie soaps Home And Away (Seven/Prime) and Neighbours (Ten/SCN) return for 1992 – now both screening against each other in the 7.00pm timeslot.

Tuesday:  The summer of tennis continues on Seven/Prime with the NSW Open, live from White City, Sydney.  In Neighbours (Ten/SCN), Madge (Anne Charleston, pictured) learns that she is to receive a $250,000 payment from her late husband Harold’s (Ian Smith) life insurance policy.

Wednesday:  Marcia Hines, Simon Gallaher and Tina Arena are among 25 performers at the Australian AIDS Benefit Concert, screening on ABC, introduced by Ita Buttrose and hosted by Jean Kittson (The Big Gig).

Thursday: Nine presents limited live coverage in Melbourne of the Benson And Hedges World Series Cricket, due to the match being held at the MCG, with only two hours in the afternoon and a highlights package from 11.30pm.  Regional network VIC TV presents live coverage of the full day’s play.

Friday:  In Blackout (ABC), Aboriginal singer and songwriter Archie Roach talks about his life and his forced removal from his family for assimilation into white society. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria Country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  4 January 1992.  Southdown Press

1991: December 21-27

Two secret showbiz weddings
Secrecy was the key word surrounding two recent celebrity weddings.  Actor Cameron Daddo has married model Alison Brahe at the Garrison Church in Sydney’s historic Rocks area – while E Street star Marianne Howard married dancer Drew Anthony at the secluded Holy Trinity Anglican Church at Berrima, NSW.  Both weddings were shrouded in secrecy as the couples sought to escape mass media coverage.

Ray seizes the day again
Despite persistent rumours that he was headed to the Seven Network to front the new current affairs program, unofficially dubbed ‘Project X’, Midday host Ray Martin says he will be with Nine in the new year and insists it was never going to be any other way.  “I’ve never spoken to (producer) Gerald Stone about ‘Project X’,” Martin told TV Week.  “My understanding is that he has a real commitment not to poach people from Channel Nine.  The rumour regarding me isn’t, and wasn’t, true.”  Martin has also revealed that due to his wife giving birth to their second child he has pulled the pin on a planned night-time interview show that was set to screen on Friday nights that had been given the go-ahead by Nine.  “We were going to be on air for 90 minutes after Burke’s Backyard,” Martin said.  “So the bottom line is I will definitely do Midday next year and other specials.  I’ll also fill in for Jana Wendt (on A Current Affair), which I’m delighted to do as long as it’s for short stints.”  Martin is also looking forward to next year as it marks the 20th year for Midday – having started as The Mike Walsh Show on the 0-10 Network in 1973 before moving across to Nine in 1977.  Mike Walsh then made the controversial, and short-lived, move to prime-time while Martin took over the re-named Midday in 1985.  “We are looking to get a special show up, with me and Mike Walsh co-hosting,” Martin said.  “We have a lot of television under our belts.”

‘Let me out of here!’
Home And Away actress Dee Smart (pictured with co-star Bruce Roberts) has likened her two-year contract to the Seven Network series to a prison sentence as she is desperate for “release” after eight months.  “It feels like I’ve been here for years,” she told TV Week.  After studying acting for two-and-a-half years, the 25-year-old says the constant turnaround of episode production is what is most frustrating.  “There is no time to develop.  It is almost impossible to do a good job with the amount of time you have,” she told TV Week.  “I used to bag the soapies.  I used to say, ‘That actor is so bad.  How can they be on this show? It’s awful’.  Now I have nothing but admiration for these guys because of the amount of time they have.  I’m amazed they even get the words out, let alone try to act at all.  There is just no time to think about things.  And this Lucinda character goes on and on and on.  It is kind of abnormal for a character to last this long.”  But despite her frustration, Smart says Home And Away has been an invaluable learning experience.  “I’m learning and being stretched in my acting,” she says.  “If you can justify the ups and downs of soap, you can justify anything.  One thing is certain, I won’t go racing into another long-term contract.”

Briefly…
ABC’s The Afternoon Show host Michael Tunn (pictured) has scored a coup with an exclusive interview with US boy band New Kids On The Block when they tour Australia next month.  “We do requests on The Afternoon Show, and at least half are for New Kids On The Block,” 17-year-old Tunn told TV Week.  “We thought, as they’d be touring Australia – and because our audience loves them so much – we would look at the behind-the-scenes as well as out front.  The boys have agreed to an extensive interview with us backstage during the tour.”  The interview and behind-the-scenes special is expected to go to air in February.

Sale Of The Century host Glenn Ridge, whose career started in radio in the late 1970s, is set to present the breakfast shift on Melbourne radio station TTFM while its regular hosts Darren James and Jane Holmes are on holiday.

After two years studying acting in the US, former Double Dare host and Home And Away star Gerry Sont (pictured) is back in Australia and has signed a one-year contract with the Nine Network’s Chances.  Sont plays the role of Cal Lawrence, a bit of a loner who lets chance decide what he does and ends up having an affair with Barbara (Brenda Addie).  “Chances is a real challenge for me,” Sont told TV Week.  “It’s challenging people’s view of drama.  It doesn’t follow the simple formula of Neighbours or The Flying Doctors.  It’s new and it’s fun.”

With the future of The Flying Doctors in limbo, actor Paul Kelman is excited to have picked up a role in another Crawfords Australia production, the upcoming children’s series Halfway Across The Galaxy And Turn Left.  “I’m rapt because this is so different to anything I’ve done before,” he told TV Week.  “I’m playing a character from another planet so it’s a big challenge to make something like this believable to the audience.”  Halfway Around The Galaxy And Turn Left co-stars Kerry Armstrong, Bruce Spence, Colleen Hewett, Sandy Gore, Jan Freidl and Lauren Hewett and is expected to screen on the Seven Network in 1992.

Lawrie Masterson‘s Sound Off
It was under wraps longer than the identity of Who Shot JR (does anyone remember?), but the Seven Network finally has loosened up on some of the details of Gerald Stone’s so-called ‘Project X’.  In about four weeks, Seven will unveil a new 6.30pm program which, considering it’s television, has been given the unreal title of Real Life.  Consequently – and as has been expected for ages – the soap Home And Away will be thrust into head-to-head combat with Network Ten’s Neighbours at 7.00pm.  The intrigue continues about how some names and faces out of left-field – notably the program’s host, former ABC man Stan Grant – will fare at taking on the almost death-defying challenge of trying to topple Jana Wendt’s A Current Affair on the Nine Network.  And will Grant sign off with the line: “That’s real life?”  Questions also continue about the effects of the two soaps having to battle each other.  Could it be that the biggest beneficiaries of that little scrap will be Nine’s Sale Of The Century or ABC News?

Program Highlights (Melbourne, December 21-27):
Saturday:  Nine presents a one-hour special, Spirit Of Australia, documenting Australia’s entrant in the Americas Cup and their challenge to bring the cup back to Australia.  Barry Crocker and Jackie Love host Seven’s Carols In The Domain, featuring performances by Judith Durham, David Hobson, Suzanne Clachair and The Australian Girls Choir.

Sunday:  Seven’s afternoon is dominated by Christmas movies and specials, while Ten crosses to New Zealand for the Ironman Super Series.  Sunday night movies are Ernest Saves Christmas (Seven), Going In Style (Nine) and Prancer (Ten).

Tuesday:  The highlight of Christmas Eve is the traditional Carols By Candlelight, live from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, hosted by Ray Martin and featuring performances by John Farnham, Marina Prior (pictured with Martin), James Blundell, Julie Anthony, Denis Walter, John Bowles, Anthony Warlow, Debbie Byrne and Tommy Emmanuel.  Seven screens the movie Scrooge, while ABC presents the 1956 musical comedy High Society.  Later in the evening, Ten presents the traditional Midnight Mass For You At Home.

Wednesday (Christmas Day):  ABC’s broadcast day begins with Christmas Mass, celebrated by Pope John Paul II at St Peter’s Basilica, Rome.  Christmas morning on Seven is predominantly cartoons followed by delayed broadcast of Adelaide’s John Martin’s Christmas Pageant and the 1983 movie Bush Christmas, starring John Ewart, John Howard and Nicole Kidman.  Nine presents a replay of last night’s Carols By Candlelight, and Ten presents Christmas specials and movies throughout the day.  SBS screens a one-hour Christmas Carols concert, recorded by the SBS Youth Orchestra.  ABC, Seven and Ten include the Queen’s Christmas Message in their evening news bulletins, while Nine broadcasts it later in the evening.  Seven presents a one-hour special Darling Harbour Christmas Parade, hosted by Kathryn Greiner and Rev Dr Gordon Moyes – while ABC’s That’s Dancin’ presents a special Christmas edition featuring guest stars Marina Prior, Rhonda Burchmore, Tony Fenelon and The Barbara Lynch Dance Group.

Thursday: From midday Ten presents 90 minutes of live coverage of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, with updates through the afternoon.  With the cricket Second Test being played at the MCG, Nine in Melbourne picks up coverage only from 3.40pm until close of play at 6.00pm, with half an hour of highlights from 11.40pm.  At 5.30pm, Ten crosses to Perth for live coverage of the Australian Derby horse racing.  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), Rowie’s (Sarah Chadwick) seriously ill father is admitted to hospital and pleads with Guy (David Reyne) not to tell Rowie of the severity of his illness.

Friday:  ABC presents a new series of Aboriginal affairs program Blackout.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  21 December 1991.  Southdown Press