1992: May 31-June 6

Shaping up for motherhood!
Teenage star Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) was determined that her on-screen pregnancy in Home And Away would look as real as possible.  For almost nine months she wore bodysuits of various shapes and sizes as her character Sophie’s pregnancy progressed.  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” she told TV Week.  “However, I haven’t felt very attractive – just fat and large.  But it was comfortable and looked quite real, so I got into the role with ease.  As Sophie got bigger, I had to make it look as though her situation was very awkward and extremely uncomfortable.” 

Michelle ‘fesses up!
Fast Forward’s street-wise couple Michelle (Magda Szubanski) and Ferret (Alan Pentland) give TV Week a few pointers on life on the streets.  “Well, firsta all, if youse lag on someone, ya dob ‘em in, ya become a dog,” Michelle says while the normally mute Ferret nods in agreement.  "And then rollin’ someone is muggin’ em, nod the head is pleadin’ guilty and ‘fess up is confess to the coppers on tape.”  Michelle also says that to look good is important.  “The jeans have to look like you’ve been born in ‘em and the hickeys are a fashion accessory, but more than two is in bad taste,” she says. 

Will Mike stop the clock?
60 Minutes reporter Mike Munro talks to TV Week about his plans to spend more time with the family and less time travelling the globe filing reports for the program.  “Things will definitely come to a head over the next couple of years,” he said.  “I’ve got two priorities in life – my family and 60 Minutes, in that order.  I’m happy at the moment, but eventually I will have to start spending a lot more time with the family.  I could even qualify as a house husband!  I’m pretty domesticated, a good cook, and I clean and iron and do all those sorts of things.”

On their blocks!
When the Seven Network successfully bid $40 million for the Australian television rights for the Barcelona Olympic Games, many high-profile media personalities from other networks fought for a place on Seven’s team.  One of those was Bruce McAvaney (pictured), who was unhappy at the financially-ailing Ten Network and saw the Games as a great reason to change camps.  Fortunately for him Seven agreed, but not everyone was successful in getting a spot on Seven’s team.  “We had calls from some extraordinary people,” Seven’s director of sport Gary Fenton told TV Week.  “I’m talking about technical and on-air people.  A lot wanted to be part of this were not considered good enough to be involved.”  The Seven Network is sending a team of 154 to Barcelona, including commentators and technical personnel – putting together what Seven claims is the largest offshore broadcast in the history of Australian TV.  However, Seven’s investment is minuscule when compared to the US network giant NBC which paid $401 million for the broadcast rights and is sending over a team of 3000.  Seven’s coverage will be fronted by McAvaney and Garry Wilkinson, while specialist commentators will include Ron Casey (boxing), John Bertrand (yachting), John Alexander (tennis), Neil Brooks (swimming) and Lindsay Gaze (basketball).  Seven’s on-air team for the Games also includes Sandy Roberts, Peter Landy, Drew Morphett, Peter Mitchell, Pat Welsh, Cameron Williams, Lisa Curry-Kenny, Dennis Cometti, Max Stevens, Edwina Gatenby, Ian Hyslop, Duncan Armstrong, Alexis Hamilton-Smith, Cathy Freeman, Steve Moneghetti, Andrew Gaze, Lisa Forrest, Peter Meares and Kim Watkins.  The Barcelona Olympic Games launch with the opening ceremony on 25 July.

Briefly…
The hot tip going around the industry is that A Current Affair host, TV Week Gold Logie winner Jana Wendt is keen to step away from the program and spend more time with her young son, Daniel.  She is also believed to be considering returning to university to do extra studies.  Midday host Ray Martin is tipped to take over Wendt’s role on A Current Affair with John Mangos taking over Martin’s spot on Midday.

Network Ten sports reporter Eddie McGuire (pictured) is confirmed as part of the line-up for new Melbourne radio station 3EE which is due to launch at the end of June.  McGuire will be hosting a Saturday morning show on the new station which fills the gap left by the closure of 3XY in September last year.

Former Home And Away star Julian McMahon has turned down a guest role in E Street. The former model is about to head off to the US, but E Street producers are still keen to pursue him for other roles in the future.

What’s Cooking co-host Colette Mann says that since the show launched a year ago she’s constantly being approached by the public when shopping.  “People will come up to me and say, ‘Shouldn’t you be somewhere else?’, meaning on TV,” she said.  “You want to scream at them, ‘No, the show’s taped!’.  Or they go, ‘What’s cooking, Colette?’, and they think they’re the first person in the world to think of it.  But I must say I’ve never had a bad reaction from people about the show.”  And when asked about her co-star, French-born chef Gabriel Gate, she says their unlikely on-screen partnership has benefited both of them.  “My cooking has improved a lot and his television has improved a lot!”

Let The Blood Run Free, the off-beat hospital comedy from the producers of The Comedy Company and featuring Jean Kittson and Peter Rowsthorn (pictured), is coming back for a second series.  Production is to resume at the Network Ten studios in Melbourne, although the network has yet to make a commitment to programming the series.  The first series, produced in 1990, was sold to 12 countries and was a hit in Germany and the Netherlands.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”The American sitcom Cheers has a chequered history in this country.  From memory, it started life here on Network Ten and was pushed around various timeslots until – like other US sitcoms such as Roseanne and Married… With Children – someone at Ten placed it in someone else’s too hard basket.  Since it became Nine Network property two or three years ago, Cheers has enjoyed increased success, while never setting the globe ablaze and while still having to cope with some buffeting around the program schedule.  In the US, of course, it’s been a different story.  The NBC sitcom regularly finishes in the five top-rating shows on the year and the nondescript little bar on Beacon Street in Boston, where the show is set, has become a national landmark.  After making its US debut in 1982 at a lowly number 77 in the ratings, Cheers climbed steadily until – by the time it celebrated its 200th episode about 18 months ago – it was number one.  Better late than never, the Nine Network will screen the special hour-long celebration episode this week.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne: May 31-June 6):
Sunday:  Seven crosses to Football Park, Adelaide, for live coverage of the afternoon AFL match between Adelaide Crows and North Melbourne.  Sunday night movies are Road House (Seven), I Love You To Death (Nine) and Aliens (Ten).

Monday:  Martin Jacobs, Geraldine Turner and Ben Oxenbould star in That Man’s Father, the final instalment of SBS’ Six Pack drama series.  In A Country Practice (Seven), Sergeant Newman (Jon Concannon) suspects young James Hutton (Ari Mattes) is a victim of incest.

Tuesday:  In All Together Now (Nine), Marcus (Lochie Daddo, pictured) a school friend of Thomas’ (Steven Jacobs) falls for Tracy (Rebecca Gibney).  In Chances (Nine), Sean Becker (Stephen Whittaker), an old friend of Alex’s (Jeremy Sims) arrives at the agency and sets his sights on Angela (Patsy Stephen).

Wednesday:   In Neighbours (Ten), Madge (Anne Charleston) makes a decision about Lou’s (Tom Oliver) marriage proposal.  Nine crosses to the Sydney Football Stadium for live coverage of the Rugby League State Of Origin match between NSW and Queensland.

Thursday:  Seven presents a one-hour special, Barcelona With Steve Vizard, exploring life in Barcelona today and its cultural history in the lead up to the city hosting the Olympic Games.  In Embassy (ABC), Terry Blake (Frankie J. Holden) applies for a promotion to a job in Canberra.

Friday:  Following Andrew Denton: Live And Sweaty, ABC presents the debut of a British game show with a difference – Sticky Moments With Julian Clary.

Saturday:  Network Ten launches a new children’s program, The Shorn Sheep Show, featuring Joy Smithers, a former MTV co-host and actress in the acclaimed mini-series Bangkok Hilton.  SBS current affairs program Dateline presents a special report to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Six-Day War, with Mike Carey reporting from Egypt, Israel and Jordan.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  30 May 1992.  Southdown Press.

TV Week Logie Awards: 10 years ago

All Saints star Georgie Parker was awarded the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 44th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Crown Entertainment Complex on Sunday, 28 April 2002, and televised on the Nine Network.

It was Parker’s second Gold Logie, having also won the publicly-voted award the previous year.  She was presented with the award by Good Morning Australia host and four-time Gold Logie winner Bert Newton.

“This is a great personal thing for me, but it always reflects back to the show,” Parker told TV Week.  “Winning the Gold is exciting and weird at the same time.  I don’t really make myself accessible as a personality, so it’s interesting to get an award for Most Popular Personality.”

Her fellow nominees for the Gold Logie were Rove McManus (Rove Live), Ada Nicodemou (Home And Away), Libby Tanner (All Saints) and John Wood (Blue Heelers).

Comedian Wendy Harmer (pictured) was the host of the evening – the first female to ever host the Logies presentation solo – but as a number of other Logies hosts have found, it is one of the toughest gigs in television.  Reviews of Harmer’s performance were harsh to say the least, but even the host herself later accepted that it was not her finest work, as she told The Age in 2010:

''One of the things that happened to me was that I'd been doing radio in Sydney for so long that when I came down to talk to an audience who are in Melbourne doing TV, they basically said, 'What does she know about what we're doing?' And fair enough, in retrospect.''

''And here's the interesting dilemma. Where do you learn to do something like that? You only learn it in the doing of it.''

''Some of the advice I got from the producers was really bad. The funny part about it is that I think I would now know how to do it.''

As well as Parker’s Gold Logie it was a big year for All Saints, with the show also winning two Silver Logies – one for Most Popular Program and the other for Libby Tanner as Most Popular Actress.

After more than twenty years on television, dating back to classic soaps The Restless Years and Sons And Daughters, actor Peter Phelps from Stingers (Nine) collected the Logie the Most Popular Actor. “This is just fantastic… totally unexpected,” he told TV Week. “The Logie means people respect your work and that’s really the best thing you can possibly have as an actor.”

Network Ten’s drama series The Secret Life Of Us (cast pictured) also scored well with two Logies to its credit – Most Outstanding Drama Series and for Deborah Mailman as Most Outstanding Actress.  And with the Big Brother craze at the height of its popularity, the Network Ten show took out the Logie for Most Popular Reality Program.  As Big Brother conducted its live eviction shows on Sunday nights, the show’s host Gretel Killeen accepted the award via a live cross to the Big Brother set on the Gold Coast.

In accepting Rove Live’s award for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program, host and producer Rove McManus (pictured) dedicated the award to his “partner in life and partner in crime”, actor and TV presenter Belinda Emmett. 

Seven’s current affairs program Today Tonight had finally scored its first Logie for Most Popular Public Affairs Program – a category that its main rival A Current Affair had dominated since the category was launched in 1989, having lost out only once to Today Tonight’s predecessor Real Life.  “It’s testament to the fact that we’ve plugged away for so many years,” host Naomi Robson said.  “All the hard work has paid off.  I want to thank Seven for sticking with us.  There was a point a few years back where people were starting to say, ‘Are they going to make it?’ But here we are.”

Nine Network host Eddie McGuire (pictured) had his two shows, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the AFL-based The Footy Show, win Most Popular Game Show and Most Popular Sports Program respectively. 

For SBS current affairs program Dateline it was a double celebration, with the show winning two awards for Most Outstanding Special Report In A Current Affairs Program.  Two stories, The Dirty War and See No Evil, were equal winners in the industry-voted category. 

ABC reporter Geoff Thompson was awarded Most Outstanding News Reporter and ABC News won Most Outstanding News Coverage for its reporting of events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Veteran television journalist, producer and presenter Mike Willesee was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.  He was presented the award by his brother, fellow journalist Terry Willesee.

Adding to the glamour of Logies night in 2002 were performances by Colombian pop star Shakira, the legendary Sir Elton John and US trio Destiny’s Child.

Other international guests on the night included The Bold And The Beautiful star Ronn Moss and Frankie Muniz from sitcom Malcolm In The Middle.

Publicly-voted Awards:

Gold Logie – Most Popular Personality On Australian Television: Georgie Parker

Silver Logie – Most Popular Program: All Saints (Seven)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actor: Peter Phelps (Stingers, Nine)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actress: Libby Tanner (All Saints, Seven)

Most Popular New Male Talent: Ditch Davey (Blue Heelers, Seven)
Most Popular New Female Talent: Lisa Chappell (pictured) (McLeod’s Daughters, Nine)
Most Popular Lifestyle Program: Backyard Blitz (Nine)
Most Popular Light Entertainment Program: Rove Live (Ten)
Most Popular Reality Program: Big Brother (Ten)
Most Popular Game Show: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Nine)
Most Popular Sports Program: The Footy Show – AFL (Nine)
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: Today Tonight (Seven)

Industry-voted Awards:

TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame: Mike Willesee (pictured)

Most Outstanding Actor: William McInnes (My Brother Jack, Ten)
Most Outstanding Actress: Deborah Mailman (The Secret Life Of Us, Ten)
Most Outstanding Drama Series: The Secret Life Of Us (Ten)
Most Outstanding Mini-Series/Telemovie: Changi (ABC)
Most Outstanding Children’s Program: Round The Twist (ABC)
Most Outstanding Comedy Program:  The Micallef Pogram (ABC)
Most Outstanding Sports Coverage: Bledisloe Cup (Seven)
Most Outstanding News Reporter: Geoff Thompson (ABC)
Most Outstanding News Coverage: ABC News
Most Outstanding Special Report In A Public Affairs Program: “The Dirty War” (Dateline, SBS) and “See No Evil” (Dateline, SBS).
Most Outstanding Documentary/Series: Australians At War (ABC)

Source: TV Week, 27 April 2002.  TV Week, 11 May 2002. The Age, 1 April 2010.

1992: February 23-29

Sophie set for TV sex special
Sophie Lee is to host an upcoming one-hour special on the topic of teenage sex for the Nine Network.  The special, to be produced in association with A Current Affair, aims to “educate both parents and teenagers about a lot of sexual issues”.  “It’s there to bridge the gap between teenagers and their parents… and I hope they have an open mind about sex,” she told TV Week.  The upcoming special comes after certain sections of the media savaged Lee for comments she made in the Fact And Fantasy File diary – an initiative of the NSW Family Planning Association that has since been banned by Prime Minister Paul Keating.  In an interview published in the diary, Lee stated that one-night stands were “okay” – a comment that the print media focused on and made much controversy.  “What I’m saying is that if you want to go ahead and have casual sex, that’s your business and that’s okay, if you practise safe sex.  That’s it.  That’s all I said.  I was appalled at the way the diary was handled by the media.  To dismiss it as smutty, they are missing the whole point.  Kids have a right to be educated… otherwise they are going to die if they make the wrong decision.”

John’s jetting in!
Full House star John Stamos is coming to Australia to be a VIP guest at the upcoming TV Week Logie Awards.  “I’m really excited about this trip.  My whole life I’ve wanted to go to Australia and then I heard Full House was very successful there, too,” he told TV Week from Los Angeles.  Also on this year’s Logies guest list is former Minder star Dennis Waterman, who is currently touring Australia in the comedy Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Mad Max III
Five years since The Gillies Republic, comedian Max Gillies (pictured) is back in a new series, Gillies And Company, which debuts this week on ABC.  Known for his brilliant parodies of politicians, royalty and celebrities, Gillies this time around has expanded his repertoire to include gardeners, bank managers, tourists, sports coaches and bureaucrats.  “It’s an opportunity to explore new avenues,” he told TV Week.  “I always wanted to do a brighter show, which is why this has been so much fun, but the characters still require a lot of concentration and a lot of time in the make-up room.”

Briefly…
The Nine Network’s new Melbourne Extra current affairs show was recently launched at a lavish function attended by network identities and Victorian Premier Joan Kirner, who will be making regular appearances on the program.  Despite the insecurity that comes with working in commercial television, ex-ABC host John Jost is confident of success.  “If you are going to cover all the important news in Melbourne, you need the time and resources to do it – and that is the commitment that Channel Nine has made to this program,” he told TV Week.  Joining Jost on Melbourne Extra will be reporters Tracey Spicer, Helen Ballard, Natasha Johnson, Des Dowling and Stephen Claney.

E Street’s Sheridan Sturgess (Kate Raison) takes the law into her own hands to try to put an end to serial killer Mr Bad’s (Vince Martin) reign of terror.  The pair agree to meet at Sheridan’s television studios.  The meeting ends when police arrive and Sheridan fires a shot at Mr Bad.  She is arrested and ends up in jail on remand. 

The Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) has announced that their annual ARIA Awards event will be televised for the first time this year.  The Nine Network will be broadcasting the event live from Melbourne next month and is securing a top line-up of presenters and performers – including Rod Stewart, Julian Lennon, Spinal Tap, John Farnham, Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, Anthony Warlow, Jimmy Barnes, Johnny Diesel and Crowded House.  Negotiations are also continuing with Kylie Minogue, INXS, Midnight Oil and Phil Collins.

Steamy soap opera Chances has been sold to the BSkyB network in the United Kingdom.  The sale follows the network’s recent purchase of another Aussie series, E Street.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Welcome to something of a new-look TV Week!  The changes, however, are not just cosmetic.  In fact, TV Week makes one of the most profound movies it has made in the 14 years I have been associated with the magazine – our on sale day is now Thursday instead of Monday.  As explained in last week’s issue, that facilitates much tighter deadlines, particularly in our program listings.  Undoubtedly the networks will still find ways of making late alterations and getting under our guard, but it’s going to be more difficult from now on.  And that should mean a better service for you.  We hope you regard as a bonus, too, the fact that – apart from our program listing, which we print in 14 different editions each week to cover the whole of Australia – TV Week is now basically 100 per cent colour.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, February 23-29):
Sunday:  Afternoon sport includes cricket (Ladies’ International Super Test on ABC, and Benson And Hedges World Cup on Nine), football (AFL Foster’s Cup on Seven) and basketball (Ten).  Sunday night movies are A Fish Called Wanda (Seven), Miami Blues (Ten) and French film Life Is A Long Quiet River (SBS), up against the Winter Olympics on Nine.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), former prostitute Lizzy Walker (Joanne Hunt) returns to Dr Terence Elliott (Shane Porteous) to have her baby.  In Mother And Son (ABC), Arthur (Garry McDonald) didn’t really expect to be excavating his father’s ashes in the middle of the night.  ABC debuts new comedy series Gillies And Company and arts program Review.  Nine’s coverage of the Winter Olympics comes to an end with live coverage of the closing ceremony.

Tuesday:  With the Winter Olympics now over, Nine’s prime-time line-up is getting back into full swing – with the return of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show (with new host Lisa Patrick), All Together Now, Chances and The World Tonight With Clive Robertson.  Veteran actors Queenie Ashton (pictured) and Willie Fennell are guest stars in this week’s GP (ABC).

Wednesday:  Nine crosses to Sydney for day-night coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup Cricket: Australia versus South Africa.  Seven has live coverage of the AFL Foster’s Cup.  Prime Minister Paul Keating presents his Economic Statement, in a one-hour broadcast on ABC.  Dateline (SBS) takes a look at the increasingly popular Communist Party in Greece.

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), Alice (Marianne Howard) has urgent news, while Sheridan’s (Kate Raison) feelings for Wheels (Marcus Graham) begin to change.

Friday:  Seven presents a delayed telecast of the 34th annual Grammy Awards from New York’s Radio City Music Hall, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

Saturday:  Nine crosses to Auckland, New Zealand for the Benson And Hedges World Cup Cricket: South Africa versus New Zealand, followed by rugby league highlights of the Toohey’s Challenge Cup.  This week’s documentary on World Around Us (Seven) is Coronation Hill: Land Of The Apocalypse, looking at Coronation Hill, located within Kakadu in the Northern Territory, where the richest uranium deposits on Earth are believed to lie – and the Aboriginal people have a warning for those who would mine it.  ABC’s late-night review of the week in politics, Order In The House, begins a new series. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  22 February 1992.  Southdown Press

1992: February 15-22

Just 18… and Kym’s got it all!
She might be only 18 years old, but Kym Wilson (pictured) has emerged from an acting novice to a talented professional, with acclaim for her performances in the film Flirting, stage production The Crucible and mini-series Brides Of Christ.  And she is optimistic that her decision to join A Country Practice is a positive career move.  “You have to choose roles that are going to fulfil you,” she told TV Week.  “That is why I chose A Country Practice as the soap I wanted to do.  It has been going for 10 years, the people I work with are fantastic actors and it has that extra dimension by dealing with issues in society, which perhaps the other soaps do not do.”  The young star has also taken on an additional on-air role as co-host of Seven’s Saturday morning Video Smash Hits, although is wary of becoming over-exposed or being pigeonholed as a “personality” rather than an actress.  “That was my concern when I chose to do Video Smash Hits – that I wouldn’t, without degrading Sophie, become another Sophie Lee, who is seen more as a TV personality than an actress because she did The Bugs Bunny Show before she did The Flying Doctors.”

Axe for Hard Copy?
It may be a ratings winner for the Ten Network, but its weekly “tabloid” current affairs show Hard Copy (hosted by Gordon Elliott, pictured) could soon be axed due to a falling out between the network and Paramount, the owners of the concept.  Paramount is believed to have notified Ten that it wants out of the deal when the current batch of 13 episodes is completed, due to Ten failing to comply with certain changes that had been requested of the Australian franchise.  The termination of the agreement would mean that the show’s title can not be used in Australia, or that any  reports from the US version can be broadcast here.  But Network Ten boss Gary Rice has denied any rift with Paramount and insists that production of Hard Copy is business as usual.     

Frozen out!
E Street star Alyssa-Jane Cook (pictured) always insisted that she wanted her exit from the show to be dramatic, but admits that her final scenes with the series have been her most challenging.  Her character, Lisa Bennett, finds herself at the mercy of E Street’s serial killer Mr Bad (Vince Martin) who has kidnapped her and locked her in a freezer in a bid to lure his targets Sheridan (Kate Raison) and Wheels (Marcus Graham) to their deaths.  Cook is not about to give away the outcome of the storyline, but says the scenes were amongst her most difficult.  “By the end of the 14-hour shoot, I was emotionally and physically exhausted,” she said.

Briefly…
TV Week has announced a new era as it embarks on changes to production techniques and its format.  This week’s edition includes a special eight-day program guide – Saturday to Saturday – as from next week the magazine will feature program listings from Sunday to Saturday, while the magazine’s on-sale day will change from Monday to Thursday.  This change, incorporated with tighter production deadlines, will see the magazine report more up-to-date stories and offer a more accurate program listing.  Despite the changes, the cover price of TV Week will remain at $1.70.

All Together Now star Rebecca Gibney has broken her silence on her private life by denying reports that while on a three-week holiday to the United States that she and her fiance, singer Jack Jones, had been secretly married in a Las Vegas chapel.  “Marriage crossed our minds at some point, but we decided against it,” she told TV Week.  “But we haven’t run off to Las Vegas to have a quickie wedding.”

Former The Flying Doctors cast members Lenore Smith and David Reyne (pictured) have embarked on a new project, appearing in the stage production of Love Letters which begins at the Sydney Opera House before touring regional centres in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.  Reyne has also started work on a new travel series, Getaway, for the Nine Network.  Getaway, which also features former Beyond 2000 reporter Jeff Watson and two yet-to-be-named female reporters, makes its debut on Nine next month.

John Laws says…
”Perhaps, as a nation, we should all have been watching the documentary about the Snowy Mountain hydro-electric project, aptly screened over the Australia Day weekend on the ABC.  By any standards the Snowy project was a heroic undertaking, in both engineering and human terms.  It took 25 years to complete and it ranks as one of this nation’s greatest achievements.  Here was a mammoth engineering feat brought to life by Australians and “new” Australians from Europe, most of them displaced persons from World War II.  The ABC documentary team interviewed a handful of the thousands of people who worked on the Snowy project, but their stories seemed to embrace all its spirit and courage.  Interestingly, the general feeling among them was that a scheme like the Snowy could never be built today.  Way back in 1949, when Ben Chifley’s government got it off the ground, there was no conservation movement!”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, February 15-22):
Saturday:  Saturday afternoon sport includes golf on both ABC (West Australian Ladies’ Classic) and Seven (Australian Masters), while Nine presents a highlights package of the Winter Olympic Games.  Nine’s evening is dominated by the return of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, followed by more live coverage of the Winter Olympic Games from Albertville, France.

Sunday:  More golf on ABC and Seven, while Nine presents highlights of the Reebok Blacktop Basketball, from Adelaide’s Clipsal Powerhouse Stadium.  Evening programs include the return of multi-lingual current affairs program Vox Populi (SBS) and Brian Naylor’s documentary Australia From The Outside Looking In (Nine).  Sunday night movies are Good Morning Vietnam (Seven) and K-9 (Ten), up against the Winter Olympics (Nine).

Monday:  In Mother And Son (ABC), Arthur (Garry McDonald) brings a pet budgie home for Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) after she is upset by her son Robert (Henri Szeps) – but how this leads to 10 naked dentists dancing on a golf course has to be seen to be believed! 

Tuesday:  ABC’s consumer affairs program The Investigators is back for another year, followed by drama series GP where a new locum (played by Christopher Bailey) arrives at the practice, only to have his wife turn up and reveal that he is not who he says he is.  In SBS’ current affairs program Dateline, reporter Maeve O’Meara profiles influential Irish writer Colm Tóibín.

Wednesday:  Astrophysicist Graham Phillips and journalist Cathy Johnson join ABC’s science program Quantum as it returns for its eighth year.  This year is the International Year of Space and, to mark the occasion, Quantum will begin a series of reports on everything from space junk to space technology.  The 40th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne is documented in a two-hour BBC special, Elizabeth R (ABC), following the Queen on her many official duties over 12 months and giving a rare glimpse of her more informal moments.

Thursday:  In Acropolis Now (Seven), Effie (Mary Coustas, pictured) suspects Suzanne (Nicky Wendt) of treachery and plots her revenge – murder by haircare products.  ABC’s documentary series The Big Picture presents When The War Came To Australia – Our Melancholy Duty, the first of a four-part series tracing the social history of Australia during World War II and the effects of Japan’s attack on Darwin, which occurred fifty years ago this week.

Friday:  Dateline (SBS) features a report on Simone Harvari, France’s top TV producer, who heads a company where the majority of employees are female.  In Neighbours (Ten), a reunion with old mates has devastating implications for Doug (Terence Donovan).

Saturday:  Nine debuts its new Saturday morning show, Saturday At Rick’s, hosted by Steven Jacobs with Tania Lacy, featuring cartoons, video clips and interviews.  Nine then crosses to New Zealand for the Benson And Hedges World Cup cricket – Australia versus New Zealand.  ABC also has cricket with live coverage from the North Sydney Oval of the Ladies’ International Super Test: Australia versus England.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  15 February 1992.  Southdown Press

1991: July 6-12

Cover: Kevin Costner

‘Butterfly’ takes off again
The Seven Network has announced production for a further sixteen episodes of Butterfly Island.  The series, starring Grigor Taylor and Penne Hackforth-Jones, first appeared on ABC in 1984 with a follow up series produced by Seven in 1986, although the later series did not appear on Seven until last year.  Taylor plays the part of Charlie Wilson, a widower who runs a struggling tourist resort.

Look who’s back in town!
Some former favourites from Nine’s The Flying Doctors have been reunited for a special episode.  Former cast members Andrew McFarlane, Liz Burch, Rebecca Gibney and George Kapiniaris are returning in an upcoming episode.  The town of Coopers Crossing has been hit hard by the recession and to help boosts its spirits hosts a street party, with some of the town’s former residents attending.  The episode went into production this week and will go to air in September.

‘Girls want me for my money!’
At the mere age of eight, Matthew Krok is trying to come to grips with his rise to fame.  Having featured in 16 television commercials since last year, Krok went on to a guest appearance in A Country Practice before taking on the role of Arthur McArthur in Hey Dad! and has just finished his first feature film role in Eight Ball.  But the young star doesn’t quite understand the fuss that tends to surround him.  “I don’t think I’m any different to anyone else,” he told TV Week.  And while his Hey Dad! character is having a crush on Sam (Rachael Beck), the young actor has no romantic aspirations just yet.  “I’m not interested in girls,” he insists.  “They’re interested in me.  A girl at my school wants to marry me because of my money, but I said, ‘No way!’.”

Briefly…
Former The Young Doctors and Cop Shop star Lynda Stoner is returning to television with a guest role in Nine’s Chances, playing the part of nurse Dee Dee Nelson, hired to care for Jack Taylor (Tim Robertson) and help him recover from a stroke, including sex therapy!

Felicity Soper, best known as policewoman Susan Miller in the former Network Ten series Richmond Hill, has scored a role in a new Seven Network mini-series, Good Vibrations.  Also appearing in the series will be Genevieve Picot, Stephen Whittaker, Jeffrey Walker, David Hoflin and former Neighbours star Sasha Close.

Fast Forward star Geoff Brooks says that his character of Bruce Rump isn’t directly based on real-life RSL stalwart Bruce Ruxton, but that they are on the same wavelength.  “At about the same time I said, ‘The Reds aren’t under the bed, they’re in the bed’, Bruce was quoted by a paper saying the same thing,” Brooks told TV Week.  “Rump is actually a composite of a lot of people.  People like Sir Henry Bolte, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Bruce and my dad – people who see things in black and white.”

John Laws says…
”Bangkok Hilton set out to be dramatic, exciting and emotion-packed, and it achieved it all.  Not much subtlety, of course, just straightforward, honest to goodness shock-horror stuff – lots of anguish howls, impassioned pleas from our heroine and lots of nasty bad guys.  Bangkok Hilton, as we know, was a ratings knockout the first time around and, as expected, did very well the second time, too.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, July 6-12):
Saturday: SBS presents a special edition of current affairs program Dateline, where reporter Mike Carey has just returned with a film crew after two weeks in disaster-torn Bangladesh, where more than 150,000 people died in recent cyclones.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Seven), She-Devil (Nine) and My Stepmother Is An Alien (Ten).  Nine then crosses to Wimbledon for live coverage of the Men’s Singles Final.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) helps Steve (Sophie Heathcote) plan for an overseas trip, while a hospital health check reveals one of the nurses proves HIV positive.

Tuesday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Jim (Alan Dale) is afraid that something is still going on between half-siblings Glen (Richard Huggett, pictured) and Lucy (Melissa Bell).  Robert Mammone guest stars in GP’s 100th episode.

Wednesday:  Bruce Spence, Hugo Weaving and American actress Rosanna Arquette star in the Australian-made telemovie Wendy Cracked A Walnut (ABC), telling the story of a housewife who yearns for the romance and passion she finds in pulp novels.

Thursday:  John Polson guest stars in The Flying Doctors (Nine).  In Hampton Court (Seven), an astronomical electricity bill means desperate measures are called for.

Friday:  In Neighbours (Ten), Helen (Anne Haddy) gives Michael (Brian Blain) her answer to his marriage proposal.  In ABC’s documentary series A Big Country, a restaurant owner’s Chinese family in Bendigo recount their experiences in a country town since the war.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  6 July 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: June 8-14

How Jo beat the office blues
Sale Of The Century’s new co-host Jo Bailey (pictured) is collecting a larger pay packet than most 21-year-olds, but the former accountant insists she isn’t in this business for the money and could earn as much in the long term by returning to her accounting-marketing career.  “Getting involved in television has definitely nothing to do with the money,” she told TV Week.  “I know people say this all the time, but job satisfaction is far more important to me.  I just didn’t like working with numbers.  I’ve never stayed at anything I haven’t liked and I don’t believe you should dwell on things.  It was a simple decision.  I wasn’t happy.”

Greg chalks up a score
Blind Date host Greg Evans (pictured) says he’s learnt some valuable lessons in his 20-year showbusiness career.  Evans, who celebrated the 20-year milestone recently, says he’ll never be motivated by money again.  Starting in radio at country station 3CS, Evans went on to become a ratings hit with Melbourne’s 3XY and then a national celebrity as host of Ten’s top-rating Perfect Match. He was wooed across to rival network Nine in a deal that he says was too good to knock back but resulted in a less than fruitful run as host of some fairly ordinary game shows, Say G’Day and Crossfire, before returning to Perfect Match.  “Perhaps I should never have left (Perfect Match),” he told TV Week. “But at the time, it seemed that no one in their right mind would have rejected Nine’s offer.  They were ‘the cheque book days’… but I don’t blame Nine for anything.  You live and learn and I’ll never be motivated by money again.  Luckily, I was saved by (returning to) Perfect Match.”  The show was axed late in 1989 but was reinstated this year as Blind Date.

Craig goes to war
Craig McLachlan (pictured) has talked to TV Week about filming for the upcoming Seven Network mini-series Heroes 2 – The Return.  “It’s been an amazing experience for me,” he said.  “Before we started filming, we all had military training to get used to the conditions.  But no-one was prepared for this!”  For McLachlan, “this” included several days shooting in a rain-sodden, leech-infested forest, being attacked by sandflies and surrounded by fruit bats.  “The locations turned into hellholes for us make-believe soldiers.  The worst part other than the leeches and the rain was the sandflies.”  The $6.5 million production, also starring John Bach, Christopher Morsley, Wayne Kermond, Brendon Lunney, Miranda Otto and Anne Louise Lambert, is expected to be shown in the UK around Christmas and in Australia early in the new year.

Briefly…
Comedienne and Fast Forward star Jane Turner (pictured) says it’s not always funny being a diplomat’s wife… especially when husband John Denton had been posted to the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, three months before the Gulf War.  When the Allied bombing of Baghdad seemed certain, Turner was “worried, but not terrified”.  “I know what a diplomatic life is like,” she told TV Week.  “John loves it – it’s his life.  He was calling and reassuring me everything was all right.  Maybe I had more cause to be worried!”.  Denton was one of the last three Australians to flee the war-torn city.

Former Sale Of The Century co-host Alyce Platt is loving her new role as wildlife ranger Christina Gurney in Seven’s new series Animal Park.  “The biggest thing that sold me on this role is that it is as far away from Alyce Platt on Sale Of The Century as possible.  That was important.  My wardrobe (now) is King Gee shorts, big green shirts, thick socks, big boots and no make-up,” she told TV Week.

After four years away from the series, Tom Oliver is set to return to Neighbours later this year.  It is expected that he will reprise his former character of used-car salesman Lou Carpenter, an old boyfriend of Madge Bishop (Anne Charleston), although this has not yet been confirmed.  His return stint is expected to be for four weeks.

The industry rumour mill is buzzing with speculation over a possible relationship between ABC host Andrew Denton and recently-separated 60 Minutes reporter Jennifer Byrne.     

Actor Peter Kowitz, recently featured in the Nine Network mini-series Ring Of Scorpio, is joining the cast of Chances.  He will play Steven Harland, a government minister who is something of a thorn in the side of his party.

John Laws says…
”The test of any TV current affairs program is how well it can react to major news stories, national or international.  This “big news” scenario confronted the TV networks after the recent assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.  The circumstances of his death – a hideous bomb attack – gave the story a striking impetus.  So who came out on tops in the follow-up coverage?  Jana Wendt’s A Current Affair gave the slaying a brief coverage, but it was really left to SBS’ Dateline and Kerry O’Brien’s Lateline on ABC to probe deeply and convincingly.  I thought SBS came out slightly ahead.  Dateline also had it over Lateline by screening at 8.00pm against Lateline’s 10.30pm.  I’ve said it before in this column that Dateline (and, as it was, Tonight) is a significant force in TV current affairs viewing.  I doubt it has a spectacular following but it certainly deserves a wider audience.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, June 8-14):
Saturday:  Andrew Daddo (pictured), Daryl Braithwaite, Jesus Jones and Tracie Spencer are among the guests this week on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).

Sunday:  Seven’s AFL coverage begins with the afternoon match between Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles, live from Carrara, Brisbane – then crossing to Adelaide for live coverage of the early evening match between Adelaide Crows and Fitzroy.  Sunday night movies are Willow (Seven), Funny Farm (Nine) and The Poseidon Adventure (Ten).

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) is confronted with tragedy after being slipped an hallucinogenic drug.  In All Together Now (Nine), Wayne (Bruno Lucia) sells the rights to Bobby’s (Jon English) memoirs and persuades him to write an autobiography.

Wednesday:  Nine presents a late-night delayed telecast of the rugby league State Of Origin match between New South Wales and Queensland.  The coverage is hosted by Ken Sutcliffe with commentary by Darrell Eastlake, Peter Sterling and Ray Warren.

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), Harley’s (Malcolm Kennard) drug dependency gets him in hot water.  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), the townsfolk are stunned when Dr Guy Reid’s (David Reyne) fiancee arrives unannounced to take him back to civilisation.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Perth for live coverage of the AFL match between West Coast Eagles and Footscray. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  8 June 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: March 9-15

Bob pops the question!
For more than two years the romance between Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook) and Reverend Bob Brown (Tony Martin, pictured near right with Cook) in E Street has been an on-again off-again affair.  But this week in the Ten Network soap, Bob finally proposes – but Elly doesn’t accept straight away.  “She doesn’t say yes immediately, but she doesn’t say no,” Cook told TV Week. 

It’s no Sale!
Tony Barber has denied that there is more to his shock resignation from hosting Nine’s Sale Of The Century as industry rumours have suggested.  Barber insists that the resignation was to escape his “quiz show host” label, having also hosted Temptation, Great Temptation, Name That Tune and Family Feud before 11 years on Sale Of The Century, and also to recover from a hip operation.  Rumours persist within the industry, however, that his resignation was due to the network denying certain demands in renewing his contract.  And although Seven claims that Barber’s management have approached them about coming across, he has denied any discussions have taken place with Seven and Ten, citing his commitment to his Nine contract which expires later this month.  The timing of Barber’s announcement may have also come at an awkward time.  Just days before the announcement, in an interview pre-recorded for Nine’s In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today chat shows, Barber was asked about his future at Sale to which he replied, “I can see myself doing it when I am 65 or 70.”   No decision has been made as to a successor for Barber on Sale Of The Century, although Denis Walter, Bert Newton and Daryl Somers appear to be possibilities.

Marcus comes home to play a ratbag
Taking a break after a busy year, actor Marcus Graham (pictured) was in Los Angeles when he was offered a two-year contract with daytime soap General Hospital – an offer any number of actors would jump at.  But he said no.  Despite enormous pressure to sign (“98 per cent of everyone I met in the US said I should do it”) he felt it was the wrong thing to do.  “They wanted me to sign a two-year contract.  I was prepared to do one year, but I couldn’t do two, I couldn’t,” Graham told TV Week.  “I think you’d have a very low self-esteem after doing that show for a while.  They shoot an hour a day and you read your lines off cue cards.  It would kill me.  It’s like selling all your dreams and aspirations for thousands of US dollars and getting recognised in supermarkets.  It’s just not worth it.”  Graham was more enthusiastic in signing up for the Seven Network’s four-hour mini-series Ratbag Hero which debuts this week.  Graham plays ‘Unc’ (Bob), the roguish uncle of Mick (Cameron Nugent), the ‘ratbag hero’ of the show’s title.  “Unc is scruffy, a bit of a larrikin.  He is caught between being an adult and a kid.  He is childlike and loves fun,” Graham said.

Briefly…
Hollywood actress Angie Dickinson, best known from TV’s Policewoman series, will be a special guest at this year’s TV Week Logie Awards, taking place this week in Melbourne.  Also on the overseas guest list are Peggy Lipton and Michael Ontkean from the new US series Twin Peaks, now showing on Network Ten.

British-born comedienne Annette Law, whose celebrity impressions won her the ‘Red Faces’ talent quest on Hey Hey It’s Saturday and subsequently led to a career on the comedy circuit, is now heading back to the UK to start in a new BBC sketch comedy series, My Dog’s Got No Nose.  “I believe it’s the British equivalent to the old American show Laugh-In,” Law told TV Week.

Actor Gary Sweet’s proposed role as a reporter for Nine’s Midday With Ray Martin is now looking doubtful after he made a guest appearance on the daytime show to promote his new ABC series Police Rescue.  It happens that Police Rescue is scheduled directly up against Nine’s new drama Chances and the appearance has angered Nine Network executives.

John Laws says…
”Why did SBS scrap its Tonight current affairs show – and replace it with an almost identical program under another name?  This is exactly what has happened, though the program purveyors at SBS will, no doubt, deny it and claim that Dateline is a different concept from Tonight.  But there’s hardly a scrap of difference.  It has the same presenter, Pria Viswalingam, and has retained its capable “finance reporter” Jane Hutcheon, who continues to do exactly what she did so well on the Tonight program.  The official line is that Dateline comprises “the resources of Tonight, Asia Report and the weekly Dateline” and has “shorter, pithier reports” (whatever that means).  So there you have it – two well-established programs are skittled.  Now you see them, now you don’t.  One hour of current affairs becomes 30 minutes of current affairs.”

Program Highlights (March 9-15):
Sunday:  Seven’s afternoon includes live coverage of the Moomba Masters water-skiing from Melbourne’s Yarra River, followed by live coverage of the Australian Touring Car Championships from Symmons Plains, Tasmania.  After Seven Nightly News, Seven screens the first of the two-part children’s mini-series Ratbag Hero, starring Cameron Nugent (pictured), Elaine Smith, Peter Fisher, Marcus Graham, Gus Mercurio and Simon Chilvers.  Sunday night movies are Beaches (Seven), Scarface (Nine) and The Golden Child (Ten).  Nine then crosses to Trinidad for the One Day International between Australia and the West Indies.  Ten debuts a new late-night sports program, Sports Week, hosted by Eddie McGuire and Stephen Quartermain.

Monday:  ABC debuts its new rural affairs program Landline, screening every weekday.  ABC and Seven in Melbourne both present a direct telecast of the annual Moomba street procession.

Tuesday:  In All Together Now (Nine), Thomas (Steven Jacobs) and Anna (Jane Hall) come home drunk and Tracy (Rebecca Gibney) suspects it is Bobby’s (Jon English) influence that has caused it.  Tina Bursill, Serge Lazareff and Dorothy St Heaps are guest stars in ABC’s drama GP.

Wednesday: Prime Minister Bob Hawke is the guest speaker at the National Press Club Luncheon, broadcast on ABC. 

Thursday:  Former E Street star Paul Kelman enters Nine’s The Flying Doctors as Steve McCauley, who found out he was adopted and hitches a ride to Coopers Crossing, undecided on whether or not to tell his mother about their true relationship.

Friday:  Daryl Somers (pictured) hosts the 33rd annual TV Week Logie Awards from Melbourne’s World Congress Centre and broadcast nationally through the Nine Network.  It is triple Gold Logie winner Somers’ second time as host of the event.  This year will also see the launch of two new Logie award categories – the Most Popular Male and Most Popular Female Comedy Personality – in recognition of the rise in Australian-produced comedy on television.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  9 March 1991.  Southdown Press.

1991: February 16-22

Private property!
Home And Away star Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) is determined to keep her professional and personal lives separate.  Unlike many fellow soap stars, Elmaloglou has refused to talk publicly about her boyfriend of twelve months and the pair have never been photographed together.  “It’s just one of those things I don’t find important to talk about,” the 17-year-old told TV Week.  “My private life is the same as any other girl of my age.  I’ve got my schoolfriends, I’ve got my family, I’ve got my boyfriend.” 

It was 20 years ago today…
Hey Hey It’s Saturday returns to air this week, starting its 20th year.  “The official celebration is in October (the show debuted on 9 October 1971), but we’re out to make this the best year ever of Hey Hey so we’re starting the celebrations early,” host Daryl Somers told TV Week.  This year the show is taking on some changes as Somers and colleague Ernie Carroll take over producing the show after last year’s split from producer Gavan Disney.  “Ernie and I are happier, and I know a lot of the people around us are feeling happier, too,” Somers said.  “I think it’s going to be a very harmonious situation for all concerned this year.”  The year ahead could also see Hey Hey head to London and even Hollywood for some special shows.  Somers is also excited to have new executive producer Jim McKay on board for the show.  McKay was the program manager at GTV9 who originally named the program back in 1971 and hired the 19-year-old Somers for the job of host.  “He came up with the name and paid me $75 a week, that was it!  It’s taken me 20 years to get him back – that’s what he’s on now,” Somers laughed.

‘If it was me, I wouldn’t do it’
Andre Eikmeier (pictured), the 18-year-old who is probably best known to viewers as the pizza delivery boy in Kylie Minogue’s Coca-Cola commercial, has been acting for ten years but is taking on the change from child actor to young adult with a controversial role in ABC’s medical drama GP.  In an episode to air this week, Eikmeier plays the role of student Tony Wood who is suffering from stomach ulcers and the pressure of exams and finds himself under attack from his father who discovers that he has been having a relationship with a man ten years older.  For Eikmeier it was a challenging role to take on.  “It was very hard, because I’d never had any contact with gay people.  I guess I’d been sheltered from it, so I didn’t really know how to approach it.  I gave the part a lot of consideration, and my dad said, ‘Well, it’s up to you – but if it was me, I wouldn’t do it’,” he told TV Week.

Briefly…
Jeff Phillips (pictured), host of Network Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, says he knows that shows like this can give a young star their big break.  “I was a product of this type of show,” he told TV Week.  “I drove from Perth to Melbourne in my Volkswagen to go on New Faces.  I went on the show on Sunday night, won it, and was immediately invited by Graham Kennedy to be on In Melbourne Tonight and got sudden recognition.  I was only 19 at the time.”

The Flying Doctors star Brett Climo makes his dramatic exit from the series this week as his character, Dr David Ratcliffe, attempts a rescue on a cliff face and finds himself hanging upside down from a safety rope before falling to a ledge below.  “This episode is definitely among the best moments of my career,” Climo told TV Week.

Actress Kaarin Fairfax, best known to viewers as Dolour in The Harp In The South and Poor Man’s Orange, is joining Network Ten comedy Col’n Carpenter as the show’s new female lead following the departure of Vikki Blanche.  The series will also be seen in a new timeslot – Sunday nights at 8.00pm, after The Simpsons – when it returns to screens next month.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”On went the VCR for a first look at Chances (featuring Natalie McCurry, pictured), the new Nine Network series so heavily publicised, yet so closely guarded at the same time.  All the pre-publicity had promised adults only fare and, while this was hardly a return to the full frontal days of Number 96 or The Box, it did make it seem worthwhile checking that the little ones were, indeed, just like everyone in the show – in bed.”

Program Highlights (February 16-22):
Saturday:  Daryl Somers and Ossie Ostrich head Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s return for 1991, up against the debut of Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, hosted by Jeff Phillips.  Seven crosses to AFL Park, Mount Waverley, for the Fosters Cup: St Kilda versus West Coast Eagles.

Sunday:  SBS begins a national screening of the twelve-part documentary series My Place, My Land, My People – a production of Queensland-based regional broadcaster QTV and a winner at the 1990 TV Week Logie Awards for most outstanding achievement by a regional television station – followed by the series return of SBS viewers’ feedback program Hotline.  Sunday night movies are Beverly Hills Cop II (Seven) and Working Girl (Ten).

Monday:  SBS debuts a new weekly music series, MC Tee Vee, and later in the evening Pria Viswalingam hosts the series return of nightly current affairs program Dateline.  Ten presents the movie-length debut of popular US series Twin Peaks.  After the late edition of Ten Eyewitness News, Ten presents US talk show Donahue, with each night’s episode repeated the following afternoon.  Ten’s overnight coverage of the Gulf war continues via CNN.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Bob Hatfield (Gordon Piper) becomes a vegetarian after he is asked to kill six sheep.  Aussie actress Penny Downie (The Box, Prisoner, The Sullivans) stars in the new six-part British series Campaign which debuts on ABC.

Wednesday:  ABC presents 90-minute documentary One Australia?, a study on racism and multiculturalism in Australia and asking whether cohesion in our society can be achieved while maintaining diversity.

Thursday:  Veteran actor George Mallaby (pictured) guest stars in Nine’s drama Chances.  SBS current affairs program Face The Press and sports magazine The Sports Machine return for 1991.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.   16 February 1991. Southdown Press.

Ten takes on the News giants

For many years Network Ten’s news offering has been dismissed as a poorer cousin to the brash, high-profile Seven and Nine news portfolios.  While Seven and Nine throw money into resources and promotion, each of them keen to get an edge over the other while almost mimicking each other, Ten has kept a somewhat more modest profile – largely due to staying out of the traditional 6-7pm news hour, keeping a lower profile in the competitive breakfast timeslot, and reducing its weekend news output largely to ‘national’ Sydney-based bulletins.  And, when a major news story would be breaking or there is an election to cover, chances are it would be Seven, Nine or ABC that would pull all stops to cover it live, while Ten maintained its long-held mantra of providing an alternative option for viewers.

There have been exceptions to the rule, of course.  It was Ten News that first broke the news to Australians of the September 11 attacks in the US and, like its rivals, maintained a level of continuous news coverage in the days that followed.  The network maintained its serious Sunday morning Meet The Press interview program despite it sitting awkwardly amongst children’s programs and Video Hits, and while Nine replaced the serious Sunday with the more casual Weekend Today and Seven expanded its chummy Sunrise to the timeslot.  Ten has also maintained its 10.30pm Late News while both Seven and Nine abandoned their late night news programs.  And while the 5.00pm bulletin was avoiding the prime-time battle, it gradually built up its audience to the point where it dominated that hour, despite the high-profile late-afternoon game show battles between Seven and Nine, and both networks launching their own 4.30pm national news bulletins.

But, as time progressed, it became apparent that Ten was perhaps tiring of having the lesser of the three commercial networks’ news profiles and the impact of not having a News presence at 6.00pm.  The network was seeing its viewing numbers drop dramatically at 6.00pm after Ten News has signed off, while Seven and Nine’s 6.00pm bulletins continued to sit at the top of the nightly ratings reports, with The Simpsons and Neighbours – while they might have represented a sound viewing alternative in the 6.00pm hour many years ago – clearly no longer attracting the numbers they once did.  There were reports in 2009 that Ten was considering the idea of expanding the 5.00pm bulletin to 90 minutes – thirty years after it led the way as a network with the one-hour newscast as opposed to the traditional half-hour format.

Then, last year, Ten announced its bold move.  The network was bumping The Simpsons and Neighbours from their long-held timeslots to its new digital channel, Eleven.  This one-hour gap in the schedule was now going to be filled by two additional news programs – one national and one local – to sit between Ten News and The 7PM Project.  Ten also announced plans to reinstate state-based weekend news bulletins at 6.00pm.  It marks the first major shake-up of commercial television news coverage since Ten moved its evening bulletin to 5.00pm almost twenty years ago.

In implementing this expanded news profile, Ten – a network not often known for lavish spending – was investing big money, reported to be $20 million, in infrastructure and hiring new staff, most notably the signing up of veteran journalist and presenter George Negus.  With a journalistic background dating back to This Day Tonight and the founding days of 60 Minutes and Foreign Correspondent, and more recently as host of SBS’ Dateline, Negus presents a credible identity.  His more recent appearances as a weekly commentator on The 7PM Project have also endeared him to the network and its viewers.  Ten’s new venture also gained credibility with the signing of former ABC journalist Chris Masters as a consultant to the network.

With the expenditure and high-profile signings, it was clear that this news revamp was going to be far more than just splashing a coat of paint on the news desk or changing the logo on the network’s car fleet – this was going to be a serious shake-up of the evening news and giving viewers a decent alternative to the lookalike news and current affairs programs of Seven and Nine.  For the first time in over twenty years, Ten was now gearing up to take on its two commercial rivals – who have cosily had the 6.00pm hour all to themselves for too long – in a big way. 

So, after months of waiting and speculation – some of the latter prompted by James Packer’s surprise investment in the Ten Network with media discussing his rumoured plans to tear down the news revamp – Ten’s ‘news evolution’ finally comes to fruition tomorrow (Monday) evening. 

Essentially, the ‘First at Five’ Ten News remains intact but there are some changes in personnel and production.  The Adelaide newscast now moves back to being produced entirely from Adelaide – after being largely based at Ten’s Melbourne studio for several years – and follows the return of the Perth newscast to the Perth-based studios in 2008.

The Adelaide 5.00pm bulletin is now being fronted by Belinda Heggen, replacing George Donikian and Rebecca Morse, while the Perth bulletin is now read by former ABC journalist Craig Smart, replacing Narelda Jacobs.  Donikian now replaces Mal Walden at the Melbourne 5.00pm newsdesk, sitting alongside Helen Kapalos.  The significance of the Greek heritage of both Donikian and Kapalos (pictured) in presenting the news together in the largest Greek city outside of Greece has not gone unnoticed. ”It's not just revolutionary, this is the first in the world,” Donikian told Melbourne-based Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos.

Walden, Morse and Jacobs now move to presenting the new 6.30pm Evening News in their respective capital cities – providing a local news-based alternative to the tabloid offerings from Seven and Nine in that timeslot.

Former Late News presenter Sandra Sully (pictured) will be reading the Sydney-based Evening News bulletin, and Brisbane newsreader Bill McDonald will be presenting Brisbane’s Evening News as well as co-anchoring the local 5.00pm bulletin with Georgie Lewis.

Bill Woods and Deborah Knight will continue to present the 5.00pm Ten News in Sydney.

The 6.00pm timeslot now becomes home to 6PM With George Negus – a national program offering an in-depth analysis of the news.  As well as being hosted by the experienced and popular Negus, 6PM also boasts a strong line-up of journalists including Hugh Riminton, formerly of the Nine Network and CNN, and Hamish Macdonald, an Australian journalist formerly working in the United Kingdom and also a former correspondent for the Al Jazeera English channel.

With Ten’s new intentions, and the recent arrival of ABC News 24 as Australia’s first free-to-air dedicated news channel, if Seven and Nine are panicking at the prospect of the intense competition they are not showing any signs of it.  It appears to be ‘business as usual’ for the two top-rating networks, with little changing in their portfolio of news and current affairs programs.

According to Seven’s Melbourne newsreader Peter Mitchell: “Nothing changes for us," he told the Herald Sun.  "We know what we've got to do. We've always prided ourselves on being local." – a swipe at 6PM’s national focus.

Nine’s Brisbane news director Lee Anderson, talking to the Courier Mail, questions Ten’s ability to cover the big local stories on the back of its stilted response to coverage of the Queensland flood crisis: "When Brisbane faced its biggest natural disaster Ten obviously found it difficult to cover the emergency effectively, so I hope for them this will mean their network bosses start to take local operation seriously."

Seven’s Brisbane news director Rob Raschke was a little more flippant in his comments, labelling Negus as ‘a worthy successor to Homer Simpson’. 

“And, like Homer, his focus won't be on Queensland,” Raschke told the Courier Mail.

It appears that Ten’s rivals are quick to criticise the national focus of 6PM while failing to acknowledge Ten’s local approach at 5.00pm and 6.30pm against their own national programs.

But Ten and Negus (pictured with Melbourne newsreader Walden) have no illusions that the new line-up will be an instant hit with viewers.  News viewing habits are well-entrenched and rarely turnaround to a new competitor in an instant.  But the network has shown with The 7PM Project that it has the ability to be patient and to persevere with a new venture even if it doesn’t pay immediate dividends.

Ten News, 6PM With George Negus, Evening News, The 7PM Project.  Weeknights, from 5.00pm, starting 24 January.  Network Ten, Southern Cross Ten, Tasmanian Digital Television, Darwin Digital Television, Ten Mildura, Ten West.

Source: Herald Sun, Courier Mail, The Age, Neos Kosmos.