1992: March 22-28

Cover: Josephine Byrnes, John Stamos, Georgie Parker

Now cop this!
The 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Radisson President Hotel, gave the audience and viewers some surprises.  After the show’s opening production number – a parody of Michael Jackson’s Black Or White, recalling the old days of black and white television, featuring Cathy Godbold (Home And Away), Nick Giannopoulos (Acropolis Now) and Bruno Lucia (All Together Now) – introduced to the Logies stage were three TV veterans who hadn’t appeared on screen together for years.  George Mallaby, Alwyn Kurts and Leonard Teale, all from the halcyon days of the pioneer Australian drama Homicide, got the most rousing welcome of all those that appeared that evening.  But the on-stage reunion of the Homicide trio wasn’t to be the last big surprise of the night – as for the first time in Logies history the winner of the Gold Logie, Jana Wendt, was not present to accept her award.

Jana – What really happened…
It was the biggest disappointment of Logies night that Jana Wendt, the winner of the Gold Logie for Australia’s most popular television personality was not present to accept the award personally.  TV Week had about a week’s prior knowledge that Wendt was unlikely to attend – being told that her commitments to A Current Affair plus the fact that daylight saving was still in place in some states that throws production schedules into havoc and meant that Wendt had to stay at Nine’s Sydney studios into the evening in case a major news story broke.  Nine had offered to work around these logistics if they could be assured that Wendt had won the Gold Logie.  TV Week, in the interests of maintaining the security of the Logies results, decided that such information could not be released to the network in advance, even in the strictest confidence.  Wendt’s Gold Logie was accepted on stage by her boss Peter Meakin (pictured).  “I’m sorry she’s not here.  She’s sorry she’s not here,” he told the audience.  “Jana, as she always does, put the program first.  I know she regrets not being here.  It’s a shame.” 

TV Week Logie Winners 1992: Public Voting Categories:
Gold Logie – Most Popular Personality On Australian TV: Jana Wendt

Silver Logie – Most Popular Actor On Australian TV: Bruce Samazan (E Street)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actress On Australian TV: Georgie Parker (A Country Practice)

Most Popular Series: E Street (Ten)
Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program:  Fast Forward (Seven)
Most Popular Lifestyle Information Program: Burke’s Backyard (Nine)
Most Popular Telemovie Or Mini-Series: Brides Of Christ (ABC)
Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Male Performer: Steve Vizard (Tonight Live With Steve Vizard/Fast Forward)
Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Female Performer: Magda Szubanski (Fast Forward)
Most Popular Sports Coverage: Cricket (Nine)
Most Popular Actor In A Telemovie Or Mini-Series: Cameron Daddo (Golden Fiddles)
Most Popular Actress In A Telemovie Or Mini-Series: Josephine Byrnes (pictured) (Brides Of Christ)
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair (Nine)
Most Popular Music Video:  When Something Is Wrong With My Baby (Jimmy Barnes/John Farnham)
Most Popular Children’s Program: Agro’s Cartoon Connection (Seven)
Most Popular New Talent: Kym Wilson (Brides Of Christ)

TV Week Logie Winners 1992: Industry Voting Categories:
Gold Logie – TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame: Four Corners (ABC)

Silver Logie – Most Outstanding Actor On Australian TV: John McTernan (pictured) (GP)
Silver Logie – Most Outstanding Actress On Australian TV: Josephine Byrnes (Brides Of Christ)

Most Outstanding Telemovie Or Mini-Series: Brides Of Christ (ABC)
Most Outstanding Series: GP (ABC)
Most Outstanding Achievement In Public Affairs: “Soviet Union” (Lateline, ABC)
Most Outstanding Achievement In News: “Coode Island Fires” (Nine)
Most Outstanding Single Documentary Or Series: The Time Of Your Life (ABC)
Most Outstanding Achievement By Regional Television: The Very Fast Train (WIN)

TV Week Logie Winners 1992: State Awards (Most Popular Personality, Most Popular Program):
New South Wales: Ray Martin (TCN9), Home And Away (ATN7)
Victoria: Daryl Somers (GTV9), Neighbours (ATV10)
Queensland: Robert Brough (BTQ7), Family Feud (BTQ7)
South Australia: Anne Wills (SAS7), Wheel Of Fortune (SAS7)
Western Australia: Rick Ardon (TVW7), Seven Nightly News (TVW7)
Tasmania: Ron Christie (TVT6), Tasmania Today (TVT6)

Briefly (at the Logies):
As well as Jana Wendt, there was another non-appearance on Logies night – Diana Ross.  Despite a planned live cross from Queensland, Ross refused to appear because, Seven say, she didn’t want to appear live after her concert, saying her looks wouldn’t be up to scratch.  When the network offered to pre-record her segment, she still declined.

At the post-Logies party Bob Campbell, managing director of the Seven Network, approached Derryn Hinch (recently axed by Seven) for a chat.  “That’s the first time we’ve spoken since he sacked me,” a surprised Hinch commented.  “I bear no grudge.”

Wheel Of Fortune host John Burgess had to attend the pre-awards cocktail party in a floral shirt because his luggage had ended up in Queensland – while Lateline host Kerry O’Brien found his seat on the plane to Melbourne had been taken, so he had to fly with the crew in the cockpit.

There was lots of buzz around the room about the new-look The Flying Doctors, soon to commence production, and the news that former Neighbours star Elaine Smith had just joined the cast list.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”No doubt you are aware the ABC’s current affairs flagship Four Corners has joined an elite band in the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame.  And you could not help but be more than aware that Four Corners also has been the oven in which a political potato was heated up – at microwave speed, on high.  Personally, I don’t feel any discomfort about it all, other than I think the timing could have been better.  If the Four Corners program Winners And Losers had been screened on 22 March instead of 2 March, then I wouldn’t be writing this.  As it’s happened, certain people who don’t need an excuse to become hysterical about some aspect of each year’s Logies now could see the award to Four Corners as an endorsement of the program’s – or the ABC’s – stance against the goods and services tax (GST) component of Opposition Leader Dr John Hewson’s Fightback package.  Rather than recognising a specific achievement, the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame is an award for sustained excellence over many years – coming up 31 years in the case of Four Corners.  And what a consistently excellent program it has been.  Since its debut in 1961 it has won eight Logies, nine Walkley Awards for journalistic excellence, two United Nations Peace Prizes and two gold medals at the New York Film and Television Festival.  Four Corners thoroughly deserves this accolade.  Congratulations to those who have maintained its high standards over the years.  Four Corners also deserves this: the Winners And Losers program was a blot on its copybook.  On the morning of the program’s air date I’m sure I heard reporter Frank McGuire say in a radio interview that it would prompt howls from both sides of politics.  Since then I have heard only one side baying, and surely that says it all about balance.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 22-28):
Sunday:  Afternoon sport includes the Gold Coast Indy Classic (Nine), Benson And Hedges World Cup – Second Semi-Final (Nine), AFL – Adelaide versus Footscray (Seven) and Five Nations Rugby – Wales versus Scotland (Ten).  While on ABC’s arts program Sunday Afternoon With Peter Ross, performer Reg Livermore is this week’s special guest.  There is only one Sunday night movie this week – The War Of The Roses (Ten) – while Seven presents the Royal Variety Performance and Nine has the night session of the second semi-final of the Benson And Hedges World Cup cricket live from Sydney.

Monday:  In the series final of Mother And Son (ABC), Arthur (Garry McDonald) introduces his new girlfriend to the family.  In A Country Practice (Seven), Hugo (Gavin Harrison, pictured) becomes involved with Down’s syndrome swimmer Ruth Klein (Ruth Cromer) and her protective parents Rob and Diane (Peter Browne and Michele Fawdon).

Tuesday:  In GP (ABC), after Robert’s (John McTernan) funeral William (Michael Craig) says he will work in general practice full-time.  In A Country Practice, Hugo encourages Ruth to try for the Special Olympics.  In Chances (Nine), Angela (Patsy Stephen) is fascinated with Cal (Gerry Sont), while Barbara (Brenda Addie) shocks Dan (John Sheerin) with an announcement.

Wednesday:  Nine has afternoon coverage of the final of the Benson And Hedges World Cup cricket, live from Melbourne, although Melbourne viewers are barred from live coverage of the evening session’s play, instead receiving only a one-hour highlights package at midnight.

Thursday:  The ABC series on health and well-being, Everybody, returns for a second season – hosted by former Midday reporter Lisa Forrest.  In Acropolis Now (Seven), will Memo (George Kapiniaris) make a fortune on a game show?

Friday:  From midnight, Seven crosses to Lund, Sweden, for overnight live coverage of the Davis Cup tennis match, Sweden versus Australia.

Saturday:  With no live local sport during the day there is lots of C-rated (children’s programming) during the day across the three commercial networks – mostly repeats – including Round The Twist (Seven), Pugwall (Nine), Goodsports (Nine), Bush Beat (Nine), KTV (Nine), Look Who’s Talking (Nine) and The Henderson Kids (Ten).  Seven crosses again to Sweden for Davis Cup tennis late in the evening, while Ten has delayed coverage of the NBL Preliminary match between Sydney Kings and the Brisbane Bullets.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  21 March 1992.  Southdown Press.

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

1990: December 29-January 4

Summer Bay was never like this!
Home And Away’s Mat Stevenson and Emily Symons, who play lovebirds Adam and Marilyn in the series, had a few days at Great Keppel Island during a production break for the Seven Network series.  Stevenson is now holidaying in America while Symons is doing a pantomime in the UK before production for Home And Away resumes in the new year.

Hey Hey it’s Daryl!
TV Week announces that Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Daryl Somers will host the 33rd annual TV Week Logie Awards to be held in March and televised on the Nine Network.  The awards presentation will also be held at a new venue – the World Congress Centre in Melbourne.  It will be Somers’ second hosting of the Awards, having hosted the night once before in 1988.  “I enjoyed the hell out of it,” Somers told TV Week.  “It proved to be a really rewarding experience from an adrenalin point of view.  The whole team was very innovative and I like going out on a limb, so I’m looking forward to doing it again.  The industry might be down at the moment, but hopefully the Logies will be the usual night of fun.”

Have a soapie new year!
There will be plenty of dramas, romance, new arrivals and shock departures as Australia’s popular soaps enter a new year: 

• A Country Practice celebrates its 800th episode in February and the series will soon welcome a new matron to replace departing matron Ann Brennan (Mary Regan) – while Luke Ross (Matt Day) faces a new life in the city as an apprentice with Qantas, but what will happen with his potential relationship with Steve Brennan (Sophie Heathcote, pictured)?
• Neighbours’ lovebirds Matt (Ashley Paske) and Gemma (Beth Buchanan) have moved in together, much to the frustration of Madge (Anne Charleston) and Harold (Ian Smith).  Joe Mangel (Mark Little) faces the possibility of losing his daughter Sky (Miranda Fryer) as her natural father Eric (John Ley) is desperate to win a custody battle and take her to New Zealand following the death of her mother Kerry (Linda Hartley).  And Jim Robinson (Alan Dale) faces a dilemma when a man claiming to be his illegitimate son arrives in Ramsay Street.
• Former E Street star Paul Kelman (pictured) makes a guest appearance in ABC’s GP before starting an extended role in Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  Also joining the Nine Network series will be David Reyne, Nikki Coghill and Sophie Lee.
• E Street enters its third season with the departure of cast members Penny Cook, Vic Rooney and Warren Jones – but joining the series will be former A Country Practice star Kate Raison and former Family And Friends star Adrian Lee.  Meanwhile, the relationship between Harley (Malcolm Kennard) and Toni (Toni Pearen) faces challenges as Harley is hired as a ‘personal assistant’ to newspaper editor Sheridan Sturgess (Raison) and Toni takes a sudden interest in feminism with the encouragement of free-minded Alice (Marianne Howard).
• Home And Away will start 1991 with Bobby (Nicolle Dickson) lying in hospital waiting to find out the fate of her unborn child.  A new policeman, Constable Nick Parish (Bruce Roberts) moves into Summer Bay – as the relationship between Pippa (Debra Lawrence) and Michael (Dennis Coard) is challenged with the arrival of Michael’s wife Cynthia (former The Box and Sons And Daughters star Belinda Giblin).  Sophie (Rebekah Elmaloglou) becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Blake (Les Hill) and new arrival Hayden (Andrew Hill).

Briefly…
Aussie-based actress Imogen Annesley, currently starring in the UK soap Families, had looked forward to a rest in Sydney while the soap was on a break.  Instead, she has been in Melbourne as the last-minute replacement for Tammy MacIntosh in the comedy film Garbo.  MacIntosh had to withdraw from the movie after suffering a broken collarbone.

E Street producers have now had second thoughts about not renewing the contract of Bunney Brooke (pictured), who plays Aunty Vi in the series.  They had originally planned to have Aunty Vi exit the series to coincide with the departure of Ernie Patchett (Vic Rooney) but her popularity in the show appears to have saved her character from the axe.

Several Nine Network personalities were on hand at Sydney’s Hard Rock Cafe to assist with its hosting of a Christmas dinner for 100 needy people from the Sydney City Mission.  A Current Affair host Jana Wendt was in charge of serving the greens, Today’s Steve Liebmann and Elizabeth Hayes were in charge of turkey and mash and MTV’s Richard Wilkins was driving the gravy train.

John Laws says…
”Why on earth does Nine make such little use of its stump cam gimmick?  When it was first introduced we were told how revolutionary it was, and how nothing like it had been done before and how it would change the way we viewed cricket on TV.  Which was all absolutely correct.  But what does Nine achieve with stump cam?  Very little, it seems to me.”

Program Highlights (December 29-January 4):
Saturday:  More tennis (Hopman Cup from Perth) on HSV7 and cricket (second test from the MCG) on GTV9.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are The River Rat (HSV7) and Wills And Burke (ATV10), while ABC presents the Vienna New Year Concert, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Monday (New Year’s Eve):  HSV7’s summer of tennis continues with the Australian Women’s Hardcourt Championships, live from Brisbane.  ATV10’s Neighbours makes an early return for the 1991 season.  The new year is heralded by MTV Party Zone on GTV9, a repeat of The Wall – Berlin Concert on ATV10 and all-night Rage on ABC.

Tuesday:  GTV9 crosses to Sydney for the Benson And Hedges World Series cricket, Australia versus England.

Friday:  GTV9’s cricket coverage continues with Day One of the Third Test, Australia versus England, live from Sydney.  Virginia Hey, Ernie Dingo, Nick Tate and Trey Ames star in GTV9’s family drama series Dolphin Cove, a US production set in Queensland. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria country edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 29 December 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: November 17-23

Livvy’s Christmas surprise!
After a seven-year break from acting, former Aussie star Olivia Newton-John (pictured) is making her dramatic TV debut in a telemovie, A Mom For Christmas.  The movie, currently in production in Cincinatti, Ohio, is set to go to air in the US on Christmas Eve.  The Seven Network has decided to hold off screening the telemovie in Australia until next Christmas.

Meet ACP’s new matron
The contracts are still being finalised, but JNP Productions have announced that actress Maureen Edwards will be taking on the role of the new matron in A Country Practice – replacing Mary Regan, whose character Ann Brennan makes her departure from the series early in the new year.  Edwards’ other recent TV appearances have included roles in Skirts and, ironically, A Country Practice.  In her last ACP appearance, Edwards played Sydney neurosurgeon Katherine D’Angelo.

Counter attack
ABC’s 4 Corners host and radio 2BL morning presenter Andrew Olle (pictured) has spoken in defence of A Current Affair host Jana Wendt over her recent interview with Bob Hawke, where she questioned the honesty of his emotions over China, that is said to have enraged the prime minister.  “I think it is great that he’s been reminded that it is not just ABC interviewers who sometimes ask him tough questions,” Olle told TV Week.  “He and several ministers in his Government have almost made a point of being nasty to the ABC whenever they get a chance.  I interviewed Hawke about the coup in Fiji.  It became very tense.  He was in Adelaide, I was in Sydney.  Afterwards, he strolled off the set and in a foul-mouthed way let off steam to all the people in the studio, being very unpleasant to all and sundry.”  Olle also lists Wendt amongst the peers he most admires:  “She has a wonderful detachment.  I like the way she has been to resist the commercial machine, which gets hold of a woman and shapes her as a commercial property.  And she is very nice person… not an easy thing to be with al the adulation that comes her way.”  He also talked about an offer to join Nine’s 60 Minutes, but decided that professional satisfaction and his ABC salary is worth more than the bigger budgets on offer by commercial television.  “There is more money to be made outside,” he says.  “But you have to consider what it means to your life.  It has to be weighed up: satisfaction and greed.”

Briefly…
Legendary daytime soap opera Days Of Our Lives has recently celebrated 25 years on air in the US, having started in November 1965, although in Australia the series starting screening in 1968 and at this stage is two years behind the US.

Aussie rules footballer Warwick Capper (pictured), appearing as a contestant in Celebrity Family Feud this week, has told TV Week he has ambitions to be a film and TV star.  He made his acting debut in three episodes of Neighbours back in 1987, alongside Kylie Minogue, and is keen to try a “longer, ongoing role”. 

It’s a dramatic season finale coming up for Home And Away when pregnant Bobby Simpson (Nicolle Dickson) experiences stomach cramps and collapses in the Summer Bay diner.  She is rushed to hospital and admitted to intensive care, but Seven’s publicists are saying nothing about the outcome which is set to be revealed when the series returns in the new year.

John Laws says…
”The ABC screened an entertaining documentary about life in Australia in the Fifties and Sixties.  It was called The Baby Boomers Picture Show and for those of us for whom it had relevance it was a nostalgic look at life as we often remember it to have been.  The Baby Boomers, though, gave us an Australia through rose-tinted glasses.  It saw the past as having possessed a dream-like quality of contentment, happiness, innocence and mateship.  Which is true, but only to a certain extent.  There was misery, war, uncertainty, murder and poverty in the Fifties and early Sixties, but despite this, street kids were exactly that, kids who played in the street.  Crack was something you found in the pavement and “heroin” was the female lead in a movie.”

Program Highlights (November 17-23):
Saturday:  The final day of the 1990 ratings year brings the final Hey Hey It’s Saturday for the year, with a special three-hour show featuring Noiseworks, Daryl Braithwaite, Icehouse, The Chimes and Ita Buttrose.  HSV7 presents the one-hour special Agro’s 10th Birthday, featuring Cartoon Connection’s Agro visiting the sets of fellow Seven programs Hinch, Fast Forward, Tonight Live With Steve Vizard and Hey Dad!

Sunday:  ABC presents the series final of its popular dance competition That’s Dancin’.  Sunday night movies are Red Dawn (HSV7) and Priest Of Love (ATV10).  GTV9 presents the first part of mini-series Crossings, and ABC presents Esso Night At The Opera, featuring the Australian Opera’s production of War And Peace.

Monday:  Australian actress Sigrid Thornton stars in the US series Paradise, returning tonight on HSV7.  Andrew Denton’s The Money Or The Gun (ABC) presents its final episode for 1990.  With Tonight Live With Steve Vizard now on its summer break, HSV7 replaces it with a late-night edition of Seven Nightly News with newsreader Naomi Robson.

Wednesday:  Country singer James Blundell guest stars in the 1990 series final of The Flying Doctors (GTV9).

Thursday:  ABC drama series Embassy finishes up for 1990.

Friday:  Test Cricket begins for the season as GTV9 crosses to the Gabba, Brisbane, for the first day’s play of the first test between Australia and England. 

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 17 November 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: September 8-14

Cover: Mat Stevenson, Emily Symons (Home And Away)

Mike Munro: ‘I go home and cry’
60 Minutes reporter Mike Munro says that for the past five months, working on the story surrounding the ‘Mr Bubbles’ case involving 17 pre-school children, has often reduced him to tears.  “I get so bloody depressed.  I go home to my wife and cry.  If people want me to say that I’m on a crusade, then good.  If being a crusader means not giving up until the truth comes out then I’m proud to be called a crusader,” he told TV Week.  

‘They’ve been beauties!’
During 25 years of TV, including his years as a foreign correspondent for ABC, a reporter for 60 Minutes and now as host of Midday, Ray Martin has interviewed more than his fair share of superstars.  Pop princess Kylie Minogue wins the award for the easiest to talk to, while Joan Collins was a different story.  “Joan was difficult, until she settled in,” Martin told TV Week.  “(She) preened herself and looked at herself and was in love with the monitor.  More than anyone else, apart from Bob Hawke.  Bob Hawke just about matches her!”  Whoopi Goldberg is described as “the most natural… terrific” and Jane Fonda was “interesting.  She was interested in any subject and didn’t want to do all serious issues.”  Nicole Kidman, Elle McPherson and Sigrid Thornton are also among his favourites, while Sophia Loren is one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen.

‘You have no idea some of the things that were invented!’
This year has been a busy one for actor Marcus Graham – moving on from soapie E Street to starring roles in mini-series Shadows Of The Heart and Ratbag Hero, a guest role in ABC’s GP and an upcoming appearance in The Flying Doctors.  But a possible lowlight this year has been media speculation of a relationship with actress Nicole Kidman.  Graham (pictured) had been dating Kidman briefly before she went to the US and met Tom Cruise.  On a recent trip back to Sydney, Kidman had called at his house but he was not home, but it was enough to prompt speculation of a romance.  “You have no idea some of the things that were invented!” he told TV Week.

Briefly…
Former A Country Practice star Anne Tenney (pictured) returns to TV this week in an episode of ABC series Fresh Start, playing the part of a sheepfarmer’s wife struggling with illiteracy.  It is only her second TV appearance since leaving A Country Practice in 1985, having recently appeared in the children’s series Elly And Jools.

Actress Linda Hartley has spoken to TV Week after her sudden departure from Neighbours where her character, Kerry Mangel, was accidentally shot dead while at a duck-hunting protest.  “Joe (Mark Little) and Kerry couldn’t have split up – that just wouldn’t have happened.  If you’re going to go, you might as well go with a bang!  Kerry has been a wonderful character to play and I won a Penguin Award for her, so I’ve had a very rewarding time,” she told TV Week. 

Former Neighbours star Guy Pearce is set to make a big impact on the big screen.  The 22-year-old actor is currently on location in Fiji for the film Young Flynn, portraying screen legend Errol Flynn from a 16-year-old schoolboy to when he made his first Hollywood feature at the age of 24.  Pearce also has a key role in upcoming film Heaven Tonight, co-starring John Waters, Kim Gyngell and Rebecca Gilling, due for release later this year.

John Laws says…
”There are some annoying little traits on television.  One of them is the oft-spoken line, “Thank you for your time,” which Jana Wendt uses on every interview she conducts.  Others have taken up the courtesy – some to an irritating extent.  But perhaps the most irritating trait of all is the one that they all use – every night, without fail – on news and current affairs programs.  It’s the two words “but first”.  Once you’ve noticed these words it becomes hypnotically riveting to wait for them to be spoken each night.  Example: “Later we’ll talk to Idi Amin about how he would handle the Gulf War crisis, but first…”

Program Highlights (September 8-14):
Saturday:  ATV10 wipes out its usual overnight schedule of B-grade re-runs and movies and from tonight replaces that with Ten Newswatch, a direct telecast of news coverage from US network CNN with emphasis on the escalating situation in the Middle East.  GTV9 crosses live to Flushing Meadow, New York, for the Men’s Semi-Final and Women’s Singles Final of the US Open tennis.

Sunday:  The Sunday night movie is Innerspace (GTV9), while HSV7 presents the first part of mini-series Poor Little Rich Girl and ATV10 debuts mini-series Blood Ties.  GTV9 then crosses to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix.

Monday:  GTV9 presents early morning coverage of the Men’s Singles Final of the US Open, live from Flushing Meadow, New York.  In A Country Practice (HSV7), on the eve of her wedding Lucy Tyler (Georgie Parker) is told by her mother Lois (Jill Perryman) that she is divorcing her father who is refusing to attend the wedding.

Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), reporter Simon Reeve finds out why Volvo is leading the way with the production of environmentally safe vehicles.  David McCubbin and Gia Carides are guest stars in this week’s episode of GP (ABC).

Wednesday:  ABC presents the debut of the 13-part drama series Embassy, tracing the story of Australian Embassy staff in strife-torn Ragaan, a fictional Islamic, South East Asian country.  The series stars Bryan Marshall, Janet Andrewartha, Alan Fletcher, Nina Landis, Frankie J Holden, Gerard Maguire, Nicki Wendt, Joseph Spano and Anthony Wong.

Thursday:  Maggie Tabberer and Richard Zachariah present ABC’s new lifestyle series, The Home Show, a weekly series focusing on how to get the best out of where you live.  In E Street (ATV10), a boxing match between Harley (Malcolm Kennard) and Max (Bruce Samazan) is staged to see who wins the affection of Toni (Toni Pearen) who appears rather dubious about the whole situation.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  8 September 1990.  Southdown Press

1990: August 11-17

I won’t be back!
The producers of Hey Dad! are about to face a crisis with the departure of one the show’s key cast members.  Simone Buchanan, who plays Debbie Kelly in the Seven Network series, is openly telling friends that she is definitely leaving the popular comedy.  However, show producer Gary Reilly has told TV Week that he is confident that she will stay.  “I have all the confidence in the world,” he says.  “We’re still talking, and, to be honest, it’s not time yet for serious negotiations.”

New ‘super-show’ to take on Hey Hey
The Seven Network is set to combine its two most popular game shows into a ‘super-show’ to take on Nine’s top-rating Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  Seven plans to launch celebrity versions of both Family Feud and Wheel Of Fortune and screen them back-to-back up against Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  “It’s a very exciting project, something very different,” Grundy Entertainment’s Paul Waterhouse told TV Week.  “It’s basically the same shows, but with slight changes to the formats to allow for celebrity involvement.  It will be more dramatic and more exciting.”  The decision to go ahead with the celebrity spin-offs came after the recent ratings success of Sale Of The Century’s week-long celebrity challenge.

Fast Forward’s lady of many faces reveals it’s time to… EJECT!
Fast Forward’s Marg Downey has admitted that she is pondering a new challenge after two years with the popular sketch comedy show.  “I think Fast Forward will go on but it needs fresh faces to do it,” she told TV Week.  Downey is hopeful for a drama or perhaps another comedy role.  “Something that was half straight and half comedy would be ideal,” she says.   And despite her well-known celebrity impersonations, including Jana Wendt (pictured) and the unnamed “SBS lady”, have earned plenty of applause, Downey admits that some of her impersonations have not been her best work.  “The Golden Girls is one example.  I felt my voice (as Bea Arthur’s character, Dorothy) was ridiculously low.  And I didn’t think I did Jennifer Keyte very well.”  However, Downey recently took the brave step of introducing herself to the real Jana Wendt.  “At the Logies Jana told me she sits at home with her husband (producer Brendan Ward) to analyse how well I’ve done her,” she says. 

Briefly…
Actress Paula Duncan (pictured, with husband John Orcsik) has been thumbing through the archives of TV Week to piece together a historical portraits of TV soaps and their stars, past and present.  The former Number 96, Cop Shop and Richmond Hill star is organising a TV celebrity dance party to be held at the The Dome in Sydney’s Showgrounds in October.  Some of the stars who are set to appear on the night include Bobby Limb, Lorrae Desmond, Abigail, Bartholomew John, Joanna Lockwood, Maggie Kirkpatrick, Stefan Dennis, Craig McLachlan, Julie McGregor and Wendy Strehlow.

Network Ten is about to launch its new comedy series Let The Blood Run Free, starring Jean Kittson and Peter Rowsthorn (pictured).  The new series, described by Rowsthorn as “a human cartoon”, is set in the fictional St Christopher’s Hospital and also stars Lynda Gibson as Matron Dorothy Conniving-Bitch.  Let The Blood Run Free is a production of Media Arts, the producers of The Comedy Company, and was originally set to appear on the Nine Network until executives decided the show, featuring plenty of blood and slapstick violence, was too “off the wall” and it consequently got sold to Ten.

Wheel Of Fortune hostess Adriana Xenides has told TV Week that with her upcoming role in Nine’s Golden Fiddles she is determined to prove that she is more than a glamour girl.  “I know it’s very hard for people to think of me as anything other than a TV hostess because I’ve been doing it for so long,” she told TV Week.  “It doesn’t worry me if people think of me as an airhead because I know I’m not.” 

Naomi Watts (pictured), the girl who chose a lamb roast dinner over a date with Tom Cruise in a TV commercial, is joining the cast of Hey Dad! as the girlfriend of Simon Kelly (Chris Mayer).

John Laws says…
”Its critics say a news segment is totally out of place in a show (Tonight Live) which often relies for its laughs on the ridicule of world affairs, political figures and, occasionally, even tragedy.  What saves the segment is Jennifer Keyte’s professional ability to maintain credibility in the face of the evening’s fun and games.  She has, to her credit, never allowed herself to become a “fall guy” – or should it be fall person? – for Steve Vizard’s sarcastic wit.”

Program Highlights (August 11-17):
Saturday:  HSV7 crosses live to Carrara, Brisbane, for the AFL game between Brisbane Bears and Geelong.  Sandy Roberts heads the coverage, joined by Ian Robertson, Don Scott and Bill McDonald.

Sunday:  ATV10’s daytime line-up features regular crosses throughout the day to the station’s annual Deafness Appeal Telethon, hosted by TTFM breakfast presenters Geoff Cox and Gavin Wood (pictured).  The telethon is accepting donations until 11.00pm.  ABC presents national coverage of the Sun-Herald City To Surf run in Sydney.  Sunday night movies are Brothers-In-Law (HSV7), Fever (GTV9) and Sharky’s Machine (ATV10).

Monday:  HSV7’s Monday night movie is the 1986 drama Just Us, starring Kim Gyngell, Gina Riley, Scott Burgess and Catherine McClements, focusing on the unusual love between a newspaper journalist and a hardened criminal in prison.  ATV10 begins a re-run of mini-series Tanamera – Lion Of Singapore, starring Gary Sweet, Anne Louise Lambert, Ed Devereaux and Khym Lam.

Tuesday: In A Country Practice (HSV7), Shirley’s (Lorrae Desmond) concerns about a growth on her face are confirmed and Terence (Shane Porteous) recommends surgery.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a one-hour special, Ten Days Of Glory, documenting the return of 60 World War I veterans and widows to Gallipoli earlier this year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign.

Thursday:  HSV7’s new police drama Skirts has struggled to find an audience in its Sunday night timeslot so it is now moved to Thursdays, following Fast Forward.

Friday:  HSV7 presents live AFL between Sydney Swans and Brisbane Bears at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.           
11 August 1990. Southdown Press.

1990: March 10-16

Logies 1990: Who’ll grab the glittering prize?
Last year’s TV Week Gold Logie winner Daryl Somers has been nominated for the 1990 TV Week Gold Logie, but has some tough competition – Nine Network colleagues Jana Wendt (A Current Affair) and Ray Martin (Midday), and soapie heart-throb Craig McLachlan (Neighbours).  Somers has already won three TV Week Gold Logies (1983, 1986, 1989) and another Gold will almost rank him with as many Gold Logie wins as predecessors Graham Kennedy (five Gold Logies) and Bert Newton (four Gold Logies and a Hall of Fame Award).

TV Week Logie Awards nominations (Publicly voted categories):
Gold Logie: Ray Martin, Daryl Somers, Jana Wendt, Craig McLachlan.
Most Popular Actor: Andrew McFarlane, Shane Porteous, John Tarrant, Craig McLachlan
Most Popular Actress: Nicolle Dickson, Rachel Friend, Dannii Minogue, Georgie Parker
Most Popular Series: A Country Practice, The Flying Doctors, Home And Away, Neighbours
Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program: The Comedy Company, Fast Forward, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Hey Dad!
Most Popular Sports Coverage: Cricket, Grand Prix, Tennis
Most Popular Telemovie or Mini-Series: Bangkok Hilton, Fields Of Fire III, The Heroes, The Magistrate
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair, Hinch, 60 Minutes
Most Popular Children’s Program: C’mon Kids, Play School, Wombat
Most Popular New Talent: Matt Day, Marcus Graham, Georgie Parker

Other public-voted awards: Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality, Most Popular Music Video, Most Popular Lifestyle Program, Most Popular Actor and Actress in a Telemovie or Mini-series, Most Popular Program (for each state) and Most Popular Personality (for each state).

The joke’s on us!
With Mark Mitchell at the helm, comedy will be the emphasis of this year’s TV Week Logie Awards, to be held at the Hyatt On Collins, Melbourne.  Among those joining Mitchell on the Network Ten telecast will be Kim Gyngell (Col’n Carpenter), Steve Vizard (Tonight Live) and the cast of the Seven Network series Acropolis Now.

‘No commercial network could touch this…’
Gerard Kennedy, Terry Gill and Frankie J Holden are among the cast of a controversial ABC telemovie, Police Crop.  The 100-minute dramatisation exposes the extent of police collusion with the Mafia in Australia over several years, leading up to the death of Superintendent Colin Winchester.  The program is the culmination of painstaking research and goes to air the day after the Winchester inquest resumes.  Director Ken Cameron says that such a program could never air on a commercial network:  “No commercial network could touch this.  They’ve been advised not to.”

What a shocker!
Jason Donovan’s role in the $3.7 million mini-series Shadows Of The Heart will no doubt shock his many fans.  “They’ll certainly see something that’s a bit different and unexpected,” he tells TV Week.  The former Neighbours star plays Alex Fargo, a dark-haired, drunken and unkempt farmer who has a relationship with his bed-ridden cousin, Indy (Sherrie Krenn).  “My role as a singer and what I’ve done with Neighbours before has always been fresh and wholesome.  But it’s nice to play someone different.”

Briefly…
John Waters (pictured) and Peta Toppano starred together as hippies in the stage production Godspell and have now been re-united as lovers in upcoming mini-series All The Rivers Run II. 

William McInnes will be making a guest appearance in A Country Practice as the new love interest for Cathy Hayden (Kate Raison) in a storyline that will lead to Raison’s exit from the series.

US actress Cybill Sheppard is coming to Australia to star with John Waters in the $7 million mini-series, Which Way Home, a production of the McElroy brothers who also brought Dynasty star Linda Evans to the outback for The Last Frontier.  Which Way Home will start production in New Zealand before heading to Thailand and then finishing up with seven weeks in Sydney.  It is expected to air on Network Ten and the American TNT network in 1991.

John Laws says…
”What a pity Steve Vizard (pictured) got off to such a shaky start with his Tonight Live program on Seven.  You’ll recall that I was underwhelmed by his first week’s antics.  Vizard, to put it mildly, was unprepared for the challenge of hosting a live-to-air show.  That first week was a shambles.  But it’s a surprising what a few weeks in the “hot seat” can do.  Vizard, through sheer grit, determination and hard work, has turned the show around.  Vizard’s show rated a 9 in Sydney the other week, three points ahead of its chief rival, Coast To Coast (without Graham Kennedy) on Nine.  Coast To Coast – let’s be frank – is struggling.  Without Kennedy, the heart seems to have been ripped out of it.”

Program Highlights (March 10-16):
Saturday:  ABC crosses to Auckland, New Zealand, for the One Day International Cricket – Australia versus New Zealand.  Coverage starts at 7.55am and continues through to 3.45pm.
Sunday:  HSV7 presents coverage of NBL, Sydney Kings versus Illawarra Hawks, from the State Sports Centre, Homebush – followed by the Australian Touring Car Championships, live from Tasmania.  Sunday night movies are Perry Mason: Case Of The Avenging Ace (HSV7) and The Couch Trip (ATV10).  GTV9 presents the first instalment of mini-series Something Is Out There.
Monday:  ABC and HSV7 both cover the annual Moomba procession, from the streets of the Melbourne CBD.  HSV7 then devotes the afternoon to Moomba Masters water-skiing from Melbourne’s Yarra River.  After The 7.30 Report, ABC launches a new series, The Party Machine, featuring Andrew Denton as he takes an in-depth look at the upcoming Federal Election.  GTV9 presents the second and final instalment to the mini-series Something Is Out There.
Tuesday:  In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), Simon Reeve examines a robot designed to shear 300 sheep in a single day, Amanda Keller investigates an alternative to hysterectomies, and Bryan Smith takes an amazing journey through the human body.
Thursday and Friday:  ABC presents a late-night cricket highlights package of Day One of the Trans-Tasman Test – Australia versus New Zealand.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  
10 March 1990. Southdown Press. 

1990: January 27-February 2

Cover: Cher

Steve lays down the law
When Fast Forward’s Steve Vizard threw in a lucrative legal career to go into television comedy, everyone told him he was an idiot.  “And I am an idiot,” he says.  “You can see what a fundamentally good decision it was to leave a great job in law to join Qintex at this particular time.”  Vizard’s company, United Film Completion, is busy preparing comedy and variety program ideas for the Seven Network.  In 1989, the network had a hit with sketch comedy program Fast Forward, and Vizard’s new venture, Tonight Live, launches this week.  Vizard also says that there are “three or four other projects in the pipeline.”  In the lead-up to Tonight Live’s debut, Vizard and Seven are in negotiation for the network’s Melbourne newsreader, Jennifer Keyte, to read news on the program.

Glamour in three easy steps
Actress Anne Phelan, famous for playing rough inmate Myra Desmond in Prisoner and the frumpy Mama in Harp In The South and Poor Man’s Orange, is taking a somewhat more upmarket tone in her new role as cafe owner Dawn Dickson in the Nine Network’s new series, Family And Friends.  “With Family And Friends, I’m actually going to look like myself, only a bit tarted up – and to be truthful I’m not looking forward to all that.  I would rather be disguised,” she commented.  The new series follows the lives of two families, the Chandlers and the Rossis, divided by hatred over three generations.

Rowena shares a secret
Former Neighbours star Rowena Mohr (pictured) has decided to pursue an acting career in the UK, but is leaving behind her most treasured fan, her younger sister, Judy, who has an intellectual disability.  “Judy’s biggest thrill was when I joined Neighbours.  She thought it was wonderful and told all her friends about it.  I even had to get her special photographs and sweatshirts signed by the cast,” Mohr says.  “She’s the only one who writes to me regularly.”  Since settling in the UK, Mohr has had to cope with the English press.  In one interview, she jokingly told a reporter she would have to find an English husband – and was then inundated with offers.

Briefly…
Singer Tina Turner has just departed Australia after filming a series of commercials for the NSW Rugby League.  The $2 million ad campaign, featuring Turner’s hit The Best, was filmed around Sydney and the Gold Coast.

Actress Mary Regan (pictured) is to replace Joan Sydney as matron of Wandin Valley Hospital in A Country Practice.  The new matron could well be a romantic interest for either of the hospital’s doctors, Chris Kouros (Michael Muntz) or Terence Elliot (Shane Porteous).  Sydney has already finished taping for A Country Practice and is now preparing for her next role in the stage play Mrs Klein, co-starring Helen Morse and Michelle Fawdon.

TV funnyman Jonathan Coleman has married his long-time girlfriend, Margot Fitzpatrick, at a ceremony at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.  The newlywed couple are honeymooning in Thailand, followed by London and Paris.  Coleman in interested in working in the US and Europe, but is not about to cut ties with Australia – he has been in talks with Steve Vizard over a possible involvement in new show Tonight Live.  Coleman has also taped a pilot for an Australian version of Entertainment This Week.

Bert Newton (pictured), whose last radio gig was at 3DB, has said that he would like to get back into radio and has confirmed that there have been some offers.  “I’d have to be in the right shift,” he says.  “I proved to myself at 3DB that I’m not a breakfast man.  I don’t think my conversational style is right for the corn flakes.  Lately I’ve been listening to quite a bit of radio and I’ve found that what is good is very good and what is bad is terrible.”

On The Grapevine…
An out-of-work soapie actress has taken to playing the didgeridoo in the pedestrian tunnel at Sydney’s Central Station in order to bring home the bacon.

Who was the popular young Sydney actor, well acquainted with playing the role of a car thief, who found himself on the receiving end recently?  A shopping spree to Bondi cost him a lot more than he expected when he returned to the car park to find his chariot missing.  Even more tragic, the car wasn’t insured.

John Laws says…
”The demise of female newsreaders in Sydney doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.  Perhaps 1990 will be remembered as the year of living gentlemanly.  The past few years have seen women move into a wide area of high-profile TV jobs.  Some were competent – such as Jana Wendt – but others lacked the necessary “zing” that captures huge ratings and all-round public approval.  Woman after woman was thrown up against TCN9’s Brian Henderson (pictured) to try to break his iron grip on the news ratings in Sydney – and all failed.  Now we have a male line-up confronting him, including former 60 Minutes heavyweight Ian Leslie on Ten.  It’s desperate stuff.  Ten’s one-hour format – I’m assuming here it’s going to remain – is also a problem.  By the time it’s waddled halfway through its bulletin, Nine and Seven have wrapped up and have moved on.  The result is that Ten gets the image of being a slowcoach, even though it presents a fuller news service.”

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”From initial impressions anyway, the first new Australian soap of the Nineties certainly looks handsome.  Family And Friends blends some fresh new faces with a few who are tried and true.  My tip?  This one will work.  Nine at last has a soap with a potentially long and healthy life.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne):
Saturday:  HSV7 debuts two new Saturday morning programs, Saturday Disney and Video Smash Hits, the latter hosted by Michael Horrocks (Cartoon Connection) and Emily Symons (Richmond Hill, Home And Away).  That night, HSV7 crosses to Tamworth for the Australasian Country Music Awards.  SBS interrupts its Saturday evening programming for a live, ten-minute cross to Moonee Valley, Melbourne for the Victoria Cup harness racing.

Sunday:  The Men’s Singles Final of the Australian Open is telecast live on HSV7 in the afternoon, up against GTV9’s continued daily coverage of the Commonwealth Games from Auckland, New Zealand.  Sunday night movies are Hoodwink (HSV7) and Brubaker (ATV10), while ABC presents the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Ham Funeral, starring Kerry Walker, Max Cullen, Robyn Nevin and Maggie Kirkpatrick.

Monday:  From 10.00am, ABC presents live coverage of the 1990 NFL Superbowl, direct from New Orleans.  And with the tennis season now over, HSV7’s weekday line-up returns, including current affairs program Eleven AM, the midday movie and afternoon re-runs of US shows Perry Mason, Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream Of Jeannie and Get Smart.  Nine’s Sale Of The Century returns for 1990 in its traditional 7.00pm timeslot.  SBS screens the Australian movie Kostas, starring Wendy Hughes and Takis Emmanuel.  Steve Vizard presents the first edition of his new late-night show, Tonight Live.

Tuesday:  GTV9’s coverage of the Commonwealth Games gets an early start, 4.50am, to cover the men’s marathon.  ABC’s popular medical drama GP (pictured) begins its second series.

Friday:  HSV7 presents live coverage from Perth of the Davis Cup, Australia versus France.  GTV9’s late-night music video program, MTV, returns for the new year.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 27 January 1990. Southdown Press. 

Melbourne moves up from Channel 0 to 10

It is now 30 years since Melbourne’s ATV0 made history and changed its broadcast frequency to Channel 10.

When Reg Ansett was awarded the licence to operate Melbourne’s third commercial channel in 1963, he was given the frequency of Channel 0 – down the low end of the dial, and, being a ‘new’ frequency, most older TV sets did not have a Channel 0 position on the dial.  The conversion of older sets and antennas to include access to Channel 0 was a short term financial boon for TV repairers and installers as viewers moved to ensured that they were ready to ‘Go for 0’ when it eventually went to air on 1 August 1964, although test transmissions for the new channel had started as early as May.

The challenges inherent in the low broadcast frequency, such as deficiencies in reception across large portions of Melbourne, coupled with fierce competition from older rivals HSV7 and GTV9, made life tough for Ansett’s new channel – resulting in it often struggling in third place in the ratings.  Even though Ansett had budgeted that his new channel, ATV0, would be making a profit after three years with a lineup heavy in Australian content, it would be many more years before it would end up paying dividends.

By 1969, still faced with the challenges of the low-end frequency and trying to break the dominance of its two older rivals, Ansett ended up underwriting a boxing match between Australian title holder Lionel Rose and British champion Alan Rudkin.  The match was a huge ratings hit, scoring 72 per cent of the viewing audience, setting a ratings record that would not be broken until the Sydney Olympic Games more than thirty years later. 

But despite the massive audience boost from the Rose-Rudkin title fight, it would be 1973 before ATV0 would post its first weekly ratings win – heralded with full-page newspaper ads (pictured) – largely due to the controversial, top-rating soapie Number 96, which had dominated ratings around the country. 

By the late-‘70s, ATV0 was in ratings decline.  By this stage it had bid farewell to Number 96 and other major ratings drawcards The Box and Blankety Blanks.  The landmark US mini-series, Roots, had delivered massive ratings but the boost to the station was short lived.  By the end of 1978 the Federal Government had received an application from ATV0 for permission to change its broadcast frequency to Channel 10 – giving it a stronger broadcast signal at the top of the dial which would hopefully eliminate any gaps in the old channel’s coverage and would also provide an opportunity to re-launch the struggling ATV0 as a “new” channel and would also match up the station with the same frequency as its Sydney network partner, TEN10.  The Government approved the changeover early in 1979.

The hitch in changing to Channel 10 was that it would conflict with neighbouring Gippsland channel GLV10, causing interference by sharing the same frequency.  ATV0 then agreed to pay the costs incurred by GLV to have it moved to an alternative frequency, Channel 8.  It was not a cheap exercise, as ATV paid around $800,000 to fund GLV’s conversion costs and also to fund the distribution of filters to attach to viewers’ sets – as it was apparent that GLV on Channel 8 would interfere in areas where viewers could also receive Melbourne channels HSV7 and GTV9 and the filters would rectify that.

In preparing the changeover to Channel 10, ATV managed to sign up one of its former leading stars, Graham Kennedy (pictured), to front the new channel’s advertising campaign – including radio and television commercials.  It was no mean feat, as only 18 months earlier Kennedy was less than subtle in his criticism of ATV0 due to the channel’s poor performance impacting on his Blankety Blanks game show.  Kennedy told The Age that money was certainly a factor in accepting the position of being the channel’s spokesman during the conversion period: “They did offer me a very attractive deal.  And it immediately appealed to me because it will be an historic occasion.  A television station changing its frequency will probably never happen again in our lifetimes.”

There was also talk that Kennedy would also have the opportunity to present a new tonight show on the revamped channel, though was not to be.

By January 1980, the channel was ready to flick the switch.  Thousands of brochures had been distributed to households around Melbourne to advise of the changeover, while a telephone hotline had been set up to enable viewers to get assistance in retuning their sets from Channel 0 to 10.  And without much time to spare, GLV10 made the switch to GLV8 on 17 January.

Then the big day – 20 January – had arrived.  ATV0 had signed off for the last time at around 3.00am that morning – the last program to air on the channel was the 1948 movie, Angel In Exile.  Then, just prior to 2.00pm on the Sunday afternoon, Kennedy, standing atop of the channel’s studio building in Nunawading, welcomed viewers to Channel 10:  “Come on up to Ten, you’ll enjoy the view!”  Then the new ATV10 broadcast its launch promotion ‘You’re On Top With 10’, with catchy lyrics sung by Mike Brady.

The first program to follow on ATV10 was 10’s Summer Sunday, a three-hour outside broadcast from Torquay Beach, south of Melbourne, hosted by former ATV0 newsreaders Bruce Mansfield and Annette Allison. 

Jana Wendt presented ATV10’s first Eyewitness News bulletin at 6.00pm – and barely a few months later Ms Wendt would be promoted to co-anchoring the main weeknight bulletin on the channel.  Kennedy was back on air at 6.30pm, presenting a one-hour special, You’re On Top With Ten, previewing some of the upcoming shows on the new channel, including the documentary series The Human Face Of China, mini-series Water Under The Bridge and an Australian adaptation of the British comedy Are You Being Served?, as well as the return of familiar titles including Prisoner, The Restless Years, Peter Couchman Tonight and Young Talent Time.

At 7.30pm, ATV10 presented the movie-length debut of the network’s new highly-anticipated, big-budget soap opera, Arcade, from the producers behind the former Number 96.  Despite ambitions for the series to be the flagship of the network’s lineup heading into the new decade, the series failed to grab even a modest share of the audience and was taken off the air six weeks later.

Following Arcade was the Sunday night movie, Summerfield, starring John Waters, Nick Tate and Elizabeth Alexander.

Viewers that had still yet to make the change to their sets from Channel 0 to 10 were given a slight reprieve, as ATV would simulcast on both channels for an interim period to enable viewers some extra time to make the necessary adjustments and to get used to the new channel position.

Industry magazine B&T reported at the time that the changeover of ATV from 0 to 10 would be the first time that a TV station in a major metropolitan market had changed frequencies – outside of the United States.

The changeover from Channel 0 to 10 in Melbourne led to the network changing its name from the 0-10 Network to Network Ten, with its Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide stations all broadcasting on the Channel 10 frequency.  Although Brisbane’s network partner, TVQ0, would continue to broadcast on the Channel 0 frequency until the late ‘80s.

Source: The Age, 12 October 1978.  The Age, 10 January 1980.  The Age, 17 January 1980.  TV Week, 19 January 1980.