1978: September 16-22

Why Lynda said no to nude stardom
Lynda Stoner, nurse Kim Barrington in The Young Doctors, has just started a drama course.  "I want to be a good actress," she told TV Times.  The former Adelaide receptionist became a star after winning the Miss TV Times contest in 1976 - part of her prize being an audition with Crawford Productions.  The audition led to an offer to appear on the new Crawford drama Hotel Story, but there was to be a nude scene.  Stoner refused, returning the script, and thought her career was over.  She was later offered the role, keeping her clothes on, as nurse Kim Barrington in The Young Doctors, and has continued to turn down offers for movie roles that involved nudity, commercials for lingerie and magazine centrefolds. (Pictured: The Young Doctors' Judy Lynne, Bartholomew John and Lynda Stoner)

Dawn's in the pink
Just hours after recording her scenes for an episode of a new ABC series of comedy plays titled Tickled Pink, Dawn Lake was in hospital having a cancerous growth removed from her face.  The surgery meant that Lake wasn't able to talk for several weeks, so it was fortunate she was able to tape the scenes beforehand.  In the episode of Tickled Pink, titled The Family Business, Lake plays a housewife who becomes a tea lady in a complicated scheme to keep a roof over her family's head.  Playing her husband is Max Gillies (pictured, with Lake), who is also featured in the series' final episode, A Visit To The Uncle, a Jewish comedy co-starring former Number 96 stars Johnny Lockwood and Bunney Brooke.  Other performers to appear in Tickled Pink over its six-episode run include Cornelia Frances, Peter Sumner, Noel Ferrier, Martin Harris, Penne Hackforth-Jones, Tony Llewelyn-Jones, Barry Otto and Jill Perryman.

Raymond's bid for daytime viewers
"The last thing we want to do is be another Mike Walsh Show," said Steve Raymond (pictured), about to launch his own afternoon show on the 0-10 Network.  The Steve Raymond Show offers a mix of news and entertainment, but with a new look - a lot of the people involved with the show have never worked in television and are able to offer challenges to the technical crews that they'd never met before, hence giving the show an edge over the more traditional daytime show.  An air-date has not been announced for the new show, but it is expected to debut in October along with the network's new afternoon game shows Perfect Match and Pyramid Challenge, and will likely appear at 1.30pm so as not to clash with The Mike Walsh Show on Nine.

Lionel's long on talent!
Singer and actor Lionel Long has been selected by Reg Grundy Productions to host the new talent series National Star Quest.  The program, being produced by Grundy's in association with a consortium of 25 regional TV stations known as Australian Television Faciltiies, marks Long's first TV compering role.  The recording star, with ten gold records to his credit, will spend one day a week at the studios of WIN4 Wollongong to host the studio segments of the new show.  National Star Quest is expected to air on the member stations of ATF from early 1979.

Just briefly...
If the commissioners at ABC, meeting on 18 October, give the go-ahead to the new Six O'Clock Statewide program, This Day Tonight could be off-air as soon as November to give staff time to prepare.

Bill Harmon, one of the men behind Number 96, has been keeping a low profile since the series ended, but is working on a new project backed by the Australian Film Commission.

Former Bellbird star Warwick Randall is also a wine expert, and has four books about to be published.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
"Would someone out in TV land tell me why I should invest in a colour TV?  This week has been good for reading books, what with specials, fashion parades and so on.  I want TV to give me a choice and not have the same station showing all the same sort of things." J. Hankinson, NSW.

"I should like to vote an extra special award to the inventor of the remote control gadget for TV sets.  I have just realised the full potential of this useful little article - I can shut Diana Fisher up!" C. Large, QLD.

"ABC is doing a good thing having The Truckies on.  People should think themselves lucky to have truckies around.  If it weren't for those good, hard-working, honest men, we would not have half the things in our shops today." D. Carr, SA.

"The Truckies is a horrible show.  We expect to sit and view something interesting, but all you hear is bad language.  All you see is sloppy behaviour.  It is a real insult to truck drivers." G. Sweeney, NSW.

What's On (September 16-22):
A change to the usual TV listings this week as this week's issue is the 'Inland' edition, covering Canberra, regional New South Wales (part of which receives GMV6 from Victoria), and the Darling Downs region in Queensland.

World Championship Boxing, featuring the rematch title fight between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks, is telecast live from New Orleans, airing on Saturday morning and early afternoon on NBN3 Newcastle, NEN9-ECN8 Tamworth-Taree, CTC7 Canberra, RVN2-AMV4 Wagga Wagga-Albury and DDQ10-SDQ4 Darling Downs-Southern Downs.

The US mini-series Holocaust screens over four consecutive nights on CTC7.

The Quest Of Quests, the beauty contest to determine who will represent Australia in the Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss Asia, Miss International and Miss Young International beauty quests, screens in a one-hour special Wednesday night on CTC7, NEN9-ECN8, CBN8-CWN6-MTN9 Orange-Dubbo-Griffith, RVN2-AMV4, GMV6 Shepparton and DDQ10-SDQ4.  Newcastle's NBN3, however, has opted out of screening the event, instead offering Benny Hill In Australia.  Later in the evening, DDQ10-SDQ4 continues the beauty contest theme with the local telecast of Carnival Of Flowers, including the 1978 Carnival of Flowers Queen Competition, with 23 entrants presented to the judges at the Toowoomba Town Hall.

The ABC comedy series Tickled Pink debuts in New South Wales and Queensland on Thursday night, and the following night in Victoria.

NBN3's weekday broadcast day commences at 7.00am with Breakfast Club, leading into the locally-made Romper Room at 9.00am, but the other regional stations, including CTC7, are off-air until late morning or early afternoon.

The Nine Network's The Mike Walsh Show is firmly entrenched across the regional areas, screening across all the local stations listed in the Inland edition.  US daytime soaps Days Of Our Lives and The Young And The Restless also appear in all regions during the afternoons.

Sunday night movies are The Mechanic (NBN3), the premiere of the mini-series Wheels (NEN9-ECN8), Dead Men Tell No Lies (CBN8-CWN6-MTN9), When Eight Bells Toll (CTC7), Attila The Hun (RVN2-AMV4), Divorce American Style (GMV6) and Some Kind Of A Nut (DDQ10-SDQ4).

Source: TV Times (Inland edition), 16 September 1978. ABC/ACP

1978: July 29-August 4

Cover: Mike Walsh nominates his ten all-time favourite films. Among the list are The Sound Of Music, Cleopatra, Singin' In The Rain, The Getting Of Wisdom and Gone With The Wind.

Dramatic ABC switch
ABC has announced a dramatic change to its prime-time line-up with plans to schedule drama and comedy programs in the 7.30pm timeslot, meaning the end for current affairs program This Day Tonight which has occupied the timeslot for the past eleven years. This Day Tonight will be replaced by a new program Nationwide, to be shown in the later 9.30pm timeslot. The launch of Nationwide early in 1979 will also mean the end of ABC's long-running discussion program Monday Conference.

Truckies set to roll
ABC's latest drama series, The Truckies, is finally ready to go to air despite being dogged by problems during production. The show's main leading lady, a 65-tonne Volvo truck called Maggie D, was found to be drinking fuel much faster than producers had budgeted on. As for human cast members, John Wood fell ill and ended up in hospital, Colleen Hewett fell pregnant and had to be written out from later episodes when her baby bump could not be disguised, but was then written back at the last minute in when producers decided to make her character pregnant, and the four male leads (Wood, Michael Aitken, Mike Carmen and John Hewitt) were all discovered to not have truck licences and were sent off to a Melbourne driving school for a crash course in prime mover techniques. But producer Oscar Whitbread only had one complaint during production - the weather - particularly when one drought-inspired episode was being filmed and they were caught out by rain!

In search for a soap
The Seven Network has put the call out - if you could write a soap opera not set in an apartment block or a hospital, then they want to hear from you. Seven is currently showing re-runs of the US sitcom Bewitched in the early evenings and would instead like to add a new early-evening soap to its line-up to challenge Nine's The Young Doctors.

Regional channels unite for quest
A new talent quest is to go into production in a unique venture between 25 regional TV stations. National Star Quest, being co-ordinated by Reg Grundy Productions for Australian Television Facilities (ATF) which represents the 25 participating stations, will feature acts performed at their local regional station with all videotaped performances sent to WIN4 Wollongong to be compiled into a single program with a studio compere and judges. If successful, ATF may then look to making more regional-based production for national screening. Allan Hoy, manager of WIN4 told TV Times, "We're not really aiming to set up a fourth commercial network, but it is entirely possible that in a few years the big city stations might be taking programs from us, rather than the other way around, as at present." Thirteen episodes of National Star Quest are being planned with production starting in September. Executive producer of the program will be Hal Croxon, a former producer of the 0-10 Network's Pot Of Gold.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor
"What has ABC done to Saturday nights? How could it follow Shirley Bassey with such sweet and tacky entertainment as The Saturday Show (pictured)? The opening numbers were supposed to warm you up, but they couldn't warm up an anaemic bullfrog. The Saturday Show may be ideal for the Bullamakanka Choral Society, but not the ABC." J. McArthur, NSW.

"I have watched Mastermind since its inception and shall do so until the end, looking forward to Mastermind 1979. Huw Evans is a most charming and extremely well-spoken compere - not a gaudy Bob Dyer trying to be funny as well as asking questions." Y. Farr, NSW.

"The excellent British science-fiction series Dr Who has been running for sixteen years, and it has never yet had a fair go from ABC. They continue to waste it in ridiculous screening times. If inane garbage like Space 1999 can command a 7.30pm timeslot, then surely Dr Who can claim the same." S. Collins, QLD.

What's On (July 29-August 4)
Pop star Ray Burgess is special guest on ATV0's Young Talent Time, while later in the evening on HSV7's Penthouse '78, Mary Hardy and Ernie Sigley are joined by Bartholomew John, Norman Banks and Frank Dyer, a finalist of the show's Search For A Star talent quest.

Blankety Blanks (pictured) is shifted from prime-time to afternoons, with ATV0 moving it to 12.00pm from Monday, followed at 12.30pm by repeats of racy soap opera The Box. In place of Blankety Blanks at 7.00pm is re-runs of The Six Million Dollar Man, with one-hour episodes cut into half-hour episodes over two nights.

ABC presents the 150th episode of The Inventors and to celebrate has invited some of their previous winners to present their latest inventions.

The 1978 Commonwealth Games opens in Edmonton, Canada - with ABC providing live coverage of the Opening Ceremony at 6.00am Friday morning and highlights of the ceremony Friday night at 8.00pm and again at 11.20pm.

Sunday night movies are Night Of The Lepus (HSV7), Little Ladies Of The Night (GTV9) and The Go-Between (ATV0). Renowned concert pianist Isador Goodman is the special guest on ABC's Sunday night music show Capriccio! hosted by Carol Raye.

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 29 July 1978, ABC/ACP