On 6 December 2011 all local analogue transmissions for ABC, SBS, Seven Queensland (STQ), WIN (RTQ) and Southern Cross Ten (TNQ) will be closed down.
In the latest Digital Tracker survey, covering the period January to March this year, around 83 per cent of households in the Regional Queensland market have already made the transition to digital television.
The Regional Queensland market stretches from Cairns and Far North Queensland down to Toowoomba and the Darling Downs and Southern Downs regions – representing a population of around 1,764,000.
Viewers in the Regional Queensland market who are unable to receive digital television via normal terrestrial broadcast may be eligible to access the satellite-based VAST platform, which will be available to Regional Queensland from June 2011, and some households may qualify for government assistance in making that conversion.
Queensland viewers in more remote parts that receive commercial television from Imparja and Southern Cross Television will still have until the second half of 2013 to make the switch from analogue television, and Brisbane and Gold Coast viewers will have until the first half of 2013.
Source: Digital Ready, DBCDE
Today host Karl Stefanovic (pictured) was last night awarded the TV Week Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at this year’s presentation of the TV Week Logie Awards.
Ten’s morning show The Circle won Most Popular Light Entertainment Program, while co-host Chrissie Swan (pictured, far right, with colleagues Denise Drysdale, Yumi Stynes and Gorgi Coghlan) may have missed out on the Gold but did take the Most Popular New Female Talent award.
Jana Wendt appeared on stage to induct former colleague 
TV WEEK GOLD LOGIE – Most Popular Personality on TV 
Viewers in the capital cities may take for granted that their main commercial channels have been broadcasting in digital for over a decade, and that a range of other channels have since sprung up to offer some more viewing alternatives – but for viewers in the more remote parts of Australia those options are only just appearing.
The day will also mark the commencement of the new third commercial channel operated by Central Digital Television Pty Ltd, a joint venture between both Imparja and Southern Cross to offer viewers with a regular Network Ten signal. The channel will broadcast exclusively in digital and marks the return of regular Network Ten programming to these areas since Imparja dropped its Ten affiliation in 2008.
Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers (pictured) was awarded the Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 28th annual TV Week Logie Awards, presented at Sydney’s historic State Theatre on Friday, 18 April 1986.
In winning the Gold, Somers had beaten fellow nominees Greg Evans (Perfect Match), Ray Martin (Midday With Ray Martin) and Anne Tenney (A Country Practice). The year had been significant for all three fellow nominees. As well as hosting Perfect Match, Evans (pictured) had also hosted the previous year’s TV Week Logie Awards and a new talent quest series, Star Search, for Network Ten. Nine’s Ray Martin had made the risky move from 60 Minutes to host the new Midday program, taking over from the long-running The Mike Walsh Show which had moved into prime-time. And Tenney had made her farewell from A Country Practice with the emotional departure of character Molly Jones. She also featured in the ABC mini-series Flight Into Hell, scoring a nomination for Most Popular Actress In A Single Drama Or Mini-Series.
Seven’s long-running A Country Practice took away four Logies, including Most Popular Drama and Silver Logies for Grant Dodwell and Anne Tenney (pictured). Tenney also won a Logie for Most Popular Female Personality in New South Wales.
60 Minutes won the Logie for Most Popular Public Affairs Program and one of its reporters, Ian Leslie (pictured), was awarded Reporter Of The Year. Nine’s Sunday program won the award for Best Public Affairs Report for Jennifer Byrne’s coverage of the 1985 Tax Summit. 
As well as hosting the Logies presentation, Mike Willesee (pictured) also scored an award for Most Popular Documentary Series for his series of specials for the Nine Network. One of the most talked-about programs from the Willesee series during the year was Tommy Doesn’t Exist Any More, a sympathetic look at the lives of three transsexuals. Another program, Sink Or Swim, looked at the life of one of Australia’s leading underwater naturalists, Neville Coleman. And before the age of Big Brother, Willesee presented More Than A Game – a two-hour special which observed the behaviour of 15 people from different walks of life who were taken to a remote rural location where they had to form their own new society.
National broadcaster ABC won two awards. The comedy series The Gillies Report – featuring Max Gillies in various guises including then prime minister Bob Hawke (pictured) – won Best Light Entertainment Series, and documentary series Sweat Of The Sun, Tears Of The Moon – featuring Jack Pizzey’s travels through South America – was awarded Best Documentary. 
News cameraman Neil Davis (pictured) was posthumously inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame. A war correspondent for over 20 years, Davis had been gunned down in September 1985 while covering a coup attempt in Thailand. 
Most Popular Drama Series: A Country Practice (Seven) 
State-based Categories (Most Popular Male Personality, Most Popular Female Personality, Most Popular Program):
British actor Jimmy Edwards was the special guest of honour at the 3rd annual TV Week Logie Awards presentation, held at Sydney’s Chevron-Hilton Hotel on 18 March 1961. 
National awards: 
Tonight (Australian time), an estimated two billion viewers worldwide will be watching the long-awaited wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at London’s Westminster Abbey.
The Australian media’s hysteria surrounding the wedding of William and Kate is not entirely unlike that of the wedding of William’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral in July 1981.
It’s been months in the making but now, finally, the deal has been done to secure the rights to the AFL for the next five seasons.
‘I miss him very much’ 
New team set Sale 
Brave Sheila soldiers on 
Briefly… 
Flashback to 1972… and Temptation and Great Temptation hostess Barbara Rogers and Homicide star Leonard Teale (pictured) are promoting the Good Friday Appeal telethons for Melbourne’s HSV7 and Adelaide’s ADS7.
Just days after the resounding ratings and critical success of ABC’s two-part mini-series Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo, the Nine Network has announced production of what is essentially a sequel.
The new series will be a production of Southern Star and John Edwards, the team behind Paper Giants, which told the story of the 1972 launch of groundbreaking women’s magazine Cleo by editor Ita Buttrose (played by Asher Keddie, pictured right) and with the support of Kerry Packer (Rob Carlton, pictured above). The performances of the cast, but Keddie and Carlton in particular, as well as the reconstruction of the early 1970s era have earned rave reviews and high ratings over its two nights on ABC1. The Sunday night debut was watched by 1.2 million viewers across the five capital cities, while the Monday conclusion was watched by 1.34 million – making it ABC’s highest rating program of the year to date. By Monday night the series also clocked up over 17,000 views on ABC’s online viewing portal ABC iView.
