Australian television
Encyclopedia
Television in Australia began experimentally as early as 1929 in Melbourne
with stations 3DB
and 3UZ
using the Radiovision system by Gilbert Miles and Donal McDonald, and later from other locations, such as Brisbane
in 1934.
Mainstream professional television was launched on 16 September 1956 in Sydney
. The new medium was introduced by Bruce Gyngell
with the words 'Good evening, and welcome to television', and has since seen the introduction of colour, and digital television, and the planned shutdown of analogue broadcasts set to take place between 2010 to 2013 (depending on the area).
Local programs, over the years, have included a broad range of comedy
, sport
, and in particular drama
series, in addition to news
and current affairs
. The industry is regulated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
.
The first television broadcast in Australia took place on 30 September 1929 at the Menzies Hotel in Melbourne
, using the electro-mechanical Radiovision system. Other transmissions took place in the city over the next few weeks. Also in 1929, the Baird system was used on 3DB
.
Regular broadcasts began in Brisbane in 1934, after 18 months of test transmissions, made by Thomas M. B. Elliott and Dr Val McDowall from the Wickham Terrace Observatory Tower to an estimated 18 receivers around Brisbane. The Commonwealth Government granted a special license and permission to conduct experimental television by VK4CM, in July 1934. Originally a 30-line system, it expanded to 180 lines in late 1934. The programs included news headlines, still pictures and silent movies such as the temperance film Horrors of Drink. Other experimental transmissions followed in other cities.
Television commenced in the United States and in the United Kingdom after the end of World War II. The two countries developed radically different industry models, which were based on the models each used for radio broadcasting. British TV was dominated by the government-created broadcasting corporation, the BBC
, which derived most of its revenue from compulsory viewer licence fees, with some government allocation. The United States adopted a commercial model, based on privately-owned stations and networks that earned revenue by charging for advertising time, with public broadcasting forming only a minor component of the larger system.
In June 1948, the Chifley
Labor government opted to follow the British model, on the advice from the Postmaster General's department. It decided to establish a government-controlled TV station in each capital city and called for tenders for the building of the six TV transmitters. The Broadcasting Act 1948 specifically prohibited the granting of commercial TV licenses, a decision that the Liberal-Country Party opposition criticised as "authoritarian and socialistic". This policy was never put into practice, however, because the Labor government did not have the opportunity to establish the TV network before it was defeated in December 1949. The incoming Menzies-led Liberal-Country Party coalition, which was to hold power for the next 23 years, changed the industry structure by also permitting the establishment of American-style commercial stations.
The economic situation at the time that TV was established in Australia exerted a pivotal influence on the foundation and subsequent history of the industry. When the decision was made to go ahead with granting the first licences for broadcast TV in the early 1950s, Australia was in a recession, with severe shortages of labour and materials and an underdeveloped heavy industrial base, and in this context TV was seen as a drain away from more fundamental projects. The Menzies government was concerned about the long-term viability of the new industry and worried that it might be called on to bail out struggling stations and networks if the economy deteriorated. Consequently, it decided to grant the initial commercial TV licences to established print media proprietors, with the expectation that these companies would, if necessary, be able to subsidize the new TV stations from their existing (and highly profitable) press operations.
Meanwhile, in 1949, the first large scale public demonstrations of the medium took place when the Shell
company sponsored a series of closed-circuit broadcasts in capital cities produced by Frank Cave. These broadcasts were elaborate, usually opened by a local politician, and featured many people appearing on camera – singing, playing instruments, and giving demonstrations of cooking, sport, and magic tricks.
Buoyed by the success of these tests, in March 1950, Astor
embarked upon a tour of 200 regional towns with a mobile broadcast unit, giving a series of 45 minute demonstration programs, allowing local performers and members of the public to appear on camera.
In January 1953, in response to increasing pressure from the commercial lobby, the Menzies government amended the Broadcasting Act 1948 to allow for the granting of commercial licenses, thus providing the legislative framework for a dual system of TV ownership. This structure was directly modeled on the long-established two-tiered structure of Australian broadcast radio—one tier being the stations in a new national, government-funded TV network run by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)
, and the other tier being privately-owned commercial stations that drew their income from advertising revenue.
Commercial TV licenses were nominally overseen by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board
(ABCB), a government agency responsible for the regulation of broadcasting standards and practices, while technical standards (such as broadcast frequencies) were administered by the Postmaster-General's Department
. The ABC, as an independent government authority, was not subject to the regulation of the ABCB and instead answered directly to the Postmaster-General and ultimately to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (a situation that provoked bitter complaints from commercial radio in the mid-1970s when the ABC established its controversial youth station Double Jay).
In 1954, the Menzies Government
formally announced the introduction of the new two-tiered TV system—a government-funded service run by the ABC, and two commercial services in Sydney
and Melbourne
, with the 1956 Summer Olympics
in Melbourne
being a major driving force behind the introduction of television to Australia.
TCN-9
Sydney
began test transmissions on 16 September of that year, and officially commenced broadcasting on 27 October. HSV7 Melbourne
became the first television station to broadcast to viewers in Melbourne
on 4 November, soon followed by ABV-2
then GTV9 on 19 January 1957. Sydney
station ABN-2
also started broadcasting in November. All of these stations were operational in time for the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics opening ceremony, on 22 November 1956. ATN-7
started in December.
An interview with Mrs Edna Everage (a comic creation of performing artist Barry Humphries
) was one of the programmes screened on HSV-7
's first day of programming in 1956. The character went on to great success in the United Kingdom and later, the United States.
Videotape
technology was still in its infancy when Australian television was launched in 1956 and video recorders did not become widely available to Australian TV stations until the 1960s. For the first few years, the only available method for capturing TV programs was the kinescope
process, in which a fixed movie camera filmed broadcasts screened on a specially-adjusted TV monitor. Similarly, the playback of pre-recorded programs to air was only possible at this stage through the telecine
process, in which films or kinescoped TV recordings were played back on a movie screen which was monitored by a TV camera.
Because of these limitations, it was relatively difficult and expensive to record and distribute local programming, so the majority of locally produced content was broadcast live-to-air. Very little local programming from these first few years of Australian TV broadcasting was recorded and in the intervening years the majority of that material has since been lost or destroyed. Even the footage of the 'first' Australian TV broadcast with Bruce Gyngell on Channel 9, Sydney (see image above) is a fabrication—according to Gerald Stone
the kinescope film of the actual Sep. 1956 broadcast was lost and the footage that exists today is a considerably more polished re-enactment, made a year later.
Most programs in this early period were based on popular radio formats—musical variety and quiz formats were the most popular.
In the first decade after the first TV licences were granted, the federal government and the ABCB did not act to enforce local content quotas, and such measures were resisted by the commercial sector. As a result Australian TV was soon dominated by material imported from the United States and (to a far smaller extent) Great Britain. In this period nearly every TV drama screened in Australia came from the USA and the few programs that were made locally were almost all produced by the ABC. In other formats, the few locally-produced programs made by or for commercial stations were typically low-cost copies of proven American talk/variety or quiz show formats. By the early 1960s at least 80% of all Australian TV content was sourced from the USA and not surprisingly American programs consistently topped the ratings.
These changes led to a significant concentration of cross-media ownership. By 1960, the Packer
family's Consolidated Press group controlled Channels 9 in Melbourne and Sydney (the flagship stations that formed the basis of the Nine Network), Melbourne's Herald and Weekly Times group owned HSV-7, and the Fairfax
newspaper group controlled ATN-7 in Sydney. In the view of some media historians, these arrangements established a pattern of "high-level political allegiances between commercial broadcasters and Liberal-National Party governments" and that, as a result, the ABCB "was left very weak and uncertain in its capacity to control broadcaster conduct and exhibited strong symptoms of regulatory capture, or over-identification with the industry it regulated".
In 1963 the Senate Select Committee on the Encouragement of Australian Productions for Television, chaired by Senator Victor Vincent (known as the Vincent Committee) presented its report to federal parliament and its findings painted a bleak picture for local producers—the Committee found that 97% per cent of all television drama shown on Australian TV between 1956 and 1963 was imported from the United States, and it criticised the ABCB for failing to use its powers to enforce local content standards on television broadcasters, particularly the commercial stations. The Vincent Report recommended a sweeping program of reforms but none were implemented by the Menzies Government at that time.
The advent of TV effectively destroyed Australia's once thriving radio production industry within a few years, and the absence of local production quotas for TV in this formative period compounded the problem. Faced with almost unbeatable competition from American-made programming, local technical and creative professionals in radio were unable to make the transition to the new medium, as many of their American and British counterparts had done when TV was introduced there.
Those Australian producers who did try to break into TV faced almost insurmountable challenges. Imported American and British programs benefited from high budgets, an international talent pool and huge economies of scale, thanks to their very large domestic markets (relative to Australia), established worldwide distribution networks; additionally, since most American production houses and networks were based in Los Angeles
, they had access to resources and expertise built up over decades by the Hollywood movie studios. These disadvantages were further exacerbated by the fact that American producers and networks offered Australian channels significant discount rates on bundled programming. Taken as a whole, these factors meant that local producers were faced with a relative production-cost ratio on the order of 10:1 or more in favour of the imported product.
Some sense of the scale of this "resource gap" can be gained by comparing the budgets of contemporary American and Australian TV programs. The pilot of the 1967 satirical sketch comedy series Laugh-In reportedly cost about US$200,000.
At the top end of the scale, in 1966 Desilu Studios spent almost US$1 million on the two pilot episodes for the renowned science fiction series Star Trek
– the first pilot "The Cage" (which was rejected by NBC
) cost more than US$600,000 and the set for the bridge of the Enterprise alone reportedly cost US60,000; the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" cost around US$300,000.
By comparison, the budget for the pilot episode of the 1964 Australian topical revue series The Mavis Bramston Show
was just AU₤1500. Adjusted for inflation, this was around A$3500 in 1967 figures; given that US-Australian dollar exchange rate in 1967 was A$1.00 = US$1.12, this still would have only equated to around US$4000–50 times less than Laugh-In.
Although by the end of the 1950s television had expanded to also include Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth
, it was estimated that less than 5% of the residents in Melbourne, and fewer than 1% in Sydney owned a television set, which at the time cost, on average, six to ten weeks' wages. During these early years broadcast days were very short—all stations including the ABC only broadcast programs for a few hours each day and broadcast the test pattern for the rest of the time they were on air. Broadcast times were gradually increased over succeeding decades, although the ABC did not commence 24-hour broadcasting until 1993.
A TV series The Adventures of Long John Silver
was made in the Pagewood Studios, Sydney for the American and British market; it was shown on the ABC in 1958. Local content was limited to talk and variety shows, and news and current affairs. Notable programs of the 1950s included TCN-9
's music program Bandstand
, hosted by radio presenter Brian Henderson, HSV-7's weekly sport program World of Sport
, and the ABC
's Six O'Clock Rock
, hosted by Johnny O'Keefe
. The first Australian serial drama, Autumn Affair
, ran for a 10-month run on ATN-7
. Several programs in the 1950s were simply adaptations of established radio programs, such as Pick a Box
.
in 1961 with the first being Gippsland
's GLV-10 followed by Shepparton
's GMV-6
and Bendigo's BCV-8. NBN-3
in Newcastle
was the first regional service in New South Wales
commencing broadcast in 1962.
While the first television services were being established in regional areas, larger cities including Melbourne
, Sydney
, Brisbane
, Adelaide
, and Perth
began to receive their second and, in the mid-1960s, third stations. In order to reduce costs, networks began to merge – originally in 1957 between HSV-7 and TCN-9
, but later between almost all the metropolitan stations of a certain frequency. This led to the formation of the National Television Network (forerunner to the Nine Network
) and Australian Television Network (later known as the Seven Network
) in 1962. Not all stations became a part of their respective networks – TVW-7
in Perth, Western Australia
remained independent for a number of years as the sole commercial station in the city. Throughout the decade the ABC
expanded transmissions to several major centres including Adelaide
, Perth
, Hobart
and Canberra
.
Beginning in 1964, the federal government tried to address concerns about competition and local production by licencing a third station in major cities, beginning with Channel 0 in Melbourne and Channel 10 in Sydney. More third-licence stations were established in other capitals and regional cities over the next few years and by the late Sixties these stations joined forces to create Australia's third commercial network, originally known as the 0–10 Network, and now called Network TEN
.
Channel 0 in Melbourne took an early lead in catering for teenage viewers and quickly became the preeminent network in pop music programming, commissioning a sequence of popular and influential local pop shows including The Go!! Show
and Kommotion (1964–67), Uptight (1968–70) and Happening '70 and its successors (1970–72).
The establishment of a coaxial cable link between Sydney
and Melbourne
in 1963 marked the first step in the establishment of effective national networking for Australian TV stations.
The introduction of satellite broadcasting
in the late 1960s allowed news stories and programs to be accessed from around the world. The first live satellite transmission occurred between Australia and the United Kingdom in 1966. The first direct telecast across the Pacific from North America took place on on 6 June 1967 when "Australia Day" at Expo 67
in Montreal
was broadcast live to Australia via a US satellite link. Prime Minister Harold Holt
officially opened the Australian pavilion and visitors watched events including boomerang throwing, sheep-dog trials, wood chopping contests and tennis matches with members of the Australian Davis Cup
team. In the afternoon a variety concert, 'Pop goes Australia', featured musicians Normie Rowe
, Bobby Limb
, Rolf Harris
and The Seekers
. The entire 10-hour program was televised live and several hundred thousand people across Australia sat up through the night to watch it. One newspaper reported that the picture was so clear that hundreds of viewers rang a Sydney television station to seek assurance that the pictures really were being broadcast live from Canada.
Two weeks later, on 25 June, Australia participated in the historic "Our World" broadcast, the first live global satellite television hookup involving fourteen countries. The event is now chiefly remembered for the participation of The Beatles
, who performed their new song "All You Need Is Love
" live from the Abbey Road Studios
in London. Australia's contribution showed a Melbourne tram leaving the depot for its early morning run, which caused some controversy as people felt that it was not a very exciting image of Australia. By 1970 as many as thirty-one programs were received via this manner. GTV-9 in Melbourne
broke records in 1969 with the longest live television broadcast with its coverage of the Apollo moon landing
.
Despite the continuing dominance of imported American and British programming, local production gradually increased in the 1960s and several important new Australian programs were launched. Crawford Productions
' Melbourne
-based police drama Homicide premiered on 20 October 1964 on HSV-7, soon followed on 11 November by the ATN-7
satirical sketch comedy series The Mavis Bramston Show
(which at its peak drew an unprecedented 59% of the audience), the rural soap opera Bellbird
on the ABC (1967), and for interstate viewers Graham Kennedy
's In Melbourne Tonight
or the Graham Kennedy Channel Nine Show. In addition to these, many programs still seen today were launched at this time including the ABC
's acclaimed current affairs program Four Corners (1961) and Play School
– now the country's longest-running children's show—as well as the Nine Network
's Here's Humphrey
, which both premiered in 1966.
Veteran actor-producer John McCallum
and filmmaker Lee Robinson
created the children's adventure series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
which premiered in 1968 on the Nine Network. At a reported cost of A$6000 per episode it was said to have been the most expensive Australian TV series yet produced up to that time (by comparison, the first series of Star Trek reportedly cost around US$200,000 per episode). Although Australian TV was still in black-and-white at the time, Skippy was filmed in colour with a view to overseas sales and it was the first Australian-made series to achieve significant international success, with sales to more than 80 countries worldwide, and it became the first Australian TV show to be widely screened in the USA.
Winners of the first nationally-shown TV Week
Logie Award
s included In Melbourne Tonight host Graham Kennedy
– twice, Pick-a-box host Bob Dyer, Lorrae Desmond
from ABC's The Lorrae Desmond Show, Four Corners reporter Michael Charlton, Bobby Limb
, Jimmy Hannan
, Gordon Chater
, Brian Henderson and Hazel Philips.
Numerous television stations were launched, mainly concentrated around southern and eastern parts of the country. By the turn of the decade, the takeup of television had increased dramatically – by 1960 up to 70% of homes in Sydney
and Melbourne
had a television set. Following its introduction to regional centres and other capital cities through the late 1950s and 1960s over 90% of Australian homes in established markets had a television set. The new medium had also become highly lucrative to advertisers.
In 1967 the NSWRFL grand final became the first football grand final of any code to be televised live in Australia. The Nine Network
had paid $5,000 for the broadcasting rights.
Test broadcasting of colour began in the late 1960s. In 1967 ATV-0 telecast the Pakenham races in colour under the supervision of the Broadcasting Control Board. The full changeover to colour transmission did not occur until 1975.
, for example, did not receive television until ABD-6
and NTD-8 launched in 1971. Similarly, VEW-8
launched in Kalgoorlie
on 18 June 1971, and ITQ-8
launched in Mount Isa
on 11 September 1971. The youngest network, the 0/10 Network
, as it was then known, launched the controversial sex-melodrama serial Number 96
in March 1972. The success of this program led to this third network becoming commercially viable.
In 1972 it was announced that all stations would move to colour on 1 March 1975, using the European PAL
standard mandated in 1968. Australia was to have one of the fastest change-overs to colour television in the world – by 1978 over 64% of households in Sydney
and Melbourne
had colour television sets.
Government subsidies provided for the production of local series led to a boom in Australian-produced content. Some of the most popular series included Crawford Productions
police dramas Homicide, Division 4
which started during the 1960s and Matlock Police
which began in 1971; variety series Young Talent Time
; comedy/variety series Hey Hey It's Saturday
, which ran for 28 years until 1999, music show Countdown; soap operas Bellbird
which had started in late 1967, Number 96 and The Box
, and the World War II
-themed The Sullivans
. Against the Wind
, the first major mini-series produced for commercial television, was shown on the Seven Network
. Later hospital drama The Young Doctors
ran for 1396 episodes between 1976 and 1983, becoming at the time it ended Australia's longest running drama series.
Graham Kennedy
returned to the Nine Network
after his departure from In Melbourne Tonight
with The Graham Kennedy Show
in 1973, but was banned from appearing from television in 1975 after an infamous 'crow-call' incident. Kennedy subsequently returned in 1977 as the host of Blankety Blanks
. In 1979, commercial stations were mandated to provide 'C'-classified programming targeted at children between 4-5pm, and a minimum of 30 minutes of pre-school programming prior to that. These regulations saw the establishment of a number of children's series including Simon Townsend's Wonder World and Shirl's Neighbourhood.
News and current affairs, particularly on commercial television, grew significantly – the Nine Network
's A Current Affair, hosted by Mike Willesee
began in November 1971, while 60 Minutes, on the same network, began in 1979. In 1972 NBN Television
in Newcastle
became the first station in Australia to adopt a one-hour news format, followed by ATV-0 Melbourne
's Eyewitness News
, hosted by Bruce Mansfield
and Annette Allison, in March 1978.
A special Gold Logie Award
was awarded to the Apollo 11
crew in 1970, alongside actors Barry Crocker
and Maggie Tabberer
. Other Gold Logie winners included Gerard Kennedy
, Tony Barber
, Graham Kennedy
, Pat McDonald, Ernie Sigley
and Denise Drysdale
in the first awards presentation shown in colour, Don Lane
, Jeanne Little
, and Bert Newton
.
Sports broadcasting became increasingly sophisticated through the 1970s. ABC TV
, the Seven Network
and the Nine Network
joined together to broadcast the 1976 Olympic Games
in Montreal
, with the opening and closing ceremonies telecast live, and highlights packages shown each night. During November of the same year, RTS-5a
commenced transmissions in Riverland
, with GTW-11
launching in Geraldton
on 21 January 1977.
In 1977 the Victorian Football League
Grand Final
was shown live to Melbourne
viewers for the first time. As with the Olympics, the 1978 Commonwealth Games
in Edmonton, Canada were shown in the form of highlights packages on ABC TV.
The Special Broadcasting Service
, originally a group of radio stations broadcasting government information to ethnic minorities in Sydney
and Melbourne
, began test transmissions on ABC TV
in the two cities – mainly showing foreign-language programming on Sunday mornings.
, launched SBS TV in Sydney
and Melbourne
in October 1980. The new station, aimed at Australia's growing multicultural population, placed a much heavier emphasis on subtitled or foreign-language content. The network expanded to cover Canberra
and Goulburn in 1983, followed by Brisbane
, Adelaide
, Newcastle
, Wollongong and the Gold Coast
in June 1985. It is now available in most areas.
Although Australia had seen the introduction of the satellite
in the 1960s, 1986 saw the introduction of a new, domestic satellite called AUSSAT. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other commercial broadcasters were able to broadcast to the more remote areas of Australia without needing to set-up a new station, and by the end of 1986 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation were broadcasting both television and radio to remote areas of Australia. By 1980, commercial television in Australia accounted for 33% of all mainstream advertising
; this was a significant rise from the introduction of television in 1960 when it was accountable for only 15% of advertising revenue.
The 1980s was a big decade for Australian television, beginning with Ten
broadcasting the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
live across Australia. The 1980s were a huge step up for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, sealing the contracts for both Live Aid
and the 1986 Commonwealth Games
, live from Edinburgh
. 1986 also saw the introduction of Neighbours
, a popular Australian TV Drama. In 1983 a two-hour experiment
was conducted, in which the Seven Network
televised a series of 3-D film
s. In 1988 Network Ten
televised the 1988 Summer Olympics
live via satellite.
The Australian soap opera
Neighbours
was first broadcast on the Seven Network
on 18 March 1985. The show's storylines concern the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough
, Melbourne
. Seven decided to commission the show following the success of Watson's other soap opera, Sons and Daughters
. Neighbours underperformed in the Sydney market and it struggled for four months before Seven cancelled it. The show was immediately bought by rival network, Ten
. Ten began screening Neighbours on 20 January 1986. Neighbours has since become the longest running series in Australian television and attained great success in the United Kingdom
and launched the careers of several international stars, including Kylie Minogue
and Guy Pearce
.
The soap opera Home and Away
has been produced in Sydney by the Seven Network
since July 1987. It premiered in January 1988 and is the second longest-running drama on Australian television, winning more than 30 Logie Award
s. The show initially focused on the characters of Pippa
and Tom Fletcher
who ran the Summer Bay Caravan Park and lived there with a succession of foster children, most notably their adopted daughter Sally
, played by Kate Ritchie
. Other notable actors who have starred in the series include Heath Ledger
, Julian McMahon
and Naomi Watts
. The show has been a ratings success in Britain.
The late 1980s saw the ownership changeover for many commercial and regional stations. Six main ownership groups emerged, three for commercial broadcasters and three for regional broadcasters This was the beginning of aggregation for Australian television.
, Stingers
, Water Rats
, SeaChange
, All Saints
, and the long running police drama Blue Heelers
which ran from 1994 to 2006, one of the longest running Australian programs, equaling Homicide's record of 510 episodes; a record set two decades earlier. A number of successful comedy programs also aired during the 1990s, including Fast Forward
, Full Frontal
, The Late Show
and Good News Week
. Hey Hey It's Saturday
ended its 28 year run in November 1999.
One of the most significant changes for regional television in Australia
began in the 1990s with the introduction of aggregation. Instead of being covered by a single commercial channel, regional license areas would combine to provide three stations in line with metropolitan areas. As a result, most regional areas went from one to three channels, although some, particularly outside eastern states New South Wales
, Victoria
and Queensland
, remained with two or even only one commercial station. The first license area to aggregate was that of southern New South Wales, on 31 March 1989, followed by Queensland on 31 December 1990, northern New South Wales on 31 December 1991 and Victoria on 1 January 1992. Some areas too small to be properly aggregated, such as Darwin
, Mildura or rural South Australia, however, either applied for a second license or introduced a supplementary second service run by the existing local station. Following aggregation in 1995, Sunshine Television
was purchased by Seven Network Limited
.
Community television was introduced to Sydney
, Melbourne
, Brisbane
, Adelaide
and Perth
in 1994. The stations, which all broadcast on 'Channel 31', were allocated long-term temporary licenses until new legislation introduced in 1997 permitted permanent licenses to be granted. Briz 31 was the first community television station to launch in Australia, on 31 July 1994. C31 Melbourne and Access 31
in Perth
followed in 1994 and 1999 respectively, along with a number of other stations in some capital and regional cities. The most recent to launch was Sydney's TVS
. Throughout the early 1990s, SBS TV
coverage continued to expand to include the Latrobe Valley
, Spencer Gulf
, Darwin
, northeast Tasmania
, Cairns and Townsville.
During the 1990s the first subscription television services were introduced to Australia. The first license was issued to Galaxy Television, which started in 1993, providing services to most metropolitan areas by 1995. Other major providers include Foxtel
, Optus Television
and AUSTAR
, all of which were introduced in 1995.
The advent of pay television in Australia also resulted in the Super League war
which was fought in and out of court during the mid-1990s by the News Ltd-backed Super League
and Kerry Packer
-backed Australian Rugby League
organisations over broadcasting rights, and ultimately control of the top-level professional rugby league football competition of Australasia. This resulted in the greatest and most costly set-piece confrontation to shake the corporate landscape of Australia.
Galaxy folded in 1998 and was subsequently absorbed by Foxtel. Despite recent growth, subscription television in Australia still has relatively few subscribers.
in Sydney resulted in huge ratings for its host broadcaster, the Seven Network
– over 6.5 million Australians watched the telecast of opening and closing ceremonies, which were amongst the most-watched programs in television history and helped Seven defeat the Nine Network
in ratings terms for the first time in more than two decades. The broadcast also ran on the short-lived C7 Sport
subscription channel. The Dream with Roy and HG
was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sydney 2000 (and subsequent Salt Lake 2002 and Athens 2004 Olympics) presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG
which achieved great popularity during the Games.
The turn of the millennium introduced digital television to Australia
, as well as the transition to widescreen
standard-definition
and high-definition television
production. Community stations also began to receive permanent transmitter licenses, replacing temporary licenses that were renewed yearly. At this time it was thought that allowing Commercial Multicasting would be detrimental so the publicly owned networks (ABC and SBS) were the only networks that were allowed to create new digital SD Channels. This was only revised after Digital Television Uptake was not as high as expected in many areas, and from 1 January 2009, Network Ten, Nine and Seven were allowed to create alternative SD channels.
Many successful Australian shows were created during the 2000s, including ABC TV
comedies like Kath and Kim, Spicks and Specks and The Chaser's War on Everything
, Network Ten
's Thank God You're Here
, which led to the creation of many local versions throughout the world, and the growth of reality television
, especially Big Brother Australia and Australian Idol
. Australian content on subscription television also grew, with shows such as the Logie Award
winning Love My Way
. Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, a television interview show broadcast on ABC1
, aired from 2003 to 2008.
Amongst the new digital 'multichannels', one of the earliest was the SBS World News Channel
in 2002, providing news bulletins in languages other than English
. In 2003 Tasmanian Digital Television launched, providing Tasmania
n viewers a third commercial station, and nationally-available stations Fly TV
and the ABC Kids Channel
launched, later to be eventually shut down due to funding issues and replaced in 2005 by ABC2
. Mildura Digital Television, similar to TDT, launched at the start of 2006. Sydney also began testing datacasting
transmissions with Digital 44 in 2003. While digital television boomed in areas that received a third channel and with the subscription television services, growth in other areas has been slow, with analogue shut-down dates pushed back several times. A number of new community stations were also opened, including C31 Adelaide
in April 2004 and Television Sydney
in February 2006.
In October 2005, Network Ten
announced that Good Morning Australia
would be cancelled at the end of the year, after a 14 year run. Although Bert Newton
was offered ongoing employment at Network Ten
, he joined the Nine Network
to host the short-lived game show Bert's Family Feud
, until 23 May 2007 when the program was axed.
The Nine Network, the traditional ratings leader, suffered ratings losses by the mid-2000s, losing out to the Seven Network, which became the most popular Australian network early 2007. This was not the only loss by the network: the death of its CEO Kerry Packer
in late 2005 led to network personality Eddie McGuire
becoming the head of the network, and the network lost AFL
broadcast rights to the Seven and Ten networks in the largest Australian television rights deal in history, worth A$
780 million.
In mid-2007, National Indigenous Television
launched as Australia's 'third public broadcaster', after the ABC
and SBS
, replacing Indigenous Community Television on the Optus Aurora
remote satellite service.
The move to High Definition Television broadcasting came to the forefront when Network TEN announced its intentions to create the first dedicated HD multichannel Ten HD
on 14 September 2007 with a December 2007 Launch date.
Although Ten HD
was initially expected to be the first new commercial television channel in metropolitan areas of Australia since 1988, it was instead beaten to the punch by Seven HD
. Following the announcement by the Ten Network, Network Seven also announced its previously hidden plans to launch a dedicated HD channel on 15 September 2007 and pushed the launch date forward to 10 October. Seven HD
was the first dedicated HD multichannel launched, 2 months earlier than the Channel 10 equivalent. The Nine Network's move to a HD channel was considered sluggish by industry insiders, taking until March 2008. The Network was more excited by its plans to introduce a new SD channel in 2009 called GO!, which is when digital multicasting restrictions were scheduled to be lifted from the commercial stations. Go! was released to the public on 9 August, spelling the end of Nine HD which was replaced by the previous HD version of Nine. 2009 also saw the launch of four other channels, 7TWO
, a general entertainment channel, SBS Two available in SD, ABC3
a dedicated children's television channel available in SD, and One, a dedicated 24 hour sport channel and a subsidiary of Network Ten available in both HD and SD, replacing Ten HD. ABC3, unlike commercial channels, is not constrained by local content quotas.
received no government assistance or funding to make the transition; this still remains a source of controversy.
Other issues were noted such as the increased cost of producing local content on commercial networks. For example: it costs roughly $800,000 to produce one hour of local content such as Underbelly
and Packed to the Rafters
, in comparison to a mere $100,000 to purchase one hour of the US produced Two and a Half Men
, the former example screening very often during the off ratings period 2009–10. The cost disparity has led many to question to viability of commercial networks in the future at delivering and investing in locally produced content and has also brought their financial arrangements with business and industry groups into question. Meanwhile, ABC and SBS quickly began producing very successful local content with shows such as Review, Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure
, Hungry Beast
and many more publicly funded local programs, produced in Australia, with Australian cast and crews, adding to the increasing health of Australian film and television industries.
During January 2010, the ABC announced its long-awaited 24 hour news channel, ABC News 24
to launch in mid-2010. It will broadcast on the current ABC HD channel and according to the ABC, "Australia's first free-to-air 24-hour television news channel". Following technical issues at ABC's new playout facility MediaHub, ABC News 24 launch date was pushed to 22 July 2010. ABC News 24 began to broadcast a 3 minute loop promo on Channel 24 on 6 July 2010.
On 19 August 2010, the Seven Network announced their third digital channel, 7mate
, which is to replace 7HD. 7mate is aimed at males between 16–49, and is set to launch with the AFL Grand Final on 25 September. The Nine Network has also launched a third digital channel called GEM
, broadcasting only in HD and replacing Nine HD. GEM is targeted at middle aged women. On 26 August Network Ten announced their plans for a channel to replace One SD. The new channel, Eleven
, will be aimed at a youth audience and will carry flagship TEN programming including Neighbours and The Simpsons. Eleven launched on 11 January 2011.
Television broadcasting in Australia is available both in colour analogue and digital
formats, via a range of means including terrestrial television
, satellite television
as well as a number of cable services. Both free-to-air
and subscription
channels and networks are available.
In most areas there is a choice of three free-to-air commercial broadcasters in addition to the television services of the two national public broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
and the Special Broadcasting Service
. A third, recently-established, National Indigenous Television
service is available in many remote areas.
Commercial television is dominated by three major metropolitan-based networks, the Seven Network
and Network Ten
, which own stations in Sydney
, Melbourne
, Brisbane
, Adelaide
, Perth
, the Nine Network
which owns stations in Sydney
, Melbourne
, Brisbane
and Darwin
with affiliates in Adelaide
and Perth
. In addition to its metropolitan assets, Seven also owns regional station Seven Queensland
.
Regional television in Australia
consists of independently-owned networks 'affiliated' to metropolitan stations. WIN Television
is the country's largest regional broadcaster in terms of population reach (it also owns the Nine Network
stations in Perth
and Adelaide), followed by Southern Cross Ten
, Prime Television
, NBN Television
, the Golden West Network
, Southern Cross Television
, and Imparja Television
.
Along with regional markets, there are diary markets such as regional Western Australia
and Alice Springs, where only two networks are available. In these areas, the two incumbent commercial broadcasters are allowed to apply for a third, digital
-only license, to provide additional programming. This has resulted in the establishment of a number of channels including Tasmanian Digital Television
, Mildura Digital Television
, and the forthcoming Darwin Digital Television.
Subscription television in Australia consists of Foxtel
in metropolitan areas and throughout Western Australia
, AUSTAR
in the regional areas of eastern and central states, and Optus Television
in Sydney
, Melbourne
, and Brisbane
. A number of smaller operators including SelecTV, TransACT
, UBI World TV
, and Neighbourhood Cable
provide niche or local services. Most operators provide the same or similar channels. There are few genuine local channels and few independent channels. One exception is the World Movies
channel owned by a consortium including SBS Television and companies owned by Kerry Stokes
and the Australian Radio Network
.
Community television progressively launched between the 1980s to the 2000s. The sector is represented nationally by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia
. Community stations include TVS
, C31 Melbourne, 31 Brisbane, C31 Adelaide
and Access 31
; many recognisable mainstream personalities originated from community television, including Rove McManus
and Wil Anderson
.
since the early 1990s, with Galaxy TV being the first. It became insolvent in 1997, due to decreasing popularity with the launching of Foxtel
and Austar
in May 1995, two cable services that offered more variety than Galaxy TV. Foxtel immediately commenced in supplying programming to Galaxy's subscribers on an interim basis. In 1999 Foxtel was able to significantly boost its customer base by acquiring Galaxy TV's subscribers from the Australis Media liquidator and commenced offering its services on a satellite television platform. There is currently one major and four minor cable television providers in Australia – Foxtel
. Minor providers include Austar
, TransACT
, Neighbourhood Cable
& SelecTV.
Inside the capital cities, cable is the more predominant form of pay television distribution. In regional areas or in new or outskirted areas of cities, satellite is far more common.
Due to its history, financial backing and market dominance, most local versions of channels are either owned directly by Foxtel and Austar or through related companies.
In terms of coverage, Foxtel
's cable network covers parts of Sydney
, Melbourne
, Brisbane
, Adelaide
, and Perth
. Optus
's network covers small parts of Sydney
, Melbourne
, and Brisbane
, though its restrictive subscription rules means that many people living in apartments or confined living areas may be unable to be connected.
Austar is available by satellite in most of regional and rural Australia, but does have a small cable network in the city of Darwin
. TransACT
is only available in the city of Canberra
, where a custom cable network was developed. A similar situation used to exist in Perth
where a small area was covered by Bright Telecommunications (however they closed down after lack of funding) as well in parts of Geelong, Ballarat and Mildura
that are reached by Neighbourhood Cable
.
has proven to be a far more feasible option than cable television, perhaps due to the vast distances between population centres, (although Canada, which also has large distances between population centres, has a relatively high cable television penetration rate). The first service to come online in Australia was Galaxy, which was later taken over by Cable Television giant Foxtel
, which now operates both cable and satellite services to all state capital cities (except Darwin and Hobart) and the whole of Western Australia. Its main metropolitan rival was Optus Vision, while rural areas are served by Austar
, both of which just rebroadcast Foxtel as of 2005. In 2006 SelecTV began operating, aiming at providing comparatively low cost packages and catering to specialised market segments.
s.
One of the earliest Australian police drama series was Homicide, produced in Melbourne
by Crawford Productions
, widely viewed as having revolutionised Australian television drama production. It was followed by Division 4
and Matlock Police
, which also enjoyed great popularity and long runs both locally and overseas. Other successful police drama series have included Cop Shop
, Police Rescue
, Blue Heelers
, Water Rats
and Stingers
. Medical dramas have also proved popular with audiences, including series such as The Flying Doctors
, GP, A Country Practice
and All Saints
.
Notable miniseries have included Against the Wind
, All the Rivers Run
, Bodyline
, Brides of Christ, The Dismissal and The Timeless Land, and in more recent times Curtin
and Bastard Boys
.
Australian soap opera success began with Bellbird in 1967 which was a moderate but consistent success. Following this the huge success of Number 96
in 1972 prompted creation of the similar The Box
in 1974. These serials were all cancelled in 1977. Following this successful serials included The Young Doctors
, The Sullivans
, Prisoner
, Sons and Daughters
, Neighbours
and Home and Away
. This later group were also screened internationally, finding particular success in the United Kingdom.
Comedy series have included The Aunty Jack Show
, The Paul Hogan Show
, The Norman Gunston Show
, and more recently The D-Generation
, Frontline
, The Glass House
, Summer Heights High
and popular series Thank God You're Here
, which has since been adapted to a number of countries around the world, and already several of them have brought in creators and stars of shows like Kath & Kim
to help produce, direct, star, or serve as consultants on their versions.
, Nine Network
, and affiliates have an hour of news and current affairs at 6.00pm, Network Ten
has news at 5.00pm while ABC1
has news at 7:00pm. The primetime
slot in Australia runs from 6.00pm to midnight, with the most popular programming shown from around 7.30pm to 10.30pm, followed by a half-hour news bulletin on some networks. Many programs shown in these times on commercial networks are taken from American television, while ABC1
has a mixture of Australian and British
productions. SBS TV, as a multicultural broadcaster, shows a range of programs produced locally and overseas in a number of languages. Imported programming has typically been shown months after its debut in the United States or the United Kingdom, however in recent times networks have begun to air programs within hours or days of their overseas counterparts.
Seven
and Nine
both have rival breakfast shows (in Ten's
case children's programming) that run from 6.00–9.00am, followed by morning shows on all three networks until midday. ABC1
now broadcasts a breakfast news show (ABC News Breakfast
) while on ABC2
and ABC3
there are children's programming, meanwhile on SBS TV
foreign-language bulletins are shown for most of the morning, followed by foreign-language films and documentaries.
Most scheduling is consistent across Australia's three timezones – this means that South Australia
and the Northern Territory
sees programming half an hour behind Australian Eastern Standard Time, while in Western Australia
programs are seen two hours behind. Consequently, many national news bulletins shown live to eastern states are seen on considerable delay in Western Australia
(with the notable exception of The Midday Report, of which a second edition is produced for WA). The time delay can often deny viewers in central and western areas the opportunity to participate in interactive shows such as Big Brother.
One exception to this rule are subscription channels, which always run on Australian Eastern Standard Time regardless of the local service or timezone. The recent introduction of timeshift channels delayed two hours for all viewers, particularly on Foxtel
, allowed WA viewers to see programs in sync with other states.
Both national public broadcasters, the ABC
and SBS
, produce news services. The ABC provides both local and national news bulletins in the form of ABC News
at 7pm and The Midday Report, presented from both Sydney
and state capitals. SBS TV
broadcasts a nightly hour-long World News Australia
bulletin at 6.30pm, followed by a later, half-hour edition at 9.30pm.
Higher ratings for earlier bulletins from commercial broadcasters including the Seven Network
, Nine Network
, and Network Ten
have prompted fierce ratings competition. Seven News
has recently overtaken National Nine News
as Australia's highest-ratings news service.
Seven News
produce national bulletins in the mornings and afternoons, as well as local 6pm bulletins in Sydney
, Melbourne
, Brisbane
, Adelaide
, Perth
, Cairns, Townsville and Mackay
. The network's news bulletins and popular breakfast program Sunrise
compete directly with the Nine Network
's offerings, which include the Today Show
and morning, afternoon, evening and late editions of National Nine News
. Ten News
is shown in competition with Seven and Nine's breakfast programs in the form of an hour-long early news bulletin, in addition to its morning, late, and First at Five evening editions.
In Australia, there are two local 24 hour news channels. ABC News 24
is Australia's only free-to-air news channel. ABC News 24
launched on 22 July 2010 as features all of ABCs news and current affairs programs. ABC News 24
is available on digital channel 24 in HD
. Sky News Australia
is Australia's second news channel that is only available on Foxtel
, Austar
, and Optus TV. The subscription based television channel draws on the resources of its shareholders news services, using content from Seven News
, National Nine News
and Sky News
from the United Kingdom, as well as reporters based in Sydney
, Canberra
, and Melbourne
.
A number of regional television networks produce news services. WIN Television
produces 20 bulletins in parts of New South Wales
, Victoria, Queensland
, South Australia
, and Western Australia
. NBN Television
is the only regional broadcaster to produce a bulletin on both weeknights and weekends, in an hour-long format presented from Newcastle
and seen across northern New South Wales
. Prime Television
produces news updates throughout regional New South Wales and Victoria, with sister-network GWN
producing Golden West News for Western Australia
. In the Northern Territory
, Imparja Television
shows Imparja National News. Southern Cross Television
produces a bulletin for Tasmania
and regional South Australia
.
-style current affairs shows to investigative programs such as Four Corners.
ABC1
has had a long history of producing current affairs programs, including the award-winning This Day Tonight
, the first regular current affairs program to be shown on Australian television and a training ground for many of Australia's best-known journalists. This Day Tonight
was axed in 1978, however in the mid-1980s The 7.30 Report
was launched in state-based editions (these were combined into a national program hosted by Kerry O'Brien in 1995). Four Corners, first seen in 1961, an investigative documentary series modelled on the BBC
's Panorama
, has also won many awards and broken stories previously not covered by other media outlets.
Other current affairs programs include news and analysis program Lateline
, Stateline, shown in place of The 7.30 Report
on Fridays, Foreign Correspondent, Insiders, Offsiders
and Australia Wide
.
SBS TV
also shows a number of current affairs programs, such as Dateline, the country's longest-running international current affairs program, launched in 1984. Insight
, originally conceived in 1999 as a domestic current affairs program, is a discussion forum focussing on a single issue. SBS's Indigenous Media Unit produces another program titled Living Black
, which covers issues relevant to Australia's indigenous
community.
There are a number of commercial current affairs programs. The Seven Network
, in addition to Sunrise, broadcasts Today Tonight
, a tabloid current affairs program, every weeknight after its 6pm news bulletin. On the Nine Network
, A Current Affair, first shown in 1971, competes directly with Today Tonight and has, since Ray Martin
began presenting in 1994, provided a similar mix of content. On Sundays, 60 Minutes features a number of stories produced both locally and from its US counterpart
. In the morning Sunday covers local and overseas news, politics, and current affairs, in addition to film reviews, politics, arts, and music.
Political and interview program Meet the Press
is also shown on Sunday mornings, on Network Ten
since 1992. Regional network Southern Cross Ten
broadcasts State Focus, a regional current affairs program, afterwards. Ten also produces weekend and weeknighly late editions of Sports Tonight
, a sports information show which debuted in 1993.
On subscription television, Sky News Australia
airs a number of news commentary and analysis shows such as Agenda, Sportsline, Sky Business Report, and Sky News Eco Report. A local version of The Weather Channel
was launched in 1999, joined in 2006 by FoxSportsNews, a 24-hour sports news channel. Squawk Australia
, a business news program shown from 6.00am, is seen on CNBC Asia
.
Television ratings in Australia are collected by three main organisations: OzTAM
in metropolitan areas, Regional TAM in regional areas serviced by three commercial television networks, and in areas with two commercial networks, Nielsen Media Research Australia
.
Ratings are collected for 40 weeks during the year, excluding a two-week break during Easter
and ten weeks over summer. The majority of locally produced comedy and drama on commercial networks is shown during the ratings period.
Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Nine Network
has been the ratings leader in Australia, typically followed by the Seven Network
and Network Ten
. Subscription television and the two national broadcasters, ABC and in particular SBS TV, due to its special-interest nature, typically attract fewer viewers than the three commercial networks. Network Ten, due to its programming line-up, has traditionally been the market leader for younger viewers.
The 2007 ratings period has so far been unique in that, for the first time since 2000, the Seven Network
has overtaken its rival Nine Network
in terms of average viewers. ABC has also, since the early 2000s, seen ratings (as well as audience reach) as a major performance indicator – this has, however, led to a decline in viewers rather than the expected increase. The Nine Network has, in the past, aggressively marketed its long-time ratings dominance through its promotional campaign "Still the One", which they no longer use.
For the second year in a row, the Seven Network
have finished on top of the ratings, mainly due to its strong programming line-up which includes the 2008 Summer Olympics
, Packed to the Rafters
and City Homicide amongst others.
. All codes of practice submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority are reviewed by the public prior to acceptance. There are different regulations for different types of content, and the main categories are divided up into Australian content, children's content, commercial broadcasting
, community broadcasting, public broadcasting
, and subscription television
.
The regulations in place define what a broadcaster may put on-air, the time(s) of day they are allowed to broadcast specific material, and what advertisements are shown in relation to these criteria. In essence, the Australian Communications and Media Authority controls what content is shown, what time(s) of day it is shown, and who controls what is shown (i.e.: international media as opposed to Australian media).
Genre restrictions imposed by the Australian government
on digital multichanneling were lifted along with the media ownership laws passed through the Parliament of Australia
on 18 October 2006. Digital-only multichannels in Australia were previously limited in the subjects they could cover, with programming identified as comedy, drama, national news, sport or entertainment, prohibited from broadcast.
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
with stations 3DB
3DB
Mix 101.1 is a radio station broadcasting in Melbourne, Australia. Its target demographic is the under 25-54 yr old age group. Mix 101.1 is part of the Australian Radio Mix Network and broadcasts on the 101.1 MHz frequency...
and 3UZ
3UZ
3UZ is the official callsign of a medium-wave radio station in Melbourne, Australia which broadcasts under the name Radio Sport National.-History:...
using the Radiovision system by Gilbert Miles and Donal McDonald, and later from other locations, such as Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
in 1934.
Mainstream professional television was launched on 16 September 1956 in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. The new medium was introduced by Bruce Gyngell
Bruce Gyngell
Bruce Gyngell was a hugely influential Australian television executive, prominent for 50 years in both Australian and U.K. television. Although Gyngell began his career in radio, in the 1950s he stepped into the arena of early television broadcasting, helping to set up Channel 9, the first...
with the words 'Good evening, and welcome to television', and has since seen the introduction of colour, and digital television, and the planned shutdown of analogue broadcasts set to take place between 2010 to 2013 (depending on the area).
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
, sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
, and in particular drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
series, in addition to news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
and current affairs
Current affairs (news format)
Current Affairs is a genre of broadcast journalism where the emphasis is on detailed analysis and discussion of news stories that have recently occurred or are ongoing at the time of broadcast....
. The industry is regulated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Australian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian government statutory authority within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio...
.
Origins
In 1885, Henry Sutton developed a Telephane for closed circuit transmission of pictures via telegraph wires, based on the Nipkow spinning disk system, so that the Melbourne Cup could be seen in Ballarat. Reports differ on whether the Telephane was successfully implemented.The first television broadcast in Australia took place on 30 September 1929 at the Menzies Hotel in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, using the electro-mechanical Radiovision system. Other transmissions took place in the city over the next few weeks. Also in 1929, the Baird system was used on 3DB
3DB
Mix 101.1 is a radio station broadcasting in Melbourne, Australia. Its target demographic is the under 25-54 yr old age group. Mix 101.1 is part of the Australian Radio Mix Network and broadcasts on the 101.1 MHz frequency...
.
Regular broadcasts began in Brisbane in 1934, after 18 months of test transmissions, made by Thomas M. B. Elliott and Dr Val McDowall from the Wickham Terrace Observatory Tower to an estimated 18 receivers around Brisbane. The Commonwealth Government granted a special license and permission to conduct experimental television by VK4CM, in July 1934. Originally a 30-line system, it expanded to 180 lines in late 1934. The programs included news headlines, still pictures and silent movies such as the temperance film Horrors of Drink. Other experimental transmissions followed in other cities.
1940s–50s
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, which derived most of its revenue from compulsory viewer licence fees, with some government allocation. The United States adopted a commercial model, based on privately-owned stations and networks that earned revenue by charging for advertising time, with public broadcasting forming only a minor component of the larger system.
In June 1948, the Chifley
Ben Chifley
Joseph Benedict Chifley , Australian politician, was the 16th Prime Minister of Australia. He took over the Australian Labor Party leadership and Prime Ministership after the death of John Curtin in 1945, and went on to retain government at the 1946 election, before being defeated at the 1949...
Labor government opted to follow the British model, on the advice from the Postmaster General's department. It decided to establish a government-controlled TV station in each capital city and called for tenders for the building of the six TV transmitters. The Broadcasting Act 1948 specifically prohibited the granting of commercial TV licenses, a decision that the Liberal-Country Party opposition criticised as "authoritarian and socialistic". This policy was never put into practice, however, because the Labor government did not have the opportunity to establish the TV network before it was defeated in December 1949. The incoming Menzies-led Liberal-Country Party coalition, which was to hold power for the next 23 years, changed the industry structure by also permitting the establishment of American-style commercial stations.
The economic situation at the time that TV was established in Australia exerted a pivotal influence on the foundation and subsequent history of the industry. When the decision was made to go ahead with granting the first licences for broadcast TV in the early 1950s, Australia was in a recession, with severe shortages of labour and materials and an underdeveloped heavy industrial base, and in this context TV was seen as a drain away from more fundamental projects. The Menzies government was concerned about the long-term viability of the new industry and worried that it might be called on to bail out struggling stations and networks if the economy deteriorated. Consequently, it decided to grant the initial commercial TV licences to established print media proprietors, with the expectation that these companies would, if necessary, be able to subsidize the new TV stations from their existing (and highly profitable) press operations.
Meanwhile, in 1949, the first large scale public demonstrations of the medium took place when the Shell
Royal Dutch Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...
company sponsored a series of closed-circuit broadcasts in capital cities produced by Frank Cave. These broadcasts were elaborate, usually opened by a local politician, and featured many people appearing on camera – singing, playing instruments, and giving demonstrations of cooking, sport, and magic tricks.
Buoyed by the success of these tests, in March 1950, Astor
Astor
Astor is a surname and may refer to:* Brooke Astor , American philanthropist* David Astor , British newspaper publisher* John Jacob Astor, the 4th richest American of all time* Madeleine Astor , wife of John Jacob Astor IV...
embarked upon a tour of 200 regional towns with a mobile broadcast unit, giving a series of 45 minute demonstration programs, allowing local performers and members of the public to appear on camera.
In January 1953, in response to increasing pressure from the commercial lobby, the Menzies government amended the Broadcasting Act 1948 to allow for the granting of commercial licenses, thus providing the legislative framework for a dual system of TV ownership. This structure was directly modeled on the long-established two-tiered structure of Australian broadcast radio—one tier being the stations in a new national, government-funded TV network run by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
, and the other tier being privately-owned commercial stations that drew their income from advertising revenue.
Commercial TV licenses were nominally overseen by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board
Australian Broadcasting Control Board
The Australian Broadcasting Control Board was an Australian government agency whose main roles were to regulate broadcasting, radiocommunications and telecommunications...
(ABCB), a government agency responsible for the regulation of broadcasting standards and practices, while technical standards (such as broadcast frequencies) were administered by the Postmaster-General's Department
Postmaster-General's Department
The Postmaster-General's Department was created at Federation in 1901 to control all postal services within Australia. Its minister was the Postmaster-General. In mid-1975 it was disaggregated into the Australian Telecommunications Commission and the Australian Postal Commission...
. The ABC, as an independent government authority, was not subject to the regulation of the ABCB and instead answered directly to the Postmaster-General and ultimately to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (a situation that provoked bitter complaints from commercial radio in the mid-1970s when the ABC established its controversial youth station Double Jay).
In 1954, the Menzies Government
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
formally announced the introduction of the new two-tiered TV system—a government-funded service run by the ABC, and two commercial services in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, with the 1956 Summer Olympics
1956 Summer Olympics
The 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
being a major driving force behind the introduction of television to Australia.
TCN-9
TCN
TCN stands for:* Take Care Now, a private company providing out-of-hours medical cover in England* TanenbaumCHAT North Campus, a private Hebrew high school in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada* TCN-9, a Sydney television station...
Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
began test transmissions on 16 September of that year, and officially commenced broadcasting on 27 October. HSV7 Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
became the first television station to broadcast to viewers in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
on 4 November, soon followed by ABV-2
ABV (TV station)
ABV is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television station in Melbourne, Victoria. The station began broadcasting on 19 November 1956 and is transmitted throughout the state via a network of relay transmitters and also ABV is the second television station in Victoria with HSV-7 which...
then GTV9 on 19 January 1957. Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
station ABN-2
ABN (TV station)
ABN is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television station in Sydney, New South Wales. The station began broadcasting on November 5, 1956. Its original studios were located in Gore Hill and were in use up until March 2004, when they were co-located with ABC Radio, Radio Australia and...
also started broadcasting in November. All of these stations were operational in time for the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics opening ceremony, on 22 November 1956. ATN-7
ATN-7
ATN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The licence, issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax, was one of the first four licences to be issued for commercial television stations in Australia...
started in December.
An interview with Mrs Edna Everage (a comic creation of performing artist Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
) was one of the programmes screened on HSV-7
HSV-7
HSV is a television station in Melbourne. It is part of the Seven Network, one of the three main commercial television networks in Australia, and its first and oldest station, having been launched in time for the 1956 Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne....
's first day of programming in 1956. The character went on to great success in the United Kingdom and later, the United States.
Videotape
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
technology was still in its infancy when Australian television was launched in 1956 and video recorders did not become widely available to Australian TV stations until the 1960s. For the first few years, the only available method for capturing TV programs was the kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
process, in which a fixed movie camera filmed broadcasts screened on a specially-adjusted TV monitor. Similarly, the playback of pre-recorded programs to air was only possible at this stage through the telecine
Telecine
Telecine is transferring motion picture film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process....
process, in which films or kinescoped TV recordings were played back on a movie screen which was monitored by a TV camera.
Because of these limitations, it was relatively difficult and expensive to record and distribute local programming, so the majority of locally produced content was broadcast live-to-air. Very little local programming from these first few years of Australian TV broadcasting was recorded and in the intervening years the majority of that material has since been lost or destroyed. Even the footage of the 'first' Australian TV broadcast with Bruce Gyngell on Channel 9, Sydney (see image above) is a fabrication—according to Gerald Stone
Gerald Stone
Gerald Louis Stone is an American-born Australian television and radio journalist, television executive and author.-Early years:Raised in Columbus, Ohio, Stone graduated in political science from Cornell University and in 1957 started work as a copy boy for the New York Times.In 1962 he emigrated...
the kinescope film of the actual Sep. 1956 broadcast was lost and the footage that exists today is a considerably more polished re-enactment, made a year later.
Most programs in this early period were based on popular radio formats—musical variety and quiz formats were the most popular.
In the first decade after the first TV licences were granted, the federal government and the ABCB did not act to enforce local content quotas, and such measures were resisted by the commercial sector. As a result Australian TV was soon dominated by material imported from the United States and (to a far smaller extent) Great Britain. In this period nearly every TV drama screened in Australia came from the USA and the few programs that were made locally were almost all produced by the ABC. In other formats, the few locally-produced programs made by or for commercial stations were typically low-cost copies of proven American talk/variety or quiz show formats. By the early 1960s at least 80% of all Australian TV content was sourced from the USA and not surprisingly American programs consistently topped the ratings.
These changes led to a significant concentration of cross-media ownership. By 1960, the Packer
Frank Packer
Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer, KBE , was an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network.-Biography:...
family's Consolidated Press group controlled Channels 9 in Melbourne and Sydney (the flagship stations that formed the basis of the Nine Network), Melbourne's Herald and Weekly Times group owned HSV-7, and the Fairfax
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
newspaper group controlled ATN-7 in Sydney. In the view of some media historians, these arrangements established a pattern of "high-level political allegiances between commercial broadcasters and Liberal-National Party governments" and that, as a result, the ABCB "was left very weak and uncertain in its capacity to control broadcaster conduct and exhibited strong symptoms of regulatory capture, or over-identification with the industry it regulated".
In 1963 the Senate Select Committee on the Encouragement of Australian Productions for Television, chaired by Senator Victor Vincent (known as the Vincent Committee) presented its report to federal parliament and its findings painted a bleak picture for local producers—the Committee found that 97% per cent of all television drama shown on Australian TV between 1956 and 1963 was imported from the United States, and it criticised the ABCB for failing to use its powers to enforce local content standards on television broadcasters, particularly the commercial stations. The Vincent Report recommended a sweeping program of reforms but none were implemented by the Menzies Government at that time.
The advent of TV effectively destroyed Australia's once thriving radio production industry within a few years, and the absence of local production quotas for TV in this formative period compounded the problem. Faced with almost unbeatable competition from American-made programming, local technical and creative professionals in radio were unable to make the transition to the new medium, as many of their American and British counterparts had done when TV was introduced there.
Those Australian producers who did try to break into TV faced almost insurmountable challenges. Imported American and British programs benefited from high budgets, an international talent pool and huge economies of scale, thanks to their very large domestic markets (relative to Australia), established worldwide distribution networks; additionally, since most American production houses and networks were based in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, they had access to resources and expertise built up over decades by the Hollywood movie studios. These disadvantages were further exacerbated by the fact that American producers and networks offered Australian channels significant discount rates on bundled programming. Taken as a whole, these factors meant that local producers were faced with a relative production-cost ratio on the order of 10:1 or more in favour of the imported product.
Some sense of the scale of this "resource gap" can be gained by comparing the budgets of contemporary American and Australian TV programs. The pilot of the 1967 satirical sketch comedy series Laugh-In reportedly cost about US$200,000.
At the top end of the scale, in 1966 Desilu Studios spent almost US$1 million on the two pilot episodes for the renowned science fiction series Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
– the first pilot "The Cage" (which was rejected by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
) cost more than US$600,000 and the set for the bridge of the Enterprise alone reportedly cost US60,000; the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" cost around US$300,000.
By comparison, the budget for the pilot episode of the 1964 Australian topical revue series The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show was a popular and award-winning Australian TV satirical sketch comedy series of the mid-1960s.-Introduction:The tremendous impact that The Mavis Bramston Show had in Australia in the mid-1960s was heightened because of its unique place in the history of the Australian TV...
was just AU₤1500. Adjusted for inflation, this was around A$3500 in 1967 figures; given that US-Australian dollar exchange rate in 1967 was A$1.00 = US$1.12, this still would have only equated to around US$4000–50 times less than Laugh-In.
Although by the end of the 1950s television had expanded to also include Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth
TVW
TVW can mean:*TVW, a Seven Network owned station in Perth, Western Australia*TVW, a public affairs network in the state of Washington*"tvw", the false branding callsign of WISC-TV's digital subchannel and Madison, Wisconsin's MyNetworkTV affiliate...
, it was estimated that less than 5% of the residents in Melbourne, and fewer than 1% in Sydney owned a television set, which at the time cost, on average, six to ten weeks' wages. During these early years broadcast days were very short—all stations including the ABC only broadcast programs for a few hours each day and broadcast the test pattern for the rest of the time they were on air. Broadcast times were gradually increased over succeeding decades, although the ABC did not commence 24-hour broadcasting until 1993.
A TV series The Adventures of Long John Silver
The Adventures of Long John Silver (TV series)
The Adventures of Long John Silver is a TV series about Long John Silver from Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton. It was made in colour in Australia for the American and British markets before Australia had television. There were 26 half hour episodes, and it was shown in America from 1956 and...
was made in the Pagewood Studios, Sydney for the American and British market; it was shown on the ABC in 1958. Local content was limited to talk and variety shows, and news and current affairs. Notable programs of the 1950s included TCN-9
TCN
TCN stands for:* Take Care Now, a private company providing out-of-hours medical cover in England* TanenbaumCHAT North Campus, a private Hebrew high school in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada* TCN-9, a Sydney television station...
's music program Bandstand
Bandstand (Australia)
Bandstand was an Australian musical/variety television show which screened from November 1958 to 1972. It was produced at the studios of TCN-9 in Sydney and eventually became a national program as Nine Network expanded into other Australian cities in the early 1960s.Bandstand was created by Nine...
, hosted by radio presenter Brian Henderson, HSV-7's weekly sport program World of Sport
World of Sport (Australian TV series)
World of Sport was an Australian sports program that was broadcast live by HSV 7 in Melbourne from 1959 to 1987 on Sundays between 11am and 2pm...
, and the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's Six O'Clock Rock
Six O'Clock Rock
Six O'Clock Rock was an Australian Rock and Roll television show which showed on ABC Television from 28 February 1959 to 1962 and was broadcast at 6PM on Saturday evenings....
, hosted by Johnny O'Keefe
Johnny O'Keefe
John Michael O'Keefe, known as Johnny O'Keefe was an Australian rock and roll singer whose career began in the 1950s. Some of his hits include "Wild One" , "Shout!" and "She's My Baby"...
. The first Australian serial drama, Autumn Affair
Autumn Affair
Autumn Affair was an Australian television series made by the Seven Network. It premiered 24 October 1958 and continued until 1959. The series was the first ever Australian television soap opera....
, ran for a 10-month run on ATN-7
ATN
-Medicine:*Acute tubular necrosis, a medical condition involving the death of tubular cells that form the tubule that transports urine to the ureters*Asymmetric tonic neck reflex*Atypical trigeminal neuralgia-Television:...
. Several programs in the 1950s were simply adaptations of established radio programs, such as Pick a Box
Pick a Box
Pick a Box was one of first game shows to be broadcast on Australian television. Hosted by the husband and wife team Bob and Dolly Dyer, the program aired from 1957 to 1971.- History :...
.
1960s
The 1960s saw the continued growth of television in Australia, particularly into regional areas. The first regional TV services began in VictoriaVictoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
in 1961 with the first being Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
's GLV-10 followed by Shepparton
Shepparton, Victoria
Shepparton is a city located on the floodplain of the Goulburn River in the north east of Victoria, Australia approximately north-east of Melbourne. It is the fifth largest city in Victoria, Australia. The estimated population of Shepparton's statistical area is 48,926.It began as a sheep station...
's GMV-6
VTV (TV station)
VTV is an Australian television station broadcasting in regional Victoria in Australia. The network was owned by ENT Ltd., before being purchased by the WIN Corporation.-Network history:...
and Bendigo's BCV-8. NBN-3
NBN Television
NBN Television is a television station based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout the northern half of New South Wales and...
in Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
was the first regional service in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
commencing broadcast in 1962.
While the first television services were being established in regional areas, larger cities including Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, and Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
began to receive their second and, in the mid-1960s, third stations. In order to reduce costs, networks began to merge – originally in 1957 between HSV-7 and TCN-9
TCN
TCN stands for:* Take Care Now, a private company providing out-of-hours medical cover in England* TanenbaumCHAT North Campus, a private Hebrew high school in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada* TCN-9, a Sydney television station...
, but later between almost all the metropolitan stations of a certain frequency. This led to the formation of the National Television Network (forerunner to the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
) and Australian Television Network (later known as the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
) in 1962. Not all stations became a part of their respective networks – TVW-7
TVW
TVW can mean:*TVW, a Seven Network owned station in Perth, Western Australia*TVW, a public affairs network in the state of Washington*"tvw", the false branding callsign of WISC-TV's digital subchannel and Madison, Wisconsin's MyNetworkTV affiliate...
in Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
remained independent for a number of years as the sole commercial station in the city. Throughout the decade the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
expanded transmissions to several major centres including Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
and Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
.
Beginning in 1964, the federal government tried to address concerns about competition and local production by licencing a third station in major cities, beginning with Channel 0 in Melbourne and Channel 10 in Sydney. More third-licence stations were established in other capitals and regional cities over the next few years and by the late Sixties these stations joined forces to create Australia's third commercial network, originally known as the 0–10 Network, and now called Network TEN
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
.
Channel 0 in Melbourne took an early lead in catering for teenage viewers and quickly became the preeminent network in pop music programming, commissioning a sequence of popular and influential local pop shows including The Go!! Show
The Go!! Show
The Go!! Show was a top rating Australian popular music television series which aired on ATV-0 Melbourne from 1964 to 1967, and was produced by DYT Productions at the Channel 0 studios in Nunawading, Victoria....
and Kommotion (1964–67), Uptight (1968–70) and Happening '70 and its successors (1970–72).
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in 1963 marked the first step in the establishment of effective national networking for Australian TV stations.
The introduction of satellite broadcasting
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
in the late 1960s allowed news stories and programs to be accessed from around the world. The first live satellite transmission occurred between Australia and the United Kingdom in 1966. The first direct telecast across the Pacific from North America took place on on 6 June 1967 when "Australia Day" at Expo 67
Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was the general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with the...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
was broadcast live to Australia via a US satellite link. Prime Minister Harold Holt
Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt, CH was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia.His term as Prime Minister was brought to an early and dramatic end in December 1967 when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.Holt spent 32 years...
officially opened the Australian pavilion and visitors watched events including boomerang throwing, sheep-dog trials, wood chopping contests and tennis matches with members of the Australian Davis Cup
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
team. In the afternoon a variety concert, 'Pop goes Australia', featured musicians Normie Rowe
Normie Rowe
Norman John "Normie" Rowe AM was a major male solo performer of Australian pop music in the 1960s. Known for his bright and edgy tenor voice and dynamic stage presence, many of Rowe's most successful recordings were produced by Pat Aulton, house producer for the Sunshine Records, Spin Records and...
, Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb AO OBE was an Australian pioneering radio and television entertainer of the 1960s and 1970s.-Career:...
, Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...
and The Seekers
The Seekers
The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop music group which were originally formed in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States...
. The entire 10-hour program was televised live and several hundred thousand people across Australia sat up through the night to watch it. One newspaper reported that the picture was so clear that hundreds of viewers rang a Sydney television station to seek assurance that the pictures really were being broadcast live from Canada.
Two weeks later, on 25 June, Australia participated in the historic "Our World" broadcast, the first live global satellite television hookup involving fourteen countries. The event is now chiefly remembered for the participation of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, who performed their new song "All You Need Is Love
All You Need Is Love
"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967...
" live from the Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
in London. Australia's contribution showed a Melbourne tram leaving the depot for its early morning run, which caused some controversy as people felt that it was not a very exciting image of Australia. By 1970 as many as thirty-one programs were received via this manner. GTV-9 in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
broke records in 1969 with the longest live television broadcast with its coverage of the Apollo moon landing
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
.
Despite the continuing dominance of imported American and British programming, local production gradually increased in the 1960s and several important new Australian programs were launched. Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
' Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
-based police drama Homicide premiered on 20 October 1964 on HSV-7, soon followed on 11 November by the ATN-7
ATN-7
ATN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The licence, issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax, was one of the first four licences to be issued for commercial television stations in Australia...
satirical sketch comedy series The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show
The Mavis Bramston Show was a popular and award-winning Australian TV satirical sketch comedy series of the mid-1960s.-Introduction:The tremendous impact that The Mavis Bramston Show had in Australia in the mid-1960s was heightened because of its unique place in the history of the Australian TV...
(which at its peak drew an unprecedented 59% of the audience), the rural soap opera Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
on the ABC (1967), and for interstate viewers Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
's In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....
or the Graham Kennedy Channel Nine Show. In addition to these, many programs still seen today were launched at this time including the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's acclaimed current affairs program Four Corners (1961) and Play School
Play School (Australian TV series)
Play School is an Australian educational television show for children produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is the longest-running children's show in Australia, and the second longest running childrens show in the world. An estimated 80% of pre-school children under six watch the...
– now the country's longest-running children's show—as well as the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
's Here's Humphrey
Here's Humphrey
Here's Humphrey is an Australian children's television series first aired on Monday 24 May 1965. It featured a character known as Humphrey B. Bear. In the early days Humphrey was known as Bear Bear and was named Humphrey B. Bear as the result of an on-air competition...
, which both premiered in 1966.
Veteran actor-producer John McCallum
John McCallum
John McCallum, PC, MP is a Liberal Canadian politician, economist and university professor. Following the 2006 Federal Election, he became the Liberal Finance Critic in the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet...
and filmmaker Lee Robinson
Lee Robinson (director)
Lee Robinson was an Australian producer, director and screenwriter.-Biography:A short story writer prior to the war, Robinson first entered film as a member of the Australian Army History Unit where he filmed Australian troops in Rabaul and East Timor.After the war he joined the Australian...
created the children's adventure series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series for children created by John McCallum, produced from 1966–1968, telling the adventures of a young boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, in the Waratah National Park in Duffys Forest, near Sydney, New South Wales.Ninety-one 30-minute...
which premiered in 1968 on the Nine Network. At a reported cost of A$6000 per episode it was said to have been the most expensive Australian TV series yet produced up to that time (by comparison, the first series of Star Trek reportedly cost around US$200,000 per episode). Although Australian TV was still in black-and-white at the time, Skippy was filmed in colour with a view to overseas sales and it was the first Australian-made series to achieve significant international success, with sales to more than 80 countries worldwide, and it became the first Australian TV show to be widely screened in the USA.
Winners of the first nationally-shown TV Week
TV Week
TV Week is a weekly television magazine in Australia, first published as a Melbourne-only publication in December 1957 , and bearing a strong affiliation to television station GTV.The publication is still publishing weekly...
Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
s included In Melbourne Tonight host Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
– twice, Pick-a-box host Bob Dyer, Lorrae Desmond
Lorrae Desmond
Lorrae Desmond, MBE is a Australian singer, entertainer, and character actress, with a career spanning over 50 years...
from ABC's The Lorrae Desmond Show, Four Corners reporter Michael Charlton, Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb
Bobby Limb AO OBE was an Australian pioneering radio and television entertainer of the 1960s and 1970s.-Career:...
, Jimmy Hannan
Jimmy Hannan
Jimmy Hannan is a retired Australian variety show host, singer and entertainer. Hannan won the 1965 Gold Logie award.One of his daughters is Melissa Hannan who won the Miss Australia title in 1981 and was also in the Miss World competition held in London.-Filmography:*The Sentimental Bloke *Jimmy...
, Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater
Gordon Chater was a comedian and actor.Chater attended Cambridge University to study to become a doctor but did not finish his degree. While at Cambridge he took part in many student revues.He arrived in Australia following World War II...
, Brian Henderson and Hazel Philips.
Numerous television stations were launched, mainly concentrated around southern and eastern parts of the country. By the turn of the decade, the takeup of television had increased dramatically – by 1960 up to 70% of homes in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
had a television set. Following its introduction to regional centres and other capital cities through the late 1950s and 1960s over 90% of Australian homes in established markets had a television set. The new medium had also become highly lucrative to advertisers.
In 1967 the NSWRFL grand final became the first football grand final of any code to be televised live in Australia. The Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
had paid $5,000 for the broadcasting rights.
Test broadcasting of colour began in the late 1960s. In 1967 ATV-0 telecast the Pakenham races in colour under the supervision of the Broadcasting Control Board. The full changeover to colour transmission did not occur until 1975.
1970s
Following the new medium's establishment in most major metropolitan and regional centres, television continued to expand to remote areas, most notably those in the northern and western parts of Australia – DarwinDarwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, for example, did not receive television until ABD-6
ABD (TV station)
ABD is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television station in Darwin, Northern Territory. The station was the first to go to air in Darwin, on 13 August 1971. Its studios are located in the inner city of Darwin, with analog transmitter on Blake Street and digital transmitter on Deloraine...
and NTD-8 launched in 1971. Similarly, VEW-8
Golden West Network
GWN7 is an Australian television network owned by the Prime Media Group that is based in Bunbury, Western Australia. The Golden West Network launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, and has since expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan...
launched in Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...
on 18 June 1971, and ITQ-8
QQQ
QQQ is an Australian television station broadcasting in remote eastern, southern and central areas of Australia.QQQ may also refer to:* QQQ , a fictional character in the F-Zero video game series...
launched in Mount Isa
Mount Isa, Queensland
-Culture and sport:The local theatre group, the Mount Isa Theatrical Society, or MITS, often holds plays and musicals, at least once every few months or so....
on 11 September 1971. The youngest network, the 0/10 Network
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
, as it was then known, launched the controversial sex-melodrama serial Number 96
Number 96 (TV series)
Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects...
in March 1972. The success of this program led to this third network becoming commercially viable.
In 1972 it was announced that all stations would move to colour on 1 March 1975, using the European PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
standard mandated in 1968. Australia was to have one of the fastest change-overs to colour television in the world – by 1978 over 64% of households in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
had colour television sets.
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
police dramas Homicide, Division 4
Division 4
Division 4 was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the Nine Network between 1969 and 1975 for 300 episodes....
which started during the 1960s and Matlock Police
Matlock Police
Matlock Police was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the 0-10 Network between 1971 and 1975....
which began in 1971; variety series Young Talent Time
Young Talent Time
Young Talent Time is an Australian television variety program screened on Network Ten, running from 1971 until 1988. The series features a core group of young performers in the vein of The Mickey Mouse Club, and a weekly junior talent quest. The "Young Talent Team" regularly performed popular...
; comedy/variety series Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday was a long-running variety television program on Australian television. It initially ran for 27 years , debuting on the Nine Network on 9 October 1971 and broadcasting its last episode on 20 November 1999. Its host throughout its entire run was Daryl Somers, who would later...
, which ran for 28 years until 1999, music show Countdown; soap operas Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
which had started in late 1967, Number 96 and The Box
The Box (TV series)
The Box was an Australian soap opera than ran on Network Ten from February 1974 until 1977.The Box was produced by Crawford Productions who at the time was having great success producing police procedural television series in Australia...
, and the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
-themed The Sullivans
The Sullivans
The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives...
. Against the Wind
Against the Wind (TV series)
Against the Wind was a 1978 Australian television mini-series.It is a historical drama portraying both the British rule of Ireland, and the development of New South Wales and Australia...
, the first major mini-series produced for commercial television, was shown on the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
. Later hospital drama The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors is an Australian early evening soap opera. The series was set in the fictional Albert Memorial hospital and primarily concerned with romances between younger members of the hospital staff, screened on the Nine Network from Monday, 8 November 1976 until Wednesday, 30 March...
ran for 1396 episodes between 1976 and 1983, becoming at the time it ended Australia's longest running drama series.
Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
returned to the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
after his departure from In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight
In Melbourne Tonight, also known as "IMT", was a highly popular nightly variety television show produced at GTV-9 Melbourne from 6 May 1957 to 1970....
with The Graham Kennedy Show
The Graham Kennedy Show
The Graham Kennedy Show was an Australian talk show that debuted on 19 September 1972, on the Nine Network.On 23 December 1969, host Graham Kennedy has quit as host of In Melbourne Tonight, exhausted, and rested for two years. In spite of his fame and fortune, he later described that period as...
in 1973, but was banned from appearing from television in 1975 after an infamous 'crow-call' incident. Kennedy subsequently returned in 1977 as the host of Blankety Blanks
Blankety Blanks
Blankety Blanks was a popular Australian game show based on the American game show Match Game. It was hosted by Graham Kennedy on Network Ten. It ran from 1977-1978.Regular panelists were Ugly Dave Gray, Noeline Brown, Carol Raye and Stuart Wagstaff...
. In 1979, commercial stations were mandated to provide 'C'-classified programming targeted at children between 4-5pm, and a minimum of 30 minutes of pre-school programming prior to that. These regulations saw the establishment of a number of children's series including Simon Townsend's Wonder World and Shirl's Neighbourhood.
News and current affairs, particularly on commercial television, grew significantly – the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
's A Current Affair, hosted by Mike Willesee
Mike Willesee
Michael Willesee is an Australian television presenter.Mike Willesee came to prominence in 1967 as a reporter for the ABC's new nightly current affairs program This Day Tonight , where his aggressive style quickly earned him a reputation as a fearless political interviewer.-Career:Willesee figured...
began in November 1971, while 60 Minutes, on the same network, began in 1979. In 1972 NBN Television
NBN Television
NBN Television is a television station based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout the northern half of New South Wales and...
in Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
became the first station in Australia to adopt a one-hour news format, followed by ATV-0 Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
's Eyewitness News
Eyewitness News
Eyewitness News is a style of news broadcasting used by local television stations in different markets across the United States. It refers to a particular style of television newscast with an emphasis on visual elements and action video...
, hosted by Bruce Mansfield
Bruce Mansfield
-Early career:Mansfield began in radio with stints on stations including 3UZ, 3KZ, 3AW and 3XY in the 1960s. He later moved to television appearing on The Graham Kennedy Show on GTV-9 in the early 1970s...
and Annette Allison, in March 1978.
A special Gold Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
was awarded to the Apollo 11
Apollo 11
In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...
crew in 1970, alongside actors Barry Crocker
Barry Crocker
Barry Hugh Crocker OAM is a popular Australian singer, with a crooning vocal style.-Biography:...
and Maggie Tabberer
Maggie Tabberer
Maggie Tabberer, AM, also known as Maggie T, is an Australian fashion, publishing and television personality.-Early life:She was born Margaret May Trigar on 11 December 1936 in Parkside, Adelaide, South Australia....
. Other Gold Logie winners included Gerard Kennedy
Gerard Kennedy
Gerard Michael Kennedy is a Canadian politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as Ontario's Minister of Education from 2003 to 2006, when he resigned to make an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada...
, Tony Barber
Tony Barber
Anthony "Tony" Ferraro Barber is an Australian game show host and television personality.-Early life:...
, Graham Kennedy
Graham Kennedy
Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra and The King of Australian television.-Childhood:...
, Pat McDonald, Ernie Sigley
Ernie Sigley
Ernest William "Ernie" Sigley is an enduring Australian entertainment personality known for his square-rimmed spectacles, the gap between his front teeth and his slapstick approach to comedy.-Radio career:...
and Denise Drysdale
Denise Drysdale
Denise Anne Christina Drysdale, is an Australian television personality and comedian. She is often affectionately called Ding-Dong.-Childhood:...
in the first awards presentation shown in colour, Don Lane
Don Lane
Don Lane , born Morton Donald Isaacson, was an American-born talk show host and singer. Don Lane is best known for hosting The Don Lane Show, which was aired on The Nine Network in Australia from 1975 to 1983....
, Jeanne Little
Jeanne Little
Jeanne Little is an Australian entertainer and TV personality.-Biography:Little was born in Sydney, New South Wales. Little made her television debut on Network Ten's Mike Walsh Show in September 1974...
, and Bert Newton
Bert Newton
Albert Watson "Bert" Newton, AM, MBE is an Australian television personality, known for hosting television series such as In Melbourne Tonight, Good Morning Australia and 20 to 1. Newton has also hosted the Logie Awards on numerous occasions through his career.-Early life:Newton was born in...
.
Sports broadcasting became increasingly sophisticated through the 1970s. ABC TV
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
and the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
joined together to broadcast the 1976 Olympic Games
1976 Summer Olympics
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, with the opening and closing ceremonies telecast live, and highlights packages shown each night. During November of the same year, RTS-5a
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a...
commenced transmissions in Riverland
Riverland
The Riverland, is a region of South Australia. It covers the area near the Murray River from where it flows into South Australia downstream to Blanchetown.The major town centres are Renmark, Berri, Loxton, Waikerie and Barmera...
, with GTW-11
Golden West Network
GWN7 is an Australian television network owned by the Prime Media Group that is based in Bunbury, Western Australia. The Golden West Network launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, and has since expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan...
launching in Geraldton
Geraldton, Western Australia
Geraldton is a city and port in Western Australia located north of Perth in the Mid West region. Geraldton has an estimated population at June 2010 of 36,958...
on 21 January 1977.
In 1977 the Victorian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
Grand Final
AFL Grand Final
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
was shown live to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
viewers for the first time. As with the Olympics, the 1978 Commonwealth Games
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....
in Edmonton, Canada were shown in the form of highlights packages on ABC TV.
The Special Broadcasting Service
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
, originally a group of radio stations broadcasting government information to ethnic minorities in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, began test transmissions on ABC TV
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
in the two cities – mainly showing foreign-language programming on Sunday mornings.
1980s
The country's second national public broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting ServiceSpecial Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
, launched SBS TV in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in October 1980. The new station, aimed at Australia's growing multicultural population, placed a much heavier emphasis on subtitled or foreign-language content. The network expanded to cover Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
and Goulburn in 1983, followed by Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
, Wollongong and the Gold Coast
Gold Coast, Queensland
Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
in June 1985. It is now available in most areas.
Although Australia had seen the introduction of the satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
in the 1960s, 1986 saw the introduction of a new, domestic satellite called AUSSAT. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other commercial broadcasters were able to broadcast to the more remote areas of Australia without needing to set-up a new station, and by the end of 1986 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation were broadcasting both television and radio to remote areas of Australia. By 1980, commercial television in Australia accounted for 33% of all mainstream advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
; this was a significant rise from the introduction of television in 1960 when it was accountable for only 15% of advertising revenue.
The 1980s was a big decade for Australian television, beginning with Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
broadcasting the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...
live across Australia. The 1980s were a huge step up for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, sealing the contracts for both Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...
and the 1986 Commonwealth Games
1986 Commonwealth Games
The 1986 Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh, Scotland for the second time. The Games were held from 24 July-2 August 1986.-Organisation and Controversy:...
, live from Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. 1986 also saw the introduction of Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
, a popular Australian TV Drama. In 1983 a two-hour experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
was conducted, in which the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
televised a series of 3-D film
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
s. In 1988 Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
televised the 1988 Summer Olympics
1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics...
live via satellite.
The Australian soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
was first broadcast on the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
on 18 March 1985. The show's storylines concern the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough
Erinsborough
Erinsborough is the fictional suburb in which the Australian Network Ten soap opera Neighbours is set. The show focuses on the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the suburb...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. Seven decided to commission the show following the success of Watson's other soap opera, Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters (Australian TV series)
Sons and Daughters was a Logie Award winning Australian soap opera created by Reg Watson and produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation between 1981 and 1987. The first episode aired in December 1981, during the Christmas/New Year non-ratings period, and the official broadcast date of the final...
. Neighbours underperformed in the Sydney market and it struggled for four months before Seven cancelled it. The show was immediately bought by rival network, Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
. Ten began screening Neighbours on 20 January 1986. Neighbours has since become the longest running series in Australian television and attained great success in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and launched the careers of several international stars, including Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
and Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
.
The soap opera Home and Away
Home and Away
Home and Away is an Australian soap opera that has been produced in Sydney since July 1987 and is airing on the Seven Network since 17 January 1988. It is the second-longest-running drama and most popular soap opera on Australian television...
has been produced in Sydney by the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
since July 1987. It premiered in January 1988 and is the second longest-running drama on Australian television, winning more than 30 Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
s. The show initially focused on the characters of Pippa
Pippa Ross
Phillipa "Pippa" Routledge OAM is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away. Actress Vanessa Downing originated the role from 1988 to 1990, then Debra Lawrance took over from 1990 to 1998. The character has made guest returns in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and...
and Tom Fletcher
Tom Fletcher (Home and Away)
Thomas Edward "Tom" Fletcher is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by actor Roger Oakley from 1988 to 1990 and in 2008, when Tom returned as a ghost in Sally Fletcher's near-death experience following her second stabbing.-Storylines:Tom originally lived in...
who ran the Summer Bay Caravan Park and lived there with a succession of foster children, most notably their adopted daughter Sally
Sally Fletcher
Sally Louise Fletcher is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by Kate Ritchie...
, played by Kate Ritchie
Kate Ritchie
Katherine "Kate" Ritchie is an Australian actress, best known for her long-running role as Sally Fletcher on the television soap opera Home and Away. She played the character for 20 years from 1988–2008...
. Other notable actors who have starred in the series include Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
, Julian McMahon
Julian McMahon
Julian Dana William McMahon is an Australian actor and former fashion model. He is best known for his portrayals of Cole Turner in The WB hit series Charmed, womanizing plastic surgeon Christian Troy on the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning TV show Nip/Tuck, and Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four and...
and Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
. The show has been a ratings success in Britain.
The late 1980s saw the ownership changeover for many commercial and regional stations. Six main ownership groups emerged, three for commercial broadcasters and three for regional broadcasters This was the beginning of aggregation for Australian television.
1990s
The 1990s saw a boom in Australian-made drama, which included Halifax f.p.Halifax f.p.
Halifax f.p. is an Australian television drama series produced by Nine Network from 1994 to 2001. The series stars Rebecca Gibney as Doctor Jane Halifax, a forensic psychiatrist investigating cases involving the mental state of suspects or victims...
, Stingers
Stingers
Stingers was an Australian police drama television series. It ran for eight seasons on the Nine Network before it was canceled in late 2004 due to declining ratings and the late timeslot Channel Nine gave the program...
, Water Rats
Water Rats (TV series)
Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney...
, SeaChange
SeaChange
SeaChange was a popular Australian television show that ran for 39 episodes from 1998 to 2001 on the ABC. It was created by Andrew Knight and Deborah Cox and starred Sigrid Thornton, David Wenham, William McInnes, John Howard, Tom Long and Kerry Armstrong...
, All Saints
All Saints (TV series)
All Saints is an Australian medical drama which first screened on the Seven Network. The series debuted on 24 February 1998 and concluded its run on 27 October 2009...
, and the long running police drama Blue Heelers
Blue Heelers
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series which depicted the lives of police officers stationed at the fictional Mount Thomas police station in a small town in Victoria.- Overview :...
which ran from 1994 to 2006, one of the longest running Australian programs, equaling Homicide's record of 510 episodes; a record set two decades earlier. A number of successful comedy programs also aired during the 1990s, including Fast Forward
Fast Forward
Fast Forward was Australia’s highest rating, longest running and most critically awarded commercial television sketch comedy , broadcast for 90 one hour episodes from 12 April 1989 to 26 November 1992....
, Full Frontal
Full Frontal (TV series)
Full Frontal was an Australian sketch comedy series which debuted in 1993. The show first aired on the Seven Network on 13 May 1993, and finished on 18 September 1997....
, The Late Show
The Late Show (Australian TV series)
The Late Show was a popular Australian comedy show, which ran for two seasons on ABC from 18 July 1992 to 30 October 1993.-Cast:The Late Show has its roots in the 1980s comedy group, The D-Generation...
and Good News Week
Good News Week
Good News Week is an Australian satirical panel game show hosted by Paul McDermott that initially aired from 19 April 1996 to 27 May 2000, and resumed on 11 February 2008 to 9 May 2011. The show aired first on ABC TV before it was bought by Network Ten in 1999...
. Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday was a long-running variety television program on Australian television. It initially ran for 27 years , debuting on the Nine Network on 9 October 1971 and broadcasting its last episode on 20 November 1999. Its host throughout its entire run was Daryl Somers, who would later...
ended its 28 year run in November 1999.
Regional television in Australia
Regional television is a term given to local television services in areas outside of the five main Australian cities .-1960s:...
began in the 1990s with the introduction of aggregation. Instead of being covered by a single commercial channel, regional license areas would combine to provide three stations in line with metropolitan areas. As a result, most regional areas went from one to three channels, although some, particularly outside eastern states New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
and Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, remained with two or even only one commercial station. The first license area to aggregate was that of southern New South Wales, on 31 March 1989, followed by Queensland on 31 December 1990, northern New South Wales on 31 December 1991 and Victoria on 1 January 1992. Some areas too small to be properly aggregated, such as Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, Mildura or rural South Australia, however, either applied for a second license or introduced a supplementary second service run by the existing local station. Following aggregation in 1995, Sunshine Television
STQ
STQ is the call sign of a regional television station in Queensland, Australia.It can also mean:*STQ, the IATA airport code for St. Marys Municipal Airport in Pennsylvania*STQ, the ISO language code for the Saterland Frisian language*Skill testing question...
was purchased by Seven Network Limited
Seven Network Limited
The Seven Network is an Australian television network. In April, 2011, Seven Network, Pacific Magazines and Yahoo7! http://www.yahoo.com.au were acquired by West Australian Newspapers Ltd http://info.thewest.com.au/ratecard// to create Seven West Media Ltd http://www.sevenwestmedia.com.au/...
.
Community television was introduced to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
and Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
in 1994. The stations, which all broadcast on 'Channel 31', were allocated long-term temporary licenses until new legislation introduced in 1997 permitted permanent licenses to be granted. Briz 31 was the first community television station to launch in Australia, on 31 July 1994. C31 Melbourne and Access 31
Access 31
Access 31 was a free-to-air Community television station based in Perth, Australia which operated between 1999 and 2008 before closing due to insolvency. The station had broadcast on UHF 31 from the ABC's television mast at Bickley in the Perth Hills...
in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
followed in 1994 and 1999 respectively, along with a number of other stations in some capital and regional cities. The most recent to launch was Sydney's TVS
Television Sydney
TVS, or Television Sydney , is a free-to-air community television station broadcasting in Sydney, Australia.-History:Transmissions officially commenced on analogue UHF channel 31 in February 2006 after three months of technical trials...
. Throughout the early 1990s, SBS TV
SBS TV
SBS One is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally...
coverage continued to expand to include the Latrobe Valley
Latrobe Valley
The Latrobe Valley is an inland geographical region and urban area of Gippsland in the state of Victoria, Australia. It is east of the City Of Melbourne and nestled between the Strzelecki Ranges to the south and the Great Dividing Range to the north – with the highest peak to the north of the...
, Spencer Gulf
Spencer Gulf
The Spencer Gulf is the westernmost of two large inlets on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, facing the Great Australian Bight. The Gulf is 322 km long and 129 km wide at its mouth. The western shore of the Gulf is the Eyre Peninsula, while the eastern side is the...
, Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, northeast Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Cairns and Townsville.
During the 1990s the first subscription television services were introduced to Australia. The first license was issued to Galaxy Television, which started in 1993, providing services to most metropolitan areas by 1995. Other major providers include Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
, Optus Television
Optus Television
Optus Television is the cable television division of Australian telecommunications company Optus.-History:Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between, Optus and Continental Cablevision with small shareholdings by media companies Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and Seven...
and AUSTAR
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
, all of which were introduced in 1995.
The advent of pay television in Australia also resulted in the Super League war
Super League war
The Super League war is the common name given to the corporate dispute that was fought in and out of court during the mid-1990s between the Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation-backed Super League and the Kerry Packer and Optus Vision-backed Australian Rugby League organisations over broadcasting...
which was fought in and out of court during the mid-1990s by the News Ltd-backed Super League
Super League (Australia)
Super League was an Australian rugby league football administrative body that conducted professional competition in Australasia for one season in 1997. Along with Super League of Europe, it was created by News Corporation during the Super League war which arose following an unsuccessful attempt to...
and Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, AC was an Australian media tycoon. The son of Sir Frank Packer and Gretel Bullmore, the Packer family company owned controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later...
-backed Australian Rugby League
Australian Rugby League
The Australian Rugby League is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Australia. It is made up of state bodies, including the New South Wales Rugby League and the Queensland Rugby League...
organisations over broadcasting rights, and ultimately control of the top-level professional rugby league football competition of Australasia. This resulted in the greatest and most costly set-piece confrontation to shake the corporate landscape of Australia.
Galaxy folded in 1998 and was subsequently absorbed by Foxtel. Despite recent growth, subscription television in Australia still has relatively few subscribers.
2000s
The 2000 Summer Olympics2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney resulted in huge ratings for its host broadcaster, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
– over 6.5 million Australians watched the telecast of opening and closing ceremonies, which were amongst the most-watched programs in television history and helped Seven defeat the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
in ratings terms for the first time in more than two decades. The broadcast also ran on the short-lived C7 Sport
C7 Sport
C7 Sport was a pay-TV service in Australia, owned and run by Kerry Stokes' Seven Network. The service was carried on the Austar and Optus Vision pay-TV networks between 1995 and 2002, when it was removed in controversial circumstances...
subscription channel. The Dream with Roy and HG
The Dream with Roy and HG
The Dream with Roy and HG was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sydney 2000, Salt Lake 2002 and Athens 2004 Olympics, presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG....
was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sydney 2000 (and subsequent Salt Lake 2002 and Athens 2004 Olympics) presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG
Roy and HG
Roy & HG is an Australian comedy duo, comprising Greig Pickhaver in the role of "H [Harry] G Nelson" and John Doyle as "'Rampaging' Roy Slaven". Their act is an affectionate but irreverent parody of Australia's obsession with sport. Their characters based on archetypes in sports journalism: Nelson...
which achieved great popularity during the Games.
The turn of the millennium introduced digital television to Australia
Digital television in Australia
Digital television in Australia comes in many forms:* Australian digital terrestrial television, branded as Freeview* VAST, a free-to-view satellite service, replacing Optus Aurora....
, as well as the transition to widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
standard-definition
Standard-definition television
Sorete-definition television is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either enhanced-definition television or high-definition television . The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as...
and high-definition television
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
production. Community stations also began to receive permanent transmitter licenses, replacing temporary licenses that were renewed yearly. At this time it was thought that allowing Commercial Multicasting would be detrimental so the publicly owned networks (ABC and SBS) were the only networks that were allowed to create new digital SD Channels. This was only revised after Digital Television Uptake was not as high as expected in many areas, and from 1 January 2009, Network Ten, Nine and Seven were allowed to create alternative SD channels.
Many successful Australian shows were created during the 2000s, including ABC TV
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
comedies like Kath and Kim, Spicks and Specks and The Chaser's War on Everything
The Chaser's War on Everything
The Chaser's War on Everything is an Australian television satirical comedy series broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation television station ABC1. It has won an AFI Award. The cast perform sketches mocking social and political issues, and often feature comedic publicity stunts...
, Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
's Thank God You're Here
Thank God You're Here
Thank God You're Here is an Australian television improvised comedy program created by Working Dog Productions, which premiered on Network Ten on 5 April 2006, and aired for the first three seasons with Seven for the fourth season...
, which led to the creation of many local versions throughout the world, and the growth of reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
, especially Big Brother Australia and Australian Idol
Australian Idol
Australian Idol is a Logie Award-winning Australian singing competition, which began its first season on July 2003 and ended its run in November 2009. As part of the Idol franchise, Australian Idol originated from the reality program Pop Idol, which was created by British entertainment executive...
. Australian content on subscription television also grew, with shows such as the Logie Award
Logie Award
The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. Renamed by Graham Kennedy in 1960 after he won the first 'Star Of The Year' award, the name 'Logie' awards honours John Logie Baird, a Scotsman who invented the television as a...
winning Love My Way
Love My Way
Love My Way was a Logie Award winning and critically acclaimed Australian television drama series. It won the AFI award for Best Television Drama Series for each of its three seasons ....
. Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, a television interview show broadcast on ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
, aired from 2003 to 2008.
Amongst the new digital 'multichannels', one of the earliest was the SBS World News Channel
SBS World News Channel
The SBS World News Channel was an Australian television channel broadcast by SBS Television that launched on 12 June 2002. The channel, that used to be only available to digital television viewers in Australia, was the first digital-only multi-channel for the Special Broadcasting Service...
in 2002, providing news bulletins in languages other than English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. In 2003 Tasmanian Digital Television launched, providing Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
n viewers a third commercial station, and nationally-available stations Fly TV
Fly TV
Fly TV was an ABC Television channel available to viewers of digital terrestrial television in Australia. The channel featured programming aimed towards teenagers and young adults. It was launched nationally on 1 November 2001, and aired alongside the children's-oriented ABC Kids Channel, which...
and the ABC Kids Channel
ABC Kids Channel
The ABC Kids Channel was an ABC Television channel available to viewers of digital terrestrial television in Australia. Launched on 1 August 2001, the channel offered repeats of popular ABC Kids programmes both simulcast and timeshifted....
launched, later to be eventually shut down due to funding issues and replaced in 2005 by ABC2
ABC2
ABC2 is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 7 March 2005, it is the responsibility of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television division, and is available nationally to digital television viewers in Australia...
. Mildura Digital Television, similar to TDT, launched at the start of 2006. Sydney also began testing datacasting
Datacasting
Datacasting is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. It most often refers to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital television, but may also be applied to digital signals on analog TV or radio...
transmissions with Digital 44 in 2003. While digital television boomed in areas that received a third channel and with the subscription television services, growth in other areas has been slow, with analogue shut-down dates pushed back several times. A number of new community stations were also opened, including C31 Adelaide
C31 Adelaide
44 Adelaide is a community television station broadcasting in Adelaide, South Australia on the Channel 31 frequency since 23 April 2004. It was previously known as C31 before it started transmitting in Digital....
in April 2004 and Television Sydney
Television Sydney
TVS, or Television Sydney , is a free-to-air community television station broadcasting in Sydney, Australia.-History:Transmissions officially commenced on analogue UHF channel 31 in February 2006 after three months of technical trials...
in February 2006.
In October 2005, Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
announced that Good Morning Australia
Good Morning Australia
Good Morning Australia from Network Ten was the name of two different programs. This article is for Bert Newton's morning program, not to be confused with the breakfast news program of the same name....
would be cancelled at the end of the year, after a 14 year run. Although Bert Newton
Bert Newton
Albert Watson "Bert" Newton, AM, MBE is an Australian television personality, known for hosting television series such as In Melbourne Tonight, Good Morning Australia and 20 to 1. Newton has also hosted the Logie Awards on numerous occasions through his career.-Early life:Newton was born in...
was offered ongoing employment at Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
, he joined the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
to host the short-lived game show Bert's Family Feud
Bert's Family Feud
Bert's Family Feud was the third Australian version of the game show Family Feud. The series was produced by Grundy Television in conjunction with FremantleMedia. It was broadcast on the Nine Network and hosted by Bert Newton...
, until 23 May 2007 when the program was axed.
Kerry Packer
Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer, AC was an Australian media tycoon. The son of Sir Frank Packer and Gretel Bullmore, the Packer family company owned controlling interest in both the Nine television network and leading Australian publishing company Australian Consolidated Press, which were later...
in late 2005 led to network personality Eddie McGuire
Eddie McGuire
Edward Joseph "Eddie" McGuire AM is an Australian television presenter and businessman known for his long association with Australian rules football and the Channel 9 television network....
becoming the head of the network, and the network lost AFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
broadcast rights to the Seven and Ten networks in the largest Australian television rights deal in history, worth A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
780 million.
In mid-2007, National Indigenous Television
National Indigenous Television
National Indigenous Television, commonly referred to as NITV, is an Australian television network broadcasting throughout Australia via satellite.-History:...
launched as Australia's 'third public broadcaster', after the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and SBS
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
, replacing Indigenous Community Television on the Optus Aurora
Optus fleet of satellites
This is a list of the satellites operated by Optus, an Australian telecommunications company. The satellite communications facility is located at Belrose on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.-A-Class:*Satellite Type: Hughes HS-376...
remote satellite service.
The move to High Definition Television broadcasting came to the forefront when Network TEN announced its intentions to create the first dedicated HD multichannel Ten HD
Ten HD
Ten HD was an Australian free-to-air television channel that launched on 16 December 2007. The channel was available to high definition digital television viewers through owned-and-operated stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth...
on 14 September 2007 with a December 2007 Launch date.
Although Ten HD
Ten HD
Ten HD was an Australian free-to-air television channel that launched on 16 December 2007. The channel was available to high definition digital television viewers through owned-and-operated stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth...
was initially expected to be the first new commercial television channel in metropolitan areas of Australia since 1988, it was instead beaten to the punch by Seven HD
Seven HD
Seven HD was an Australian television channel, owned by the Seven Media Group, that launched on 15 October 2007. The channel was available to high definition digital television viewers in metropolitan areas, Tasmania and Regional Queensland through a number of owned-and-operated stations, as well...
. Following the announcement by the Ten Network, Network Seven also announced its previously hidden plans to launch a dedicated HD channel on 15 September 2007 and pushed the launch date forward to 10 October. Seven HD
Seven HD
Seven HD was an Australian television channel, owned by the Seven Media Group, that launched on 15 October 2007. The channel was available to high definition digital television viewers in metropolitan areas, Tasmania and Regional Queensland through a number of owned-and-operated stations, as well...
was the first dedicated HD multichannel launched, 2 months earlier than the Channel 10 equivalent. The Nine Network's move to a HD channel was considered sluggish by industry insiders, taking until March 2008. The Network was more excited by its plans to introduce a new SD channel in 2009 called GO!, which is when digital multicasting restrictions were scheduled to be lifted from the commercial stations. Go! was released to the public on 9 August, spelling the end of Nine HD which was replaced by the previous HD version of Nine. 2009 also saw the launch of four other channels, 7TWO
7Two
7TWO is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel which was launched by the Seven Network on Sunday 1 November 2009 at 12pm....
, a general entertainment channel, SBS Two available in SD, ABC3
ABC3
-Future shows:Programming confirmed for future broadcast will include:* After School Care * Bindi's Boot Camp * Bushwacked! * Dance Academy * Dancing Down Under...
a dedicated children's television channel available in SD, and One, a dedicated 24 hour sport channel and a subsidiary of Network Ten available in both HD and SD, replacing Ten HD. ABC3, unlike commercial channels, is not constrained by local content quotas.
2010s
In the early stages of the 2010s, several governmental analysts observed that commercial networks were having trouble making the transition to digital television and subsequently, a $250m rebate was implemented on their licensing fees. The government funded stations, ABC and SBS, received increased funding in the closing stages of the 2000s to enable them to make the transition to digital TV. Meanwhile, the community station C31C31
C31 or C-31 may be:* C-31 highway , a primary highway in Catalonia* HMS C31, a 1909 British C class submarine* PRR C31, an American PRR 0-8-0 wheel arrangement steam locomotive...
received no government assistance or funding to make the transition; this still remains a source of controversy.
Other issues were noted such as the increased cost of producing local content on commercial networks. For example: it costs roughly $800,000 to produce one hour of local content such as Underbelly
Underbelly (series)
Underbelly is an Australian television true crime-drama which originally broadcast on the Nine Network. Each series contains 13 episodes and is based on real-life events including the Melbourne gangland killings between 1995-2004, the Griffith drug trade between 1976-1987, and the Kings Cross scene...
and Packed to the Rafters
Packed to the Rafters
Packed to the Rafters is an Australian family-orientated television series which premiered on the Seven Network on Tuesday 26 August 2008 at 8:30 pm. The drama series features a mix of lighthearted comedy woven through the plot. It revolves around the Rafter family facing work pressures and...
, in comparison to a mere $100,000 to purchase one hour of the US produced Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
, the former example screening very often during the off ratings period 2009–10. The cost disparity has led many to question to viability of commercial networks in the future at delivering and investing in locally produced content and has also brought their financial arrangements with business and industry groups into question. Meanwhile, ABC and SBS quickly began producing very successful local content with shows such as Review, Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure
Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure
Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure is a six-part Australian television comedy series, starring and primarily written by Melbourne comedian Lawrence Leung and produced by Chaser Broadcasting...
, Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast
Hungry Beast is an Australian television program, that is broadcast on Wednesday nights on ABC1 and repeated on Thursday night on ABC2. It is produced by Andrew Denton's production company,...
and many more publicly funded local programs, produced in Australia, with Australian cast and crews, adding to the increasing health of Australian film and television industries.
During January 2010, the ABC announced its long-awaited 24 hour news channel, ABC News 24
ABC News 24
ABC News 24 is an Australian 24-hour news channel launched and owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The channel replaced the former ABC High Definition simulcast of ABC1 and commenced broadcasting at 7:30pm 5:30 on Thursday, 22 July 2010.-Pre-launch:The ABC announced in January 2010...
to launch in mid-2010. It will broadcast on the current ABC HD channel and according to the ABC, "Australia's first free-to-air 24-hour television news channel". Following technical issues at ABC's new playout facility MediaHub, ABC News 24 launch date was pushed to 22 July 2010. ABC News 24 began to broadcast a 3 minute loop promo on Channel 24 on 6 July 2010.
On 19 August 2010, the Seven Network announced their third digital channel, 7mate
7mate
7mate is an Australian free-to-air high definition digital television channel, which was launched by the Seven Network on 25 September 2010.The network stated that 7mate would contain sport and regular programs aimed primarily at a male audience, with programming drawn from a combination of new...
, which is to replace 7HD. 7mate is aimed at males between 16–49, and is set to launch with the AFL Grand Final on 25 September. The Nine Network has also launched a third digital channel called GEM
GEM (Australian TV channel)
GEM is an Australian free-to-air high definition digital television channel, launched by the Nine Network on Sunday 26 September 2010 at 6am...
, broadcasting only in HD and replacing Nine HD. GEM is targeted at middle aged women. On 26 August Network Ten announced their plans for a channel to replace One SD. The new channel, Eleven
Eleven (TV channel)
Eleven is an Australian free-to-air standard definition digital television channel, which was launched by ElevenCo, on 11 January 2011.-Joint venture:...
, will be aimed at a youth audience and will carry flagship TEN programming including Neighbours and The Simpsons. Eleven launched on 11 January 2011.
Broadcasting
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
formats, via a range of means including terrestrial television
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
, satellite television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
as well as a number of cable services. Both free-to-air
Free-to-air
Free-to-air describes television and radio services broadcast in clear form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription or one-off fee...
and subscription
Pay TV
Pay television, premium television, or premium channels refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analog and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly via digital terrestrial and internet television...
channels and networks are available.
In most areas there is a choice of three free-to-air commercial broadcasters in addition to the television services of the two national public broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and the Special Broadcasting Service
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
. A third, recently-established, National Indigenous Television
National Indigenous Television
National Indigenous Television, commonly referred to as NITV, is an Australian television network broadcasting throughout Australia via satellite.-History:...
service is available in many remote areas.
Commercial television is dominated by three major metropolitan-based networks, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
and Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
, which own stations in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
which owns stations in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
and Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
with affiliates in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
and Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
. In addition to its metropolitan assets, Seven also owns regional station Seven Queensland
STQ
STQ is the call sign of a regional television station in Queensland, Australia.It can also mean:*STQ, the IATA airport code for St. Marys Municipal Airport in Pennsylvania*STQ, the ISO language code for the Saterland Frisian language*Skill testing question...
.
Regional television in Australia
Regional television in Australia
Regional television is a term given to local television services in areas outside of the five main Australian cities .-1960s:...
consists of independently-owned networks 'affiliated' to metropolitan stations. WIN Television
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a...
is the country's largest regional broadcaster in terms of population reach (it also owns the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
stations in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
and Adelaide), followed by Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten is an Australian television channel broadcast by the Macquarie Media Group in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. The channel is owned by the Macquarie Media Group as is affiliated to Network Ten...
, Prime Television
Prime Television
PRIME7 is an Australian television network owned by Prime Media Group Limited. Prime Television launched on 17 March 1962 as CBN/CWN in Orange and Dubbo, New South Wales, and has since expanded to cover regional New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory as a Seven Network...
, NBN Television
NBN Television
NBN Television is a television station based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout the northern half of New South Wales and...
, the Golden West Network
Golden West Network
GWN7 is an Australian television network owned by the Prime Media Group that is based in Bunbury, Western Australia. The Golden West Network launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, and has since expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan...
, Southern Cross Television
Southern Cross Television
Southern Cross Television, or Southern Cross, is an Australian television network available in Tasmania, Darwin, Regional South Australia, and Central Australia. Although the programming varies from region to region, all areas are affiliated with the Seven Network and, in some areas, have a dual...
, and Imparja Television
Imparja Television
Imparja Television is an Australian television network servicing remote eastern and central Australia, that began broadcasting on 2 January 1988. It is based in Alice Springs, where it has a studio and satellite uplink facility. Notably, it is controlled by Australian Aborigines through ownership...
.
Along with regional markets, there are diary markets such as regional Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
and Alice Springs, where only two networks are available. In these areas, the two incumbent commercial broadcasters are allowed to apply for a third, digital
Digital terrestrial television
Digital terrestrial television is the technological evolution of broadcast television and advance from analog television, which broadcasts land-based signals...
-only license, to provide additional programming. This has resulted in the establishment of a number of channels including Tasmanian Digital Television
Tasmanian Digital Television
Tasmanian Digital Television is a digital television station in Tasmania, Australia. It is jointly owned by the WIN Corporation and Macquarie Media Group, and largely managed by WIN Television.-Introduction:...
, Mildura Digital Television
Mildura Digital Television
Ten Mildura is a joint venture television station between Prime Media Group and Win Television. Based in Mildura, Victoria, Australia, it is a digital-only Network Ten affiliate, and began broadcasting on 1 January 2006....
, and the forthcoming Darwin Digital Television.
Subscription television in Australia consists of Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
in metropolitan areas and throughout Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, AUSTAR
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
in the regional areas of eastern and central states, and Optus Television
Optus Television
Optus Television is the cable television division of Australian telecommunications company Optus.-History:Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between, Optus and Continental Cablevision with small shareholdings by media companies Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and Seven...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, and Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
. A number of smaller operators including SelecTV, TransACT
TransACT
TransACT Capital Communications is an Australian telecommunications company based in Canberra which provides broadband internet access, fixed telephony, cable television services, and mobile phone services in Canberra and a subset of these services in Queanbeyan, throughout South-east New South...
, UBI World TV
UBI World TV
UBI World TV is an Australian digital satellite pay television service that broadcasts predominantly ethnic channels. It launched in late 2004 and currently offers over 80 channels in its lineup from over 20 countries in over 12 languages.The company also provides entertainment and information...
, and Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable is a telecommunications provider based in regional Victoria, Australia . Neighbourhood Cable owns and operates Hybrid Fibre Coaxial cable networks in three Victorian regional cities:* Mildura* Ballarat* Geelong...
provide niche or local services. Most operators provide the same or similar channels. There are few genuine local channels and few independent channels. One exception is the World Movies
World Movies
World Movies is an Australian subscription television channel dedicated to foreign films, available on Foxtel, Optus TV and Austar. The channel features foreign film, documentaries, independent cinema, and interviews with international movie stars....
channel owned by a consortium including SBS Television and companies owned by Kerry Stokes
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes AC is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. He is most widely known as the chairman of the Seven Network, one of the largest broadcasting...
and the Australian Radio Network
Australian Radio Network
The Australian Radio Network is a group of commercial radio stations around Australia and New Zealand. A joint venture of Australian media conglomerate APN News & Media and United States radio company Clear Channel Communications, the group is the largest radio company in Australasia...
.
Community television progressively launched between the 1980s to the 2000s. The sector is represented nationally by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia
Community Broadcasting Association of Australia
The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia is a peak body and the national representative organisation for community radio and television stations in Australia. The CBAA provide leadership, advocacy and support for members to actively provide independent broadcasting services and to build...
. Community stations include TVS
Television Sydney
TVS, or Television Sydney , is a free-to-air community television station broadcasting in Sydney, Australia.-History:Transmissions officially commenced on analogue UHF channel 31 in February 2006 after three months of technical trials...
, C31 Melbourne, 31 Brisbane, C31 Adelaide
C31 Adelaide
44 Adelaide is a community television station broadcasting in Adelaide, South Australia on the Channel 31 frequency since 23 April 2004. It was previously known as C31 before it started transmitting in Digital....
and Access 31
Access 31
Access 31 was a free-to-air Community television station based in Perth, Australia which operated between 1999 and 2008 before closing due to insolvency. The station had broadcast on UHF 31 from the ABC's television mast at Bickley in the Perth Hills...
; many recognisable mainstream personalities originated from community television, including Rove McManus
Rove McManus
John Henry Michael "Rove" McManus is an Australian comedian, television presenter, producer and media personality. He was the host of the self-titled variety show Rove, and is the owner of the production company Roving Enterprises...
and Wil Anderson
Wil Anderson
William James "Wil" Anderson is an Australian comedian, writer, performing stand-up, and television and radio presenter and personality.- Early life :...
.
Cable television
Cable television services have been available in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
since the early 1990s, with Galaxy TV being the first. It became insolvent in 1997, due to decreasing popularity with the launching of Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
and Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
in May 1995, two cable services that offered more variety than Galaxy TV. Foxtel immediately commenced in supplying programming to Galaxy's subscribers on an interim basis. In 1999 Foxtel was able to significantly boost its customer base by acquiring Galaxy TV's subscribers from the Australis Media liquidator and commenced offering its services on a satellite television platform. There is currently one major and four minor cable television providers in Australia – Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
. Minor providers include Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
, TransACT
TransACT
TransACT Capital Communications is an Australian telecommunications company based in Canberra which provides broadband internet access, fixed telephony, cable television services, and mobile phone services in Canberra and a subset of these services in Queanbeyan, throughout South-east New South...
, Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable is a telecommunications provider based in regional Victoria, Australia . Neighbourhood Cable owns and operates Hybrid Fibre Coaxial cable networks in three Victorian regional cities:* Mildura* Ballarat* Geelong...
& SelecTV.
Inside the capital cities, cable is the more predominant form of pay television distribution. In regional areas or in new or outskirted areas of cities, satellite is far more common.
Due to its history, financial backing and market dominance, most local versions of channels are either owned directly by Foxtel and Austar or through related companies.
In terms of coverage, Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
's cable network covers parts of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, and Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
. Optus
Optus
SingTel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications...
's network covers small parts of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, and Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, though its restrictive subscription rules means that many people living in apartments or confined living areas may be unable to be connected.
Austar is available by satellite in most of regional and rural Australia, but does have a small cable network in the city of Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
. TransACT
TransACT
TransACT Capital Communications is an Australian telecommunications company based in Canberra which provides broadband internet access, fixed telephony, cable television services, and mobile phone services in Canberra and a subset of these services in Queanbeyan, throughout South-east New South...
is only available in the city of Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, where a custom cable network was developed. A similar situation used to exist in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
where a small area was covered by Bright Telecommunications (however they closed down after lack of funding) as well in parts of Geelong, Ballarat and Mildura
Mildura, Victoria
Mildura is a regional city in northwestern Victoria, Australia and seat of the Rural City of Mildura local government area. It is located in the Sunraysia region, and is on the banks of the Murray River. The current population is estimated at just over 30,000.Mildura is a major agricultural centre...
that are reached by Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable
Neighbourhood Cable is a telecommunications provider based in regional Victoria, Australia . Neighbourhood Cable owns and operates Hybrid Fibre Coaxial cable networks in three Victorian regional cities:* Mildura* Ballarat* Geelong...
.
Satellite television
Satellite television in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
has proven to be a far more feasible option than cable television, perhaps due to the vast distances between population centres, (although Canada, which also has large distances between population centres, has a relatively high cable television penetration rate). The first service to come online in Australia was Galaxy, which was later taken over by Cable Television giant Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
, which now operates both cable and satellite services to all state capital cities (except Darwin and Hobart) and the whole of Western Australia. Its main metropolitan rival was Optus Vision, while rural areas are served by Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
, both of which just rebroadcast Foxtel as of 2005. In 2006 SelecTV began operating, aiming at providing comparatively low cost packages and catering to specialised market segments.
Programming
Australia has produced numerous notable television series and miniseries, with the most prominent programs coming from the comedy, police, and medical drama genreGenre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s.
One of the earliest Australian police drama series was Homicide, produced in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
by Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
, widely viewed as having revolutionised Australian television drama production. It was followed by Division 4
Division 4
Division 4 was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the Nine Network between 1969 and 1975 for 300 episodes....
and Matlock Police
Matlock Police
Matlock Police was an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the 0-10 Network between 1971 and 1975....
, which also enjoyed great popularity and long runs both locally and overseas. Other successful police drama series have included Cop Shop
Cop Shop
Cop Shop was an Australian police drama television series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday operations of both the uniformed police officers and the plain-clothes detectives of the fictional Riverside Police Station....
, Police Rescue
Police Rescue
Police Rescue was an Australian television series which originally aired on ABC TV between 1989 and 1996. It was produced by ABC and Southern Star Xanadu in association with the BBC....
, Blue Heelers
Blue Heelers
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series which depicted the lives of police officers stationed at the fictional Mount Thomas police station in a small town in Victoria.- Overview :...
, Water Rats
Water Rats (TV series)
Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney...
and Stingers
Stingers
Stingers was an Australian police drama television series. It ran for eight seasons on the Nine Network before it was canceled in late 2004 due to declining ratings and the late timeslot Channel Nine gave the program...
. Medical dramas have also proved popular with audiences, including series such as The Flying Doctors
The Flying Doctors
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia....
, GP, A Country Practice
A Country Practice
A Country Practice is an Australian television drama series. One of the longest-running of its kind, produced by James Davern of JNP Productions, it ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from 18 November 1981 to 22 November 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping,...
and All Saints
All Saints (TV series)
All Saints is an Australian medical drama which first screened on the Seven Network. The series debuted on 24 February 1998 and concluded its run on 27 October 2009...
.
Notable miniseries have included Against the Wind
Against the Wind (TV series)
Against the Wind was a 1978 Australian television mini-series.It is a historical drama portraying both the British rule of Ireland, and the development of New South Wales and Australia...
, All the Rivers Run
All the Rivers Run
All The Rivers Run is an Australian television miniseries from 1983 and 1989, starring Sigrid Thornton and John Waters. The miniseries is based on the Australian historical novel by Nancy Cato, first published in 1958. The film is marketed with the tagline A sweeping saga of one woman's struggle...
, Bodyline
Bodyline (miniseries)
Bodyline is an Australian 1984 television miniseries which dramatised the events of the 1932–1933 English Ashes cricket tour of Australia....
, Brides of Christ, The Dismissal and The Timeless Land, and in more recent times Curtin
Curtin (2007 film)
Curtin is a telemovie about the wartime Prime Minister of Australia, John Curtin.-Plot:The film covers the period from just before Curtin became Prime Minister until the return of the 6th and 7th Divisions to Australia at the start of the Pacific war....
and Bastard Boys
Bastard Boys
Bastard Boys is an Australian television miniseries broadcast on the ABC in 2007. It tells the story of the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute.-Plot:...
.
Australian soap opera success began with Bellbird in 1967 which was a moderate but consistent success. Following this the huge success of Number 96
Number 96 (TV series)
Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects...
in 1972 prompted creation of the similar The Box
The Box (TV series)
The Box was an Australian soap opera than ran on Network Ten from February 1974 until 1977.The Box was produced by Crawford Productions who at the time was having great success producing police procedural television series in Australia...
in 1974. These serials were all cancelled in 1977. Following this successful serials included The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors is an Australian early evening soap opera. The series was set in the fictional Albert Memorial hospital and primarily concerned with romances between younger members of the hospital staff, screened on the Nine Network from Monday, 8 November 1976 until Wednesday, 30 March...
, The Sullivans
The Sullivans
The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives...
, Prisoner
Prisoner (TV series)
Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera which was set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison. The series was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation and ran on Network Ten for 692 episodes from 27 February 1979 to 11 December 1986.The series was inspired by the 1970s...
, Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters (Australian TV series)
Sons and Daughters was a Logie Award winning Australian soap opera created by Reg Watson and produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation between 1981 and 1987. The first episode aired in December 1981, during the Christmas/New Year non-ratings period, and the official broadcast date of the final...
, Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
and Home and Away
Home and Away
Home and Away is an Australian soap opera that has been produced in Sydney since July 1987 and is airing on the Seven Network since 17 January 1988. It is the second-longest-running drama and most popular soap opera on Australian television...
. This later group were also screened internationally, finding particular success in the United Kingdom.
Comedy series have included The Aunty Jack Show
The Aunty Jack Show
The Aunty Jack Show was a Logie Award–winning Australian television comedy series that ran from 1972 to 1973. Produced by and broadcast on ABC-TV, the series attained an instant cult status that persists to the present day....
, The Paul Hogan Show
The Paul Hogan Show
The Paul Hogan Show was a popular Australian comedy show which aired on Australian television from 1973 until 1984. It made a star of Paul Hogan who later appeared in Crocodile Dundee. Hogan's friend also appeared in the show, playing Hogan's dim flatmate Strop...
, The Norman Gunston Show
Norman Gunston
Norman Gunston was a satirical TV character performed by Australian actor and comedian Garry McDonald. Norman Gunston was primarily well known in his native Australia, and to a lesser extent, the United States during the mid to late 1970s.- Early years :...
, and more recently The D-Generation
The D-Generation
The D-Generation was a popular and influential Australian TV sketch comedy show, produced and broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for two series, between 1986 and 1987...
, Frontline
Frontline (Australian TV series)
Frontline is an Australian comedy television series which satirised Australian television current affairs programmes and reporting. It ran for three series of 13 half-hour episodes and was broadcast on ABC TV in 1994, 1995 and 1997.-Production:...
, The Glass House
The Glass House (TV series)
The Glass House was a half-hour Australian comedy talk show which screened on the ABC from 2001 to 2006.It was hosted by stand-up comedian Wil Anderson, and co-hosted by fellow television and radio comedians Corinne Grant and Dave Hughes...
, Summer Heights High
Summer Heights High
Summer Heights High is a Logie Award-winning Australian television mockumentary series written by and starring Chris Lilley. It is a parody of high-school life epitomised by its three protagonists: effeminate and megalomaniacal "Director of Performing Arts" Mr G; self-absorbed, privileged teenager...
and popular series Thank God You're Here
Thank God You're Here
Thank God You're Here is an Australian television improvised comedy program created by Working Dog Productions, which premiered on Network Ten on 5 April 2006, and aired for the first three seasons with Seven for the fourth season...
, which has since been adapted to a number of countries around the world, and already several of them have brought in creators and stars of shows like Kath & Kim
Kath & Kim
Kath & Kim is a Logie Award-winning character-driven Australian television situation comedy series. The series was created by, and is written by Jane Turner and Gina Riley who play the title characters: a suburban mother and daughter with a dysfunctional relationship...
to help produce, direct, star, or serve as consultants on their versions.
Scheduling
The scheduling for each network is quite diverse: while the Seven NetworkSeven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
, Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
, and affiliates have an hour of news and current affairs at 6.00pm, Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
has news at 5.00pm while ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
has news at 7:00pm. The primetime
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
slot in Australia runs from 6.00pm to midnight, with the most popular programming shown from around 7.30pm to 10.30pm, followed by a half-hour news bulletin on some networks. Many programs shown in these times on commercial networks are taken from American television, while ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
has a mixture of Australian and British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
productions. SBS TV, as a multicultural broadcaster, shows a range of programs produced locally and overseas in a number of languages. Imported programming has typically been shown months after its debut in the United States or the United Kingdom, however in recent times networks have begun to air programs within hours or days of their overseas counterparts.
Seven
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
and Nine
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
both have rival breakfast shows (in Ten's
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
case children's programming) that run from 6.00–9.00am, followed by morning shows on all three networks until midday. ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
now broadcasts a breakfast news show (ABC News Breakfast
ABC News Breakfast
ABC News Breakfast is an Australian breakfast television programme which broadcasts on ABC1 & ABC News 24 from 6am - 9am on weekdays. The program airs live in all Australian timezones on the high-definition digital free-to-air channel ABC News 24...
) while on ABC2
ABC2
ABC2 is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 7 March 2005, it is the responsibility of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television division, and is available nationally to digital television viewers in Australia...
and ABC3
ABC3
-Future shows:Programming confirmed for future broadcast will include:* After School Care * Bindi's Boot Camp * Bushwacked! * Dance Academy * Dancing Down Under...
there are children's programming, meanwhile on SBS TV
SBS TV
SBS One is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally...
foreign-language bulletins are shown for most of the morning, followed by foreign-language films and documentaries.
Most scheduling is consistent across Australia's three timezones – this means that South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
and the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
sees programming half an hour behind Australian Eastern Standard Time, while in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
programs are seen two hours behind. Consequently, many national news bulletins shown live to eastern states are seen on considerable delay in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
(with the notable exception of The Midday Report, of which a second edition is produced for WA). The time delay can often deny viewers in central and western areas the opportunity to participate in interactive shows such as Big Brother.
One exception to this rule are subscription channels, which always run on Australian Eastern Standard Time regardless of the local service or timezone. The recent introduction of timeshift channels delayed two hours for all viewers, particularly on Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
, allowed WA viewers to see programs in sync with other states.
News
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and SBS
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
, produce news services. The ABC provides both local and national news bulletins in the form of ABC News
ABC News (Australia)
ABC News is a national news service produced by the News and Current Affairs division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - the division is responsible for all newsgathering and production of news output for ABC television, radio and online services...
at 7pm and The Midday Report, presented from both Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and state capitals. SBS TV
SBS TV
SBS One is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally...
broadcasts a nightly hour-long World News Australia
SBS World News
World News Australia is the news service of the Special Broadcasting Service. Its flagship nightly bulletin is broadcast at on SBS One with additional weeknight 'late' bulletins at on SBS One...
bulletin at 6.30pm, followed by a later, half-hour edition at 9.30pm.
Higher ratings for earlier bulletins from commercial broadcasters including the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
, Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
, and Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
have prompted fierce ratings competition. Seven News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...
has recently overtaken National Nine News
National Nine News
Nine News is the news service of the Australian Nine Network.Nine News's flagship bulletin is the nightly 6:00pm localised bulletin, produced by networked owned-and-operated stations in Sydney , Melbourne , Brisbane and Darwin alongside localised bulletins produced by the WIN-owned Nine Network...
as Australia's highest-ratings news service.
Seven News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...
produce national bulletins in the mornings and afternoons, as well as local 6pm bulletins in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Cairns, Townsville and Mackay
Mackay, Queensland
Mackay is a city on the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia, about north of Brisbane, on the Pioneer River. Mackay is nicknamed the sugar capital of Australia because its region produces more than a third of Australia's cane sugar....
. The network's news bulletins and popular breakfast program Sunrise
Sunrise (TV program)
Sunrise is an Australian breakfast television program, broadcast on the Seven Network. On weekdays the programme follows Seven Early News, and runs from 6am through to 9am.-History:...
compete directly with the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
's offerings, which include the Today Show
Today (Australian TV program)
Today and Weekend Today are Australian breakfast television programmes, the show is often referred to as The Today Show. The show has been broadcast live by the Nine Network each morning since 1982...
and morning, afternoon, evening and late editions of National Nine News
National Nine News
Nine News is the news service of the Australian Nine Network.Nine News's flagship bulletin is the nightly 6:00pm localised bulletin, produced by networked owned-and-operated stations in Sydney , Melbourne , Brisbane and Darwin alongside localised bulletins produced by the WIN-owned Nine Network...
. Ten News
Ten News
Ten News is the national news service of Network Ten in Australia. The majority of its news bulletins are presented from the TEN-10 studios in Pyrmont...
is shown in competition with Seven and Nine's breakfast programs in the form of an hour-long early news bulletin, in addition to its morning, late, and First at Five evening editions.
In Australia, there are two local 24 hour news channels. ABC News 24
ABC News 24
ABC News 24 is an Australian 24-hour news channel launched and owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The channel replaced the former ABC High Definition simulcast of ABC1 and commenced broadcasting at 7:30pm 5:30 on Thursday, 22 July 2010.-Pre-launch:The ABC announced in January 2010...
is Australia's only free-to-air news channel. ABC News 24
ABC News 24
ABC News 24 is an Australian 24-hour news channel launched and owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The channel replaced the former ABC High Definition simulcast of ABC1 and commenced broadcasting at 7:30pm 5:30 on Thursday, 22 July 2010.-Pre-launch:The ABC announced in January 2010...
launched on 22 July 2010 as features all of ABCs news and current affairs programs. ABC News 24
ABC News 24
ABC News 24 is an Australian 24-hour news channel launched and owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The channel replaced the former ABC High Definition simulcast of ABC1 and commenced broadcasting at 7:30pm 5:30 on Thursday, 22 July 2010.-Pre-launch:The ABC announced in January 2010...
is available on digital channel 24 in HD
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
. Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia is an Australian 24 hour cable and satellite news channel available in 2.5 million homes on Foxtel, Austar, Optus Television and Neighbourhood Cable subscription platforms....
is Australia's second news channel that is only available on Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
, Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
, and Optus TV. The subscription based television channel draws on the resources of its shareholders news services, using content from Seven News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...
, National Nine News
National Nine News
Nine News is the news service of the Australian Nine Network.Nine News's flagship bulletin is the nightly 6:00pm localised bulletin, produced by networked owned-and-operated stations in Sydney , Melbourne , Brisbane and Darwin alongside localised bulletins produced by the WIN-owned Nine Network...
and Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
from the United Kingdom, as well as reporters based in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, and Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
.
A number of regional television networks produce news services. WIN Television
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a...
produces 20 bulletins in parts of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Victoria, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, and Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. NBN Television
NBN Television
NBN Television is a television station based in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout the northern half of New South Wales and...
is the only regional broadcaster to produce a bulletin on both weeknights and weekends, in an hour-long format presented from Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
and seen across northern New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. Prime Television
Prime Television
PRIME7 is an Australian television network owned by Prime Media Group Limited. Prime Television launched on 17 March 1962 as CBN/CWN in Orange and Dubbo, New South Wales, and has since expanded to cover regional New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory as a Seven Network...
produces news updates throughout regional New South Wales and Victoria, with sister-network GWN
Golden West Network
GWN7 is an Australian television network owned by the Prime Media Group that is based in Bunbury, Western Australia. The Golden West Network launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, and has since expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan...
producing Golden West News for Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. In the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, Imparja Television
Imparja Television
Imparja Television is an Australian television network servicing remote eastern and central Australia, that began broadcasting on 2 January 1988. It is based in Alice Springs, where it has a studio and satellite uplink facility. Notably, it is controlled by Australian Aborigines through ownership...
shows Imparja National News. Southern Cross Television
Southern Cross Television
Southern Cross Television, or Southern Cross, is an Australian television network available in Tasmania, Darwin, Regional South Australia, and Central Australia. Although the programming varies from region to region, all areas are affiliated with the Seven Network and, in some areas, have a dual...
produces a bulletin for Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
and regional South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
.
Current affairs
Current affairs programming is shown in a broad range of formats, ranging between tabloidTabloid television
Tabloid television, also known as Teletabloid, is a form of tabloid journalism. Tabloid television newscasts usually incorporate flashy graphics and sensationalized stories.Often, there is a heavy emphasis on crime, stories with good video, and celebrity news...
-style current affairs shows to investigative programs such as Four Corners.
ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
has had a long history of producing current affairs programs, including the award-winning This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program of the late 1960s and early 1970s.- Overview :...
, the first regular current affairs program to be shown on Australian television and a training ground for many of Australia's best-known journalists. This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program of the late 1960s and early 1970s.- Overview :...
was axed in 1978, however in the mid-1980s The 7.30 Report
The 7.30 Report
The 7.30 Report is an Australian nightly television current affairs program, that was shown on ABC1 and ABC News 24 at , Mondays–Thursdays...
was launched in state-based editions (these were combined into a national program hosted by Kerry O'Brien in 1995). Four Corners, first seen in 1961, an investigative documentary series modelled on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
, has also won many awards and broken stories previously not covered by other media outlets.
Other current affairs programs include news and analysis program Lateline
Lateline
Lateline is an Australian television news and current affairs program produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, airing weeknights at on ABC1. The program has developed a reputation for head-to-head debates on current issues and political interviews. Lateline is followed by its sister...
, Stateline, shown in place of The 7.30 Report
The 7.30 Report
The 7.30 Report is an Australian nightly television current affairs program, that was shown on ABC1 and ABC News 24 at , Mondays–Thursdays...
on Fridays, Foreign Correspondent, Insiders, Offsiders
Offsiders
Offsiders is an Australian television sports program, that is currently airing live on Sunday mornings at 10.30am on both ABC1 and ABC News 24 networks . It began airing in 2005...
and Australia Wide
Australia Wide
Australia Wide was a rural-focused half-hour soft news programme produced by the ABC in Sydney. The programme was, up until mid-2007, produced by the Corporation's New Media and Digital Services division in Brisbane...
.
SBS TV
SBS TV
SBS One is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally...
also shows a number of current affairs programs, such as Dateline, the country's longest-running international current affairs program, launched in 1984. Insight
Insight (Australian TV program)
Insight is an current affairs television program, broadcast on the SBS network.-History:Insight started out as a national domestic current affairs program dealing primarily with Australian issues, while Dateline covered international ones....
, originally conceived in 1999 as a domestic current affairs program, is a discussion forum focussing on a single issue. SBS's Indigenous Media Unit produces another program titled Living Black
Living Black
Living Black is a current affairs programme from SBS One, Australia, addressed primarily to the interests of Australia's indigenous community. Karla Grant has been executive producer of this program which she has developed since 2002...
, which covers issues relevant to Australia's indigenous
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
community.
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
, in addition to Sunrise, broadcasts Today Tonight
Today Tonight
Today Tonight is a controversial Australian News and Current Affairs program, produced by the Seven Network and shown weeknightly at in direct competition with rival Nine Network program A Current Affair....
, a tabloid current affairs program, every weeknight after its 6pm news bulletin. On the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
, A Current Affair, first shown in 1971, competes directly with Today Tonight and has, since Ray Martin
Ray Martin (television presenter)
Raymond George "Ray" Martin AM is an Australian television journalist. He is best known for his various on-air roles on Channel Nine from 1978 to 2008. In 2011 he returned to 60 Minutes....
began presenting in 1994, provided a similar mix of content. On Sundays, 60 Minutes features a number of stories produced both locally and from its US counterpart
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
. In the morning Sunday covers local and overseas news, politics, and current affairs, in addition to film reviews, politics, arts, and music.
Political and interview program Meet the Press
Meet the Press (Australian TV program)
Meet the Press, a presentation of Ten News, is an Australian Sunday morning talk show based on the national political agenda. Hosted by Network Ten's Parliament House Bureau Chief and Political Editor Paul Bongiorno, the program has firmly established itself as an agenda-setting forum that attracts...
is also shown on Sunday mornings, on Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
since 1992. Regional network Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten
Southern Cross Ten is an Australian television channel broadcast by the Macquarie Media Group in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. The channel is owned by the Macquarie Media Group as is affiliated to Network Ten...
broadcasts State Focus, a regional current affairs program, afterwards. Ten also produces weekend and weeknighly late editions of Sports Tonight
Sports Tonight
Sports Tonight was an Australian sports information program broadcast on Network Ten . The program was broadcast on Weeknights at 10.30 pm; at 11.00pm , Fridays at 12.00am , and on Sunday from 7:30pm AEDT Sports Tonight was an Australian sports information program broadcast on Network Ten (and on...
, a sports information show which debuted in 1993.
On subscription television, Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia is an Australian 24 hour cable and satellite news channel available in 2.5 million homes on Foxtel, Austar, Optus Television and Neighbourhood Cable subscription platforms....
airs a number of news commentary and analysis shows such as Agenda, Sportsline, Sky Business Report, and Sky News Eco Report. A local version of The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel (Australia)
The Weather Channel is an Australian 24 hour cable and satellite channel that broadcasts weather news and information. The Weather Channel is available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television.-History:...
was launched in 1999, joined in 2006 by FoxSportsNews, a 24-hour sports news channel. Squawk Australia
Squawk Australia
Squawk Australia was a television business news program aired every weekday at 6:00am Singapore/Hong Kong/Taiwan time on CNBC Asia. It was broadcast live from CNBC Asia's Australia studio in Sydney, and anchored by Amanda Drury. It was produced by CNBC Asia from Australia...
, a business news program shown from 6.00am, is seen on CNBC Asia
CNBC Asia
CNBC Asia is a business news television channel in Asia. A subsidiary of NBC Universal, it is the Asian service of the Consumer News and Business Channel . Its programmes originate from Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney and has bureaus in Tokyo and Seoul....
.
Ratings
| Network | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ABC ABC Television ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas.... |
14.2% | 14.0% | 13.8% |
| C31 C31 C31 or C-31 may be:* C-31 highway , a primary highway in Catalonia* HMS C31, a 1909 British C class submarine* PRR C31, an American PRR 0-8-0 wheel arrangement steam locomotive... |
2.6% | 2.0% | 2.6% |
| Seven Seven Network The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach... |
24.2% | 23.0% | 23.5% |
| Nine Nine Network The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia... |
21.9% | 21.9% | 22.7% |
| Ten Network Ten Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country... |
17.0% | 18.4% | 17.3% |
| SBS | 4.6% | 4.8% | 4.6% |
| Pay TV | 15.5% | 15.9% | 15.5% |
Television ratings in Australia are collected by three main organisations: OzTAM
OzTAM
OzTAM is an Australian audience measurement research firm that collects and markets television ratings data. It is jointly owned by the Seven Network, the Nine Network and Network Ten, and is the official source of television ratings data for all metropolitan television in Sydney, Melbourne,...
in metropolitan areas, Regional TAM in regional areas serviced by three commercial television networks, and in areas with two commercial networks, Nielsen Media Research Australia
Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...
.
Ratings are collected for 40 weeks during the year, excluding a two-week break during Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
and ten weeks over summer. The majority of locally produced comedy and drama on commercial networks is shown during the ratings period.
Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
has been the ratings leader in Australia, typically followed by the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
and Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
. Subscription television and the two national broadcasters, ABC and in particular SBS TV, due to its special-interest nature, typically attract fewer viewers than the three commercial networks. Network Ten, due to its programming line-up, has traditionally been the market leader for younger viewers.
The 2007 ratings period has so far been unique in that, for the first time since 2000, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
has overtaken its rival Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
in terms of average viewers. ABC has also, since the early 2000s, seen ratings (as well as audience reach) as a major performance indicator – this has, however, led to a decline in viewers rather than the expected increase. The Nine Network has, in the past, aggressively marketed its long-time ratings dominance through its promotional campaign "Still the One", which they no longer use.
For the second year in a row, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
have finished on top of the ratings, mainly due to its strong programming line-up which includes the 2008 Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
, Packed to the Rafters
Packed to the Rafters
Packed to the Rafters is an Australian family-orientated television series which premiered on the Seven Network on Tuesday 26 August 2008 at 8:30 pm. The drama series features a mix of lighthearted comedy woven through the plot. It revolves around the Rafter family facing work pressures and...
and City Homicide amongst others.
Regulation
Content on Australian television is regulated by the Australian Communications and Media AuthorityAustralian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian government statutory authority within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio...
. All codes of practice submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority are reviewed by the public prior to acceptance. There are different regulations for different types of content, and the main categories are divided up into Australian content, children's content, commercial broadcasting
Commercial broadcasting
Commercial broadcasting is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship...
, community broadcasting, public broadcasting
Public broadcasting
Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...
, and subscription television
Pay TV
Pay television, premium television, or premium channels refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analog and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly via digital terrestrial and internet television...
.
The regulations in place define what a broadcaster may put on-air, the time(s) of day they are allowed to broadcast specific material, and what advertisements are shown in relation to these criteria. In essence, the Australian Communications and Media Authority controls what content is shown, what time(s) of day it is shown, and who controls what is shown (i.e.: international media as opposed to Australian media).
Genre restrictions imposed by the Australian government
Government of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...
on digital multichanneling were lifted along with the media ownership laws passed through the Parliament of Australia
Parliament of Australia
The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...
on 18 October 2006. Digital-only multichannels in Australia were previously limited in the subjects they could cover, with programming identified as comedy, drama, national news, sport or entertainment, prohibited from broadcast.
See also
- History of televisionHistory of televisionThe history of television records the work of numerous engineers and inventors in several countries over many decades. The fundamental principles of television were initially explored using electromechanical methods to scan, transmit and reproduce an image...
- Sports TV broadcasting contracts in AustraliaSports broadcasting contracts in AustraliaThis article refers to the sports broadcasting contracts in Australia. For a list of other country's broadcasting rights, see Sports television broadcast contracts....
- Digital Television in AustraliaDigital television in AustraliaDigital television in Australia comes in many forms:* Australian digital terrestrial television, branded as Freeview* VAST, a free-to-view satellite service, replacing Optus Aurora....
- Freeview (Australia)Freeview (Australia)Freeview is the brand given to the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia. It is intended to bring all of the free-to-air broadcasters on to a consistent marketing platform to compete against subscription television, in particular Foxtel, and coincides with the expansion to 3 digital...
- Subscription Television in Australia
- Internet Television in AustraliaInternet Television in AustraliaInternet television in Australia consists of five major PPV providers, in addition to several niche television streaming offerings. Australia's five major networks all offer previously broadcast content to watch via the Internet or via podcasts - drawing on both domestic and foreign...