50 Years of Television in Australia

by Nick Place

  Kylie will play Charlene Mitchell, Madge’s difficult, tomboy daughter who wants to be a motor mechanic, and is the fourth recent Neighbours cast member to join the series fresh from finishing HSC. Over the past few months, other additions to the cast from school include Jason Donovan (Scott Robinson), Guy Pearce (Guy Young) and Charlene Fenn (Nikki Dennison).

  ON DEBUT

  > Dancing Daze – six-part series following the adventures of two sisters in the world of contemporary dance

  > Late Night with Jono and Dano – starring Jonathan Coleman and Ian Rogerson

  > Prime Time – new soap about life in the TV industry

  > A Fortunate Life – mini-series based on the biography of AB Facey

  > Girl from Steel City – SBS series that is half in English and half in Greek

  > Not Suitable for Adults – SBS comedy show for teenagers

  > Beat Club – music series hosted by Annette Shun Wah

  > The Book Program – with Rod Quantock

  > Back Chat – viewer forum hosted by Tim Bowden

  > Shout – The Story of Johnny O’Keefe:

  series about the life of JO’K

  > Body Business – drama series

  > Fame and Misfortune – children’s comedy series

  > Land of Hope – period drama series

  > Five Times Dizzy – children’s comedy series about a Greek family settling in Australia

  > Winners/More Winners – children’s series

  > Alice to Nowhere – drama series about a nurse who is unwittingly carrying a stash of stolen jewels

  > The Great Bookie Robbery – mini-series about the robbery at the Victorian Club, home to Melbourne’s bookies

  > Whose Baby? – mini-series about two families in a small town who believe their babies have been mistakenly swapped in hospital

  > Studio 86 – a block of self-contained plays aired by the ABC

  > The Haunted School – historical children’s series set in the 1860s

  > Pokerface – thriller series exploring the world of secret services

  > The Challenge – mini-series detailing the story of Australia’s 1983 America’s Cup challenge

  60 Minutes reporters need nine lives

  It’s been a tough year on the road for 60 Minutes reporters, with Jeff McMullen the latest to find himself questioning the glamour of show business reporting. McMullen was left with mild concussion, a black eye and severe bruising after coming out on the wrong side of a punch-up in London – with a savage gorilla.

  ‘All I kept thinking the whole time was, “How the hell are we going to get out of here?”’ McMullen told TV Week. ‘Thank God I had my trusty leather jacket to shove in her mouth when she started biting. I’ve got teeth marks in the jacket that will start a few stories at the pub.’

  It is not known if the gorilla attacked McMullen as a statement on the standard of journalism on the Nine signature show, or whether she was just unhappy with sharing her locked cage with the reporter for half an hour.

  The incident comes three months after an even more frightening event, when Jana Wendt and her 60 Minutes crew were held captive in Ghana for 15 hours while trying to film an interview with Ghana’s revolutionary leader, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.

  ‘You often talk about the danger but this was the real thing,’Wendt said. For 15 hours, and surrounded by armed soldiers, she had been forced to go head-to-head with Rawlings. Wendt’s husband, cameraman Brendan Ward, was part of the crew that endured the epic showdown and has since left to work on Simon Townsend’s Wonder World where the gun-toting revolutionaries and crazed gorillas are hopefully thinner on the ground.

  Norman Lindsay’s book Saturdee has come to life on the Seven Network this year with its adaptation into a ten-part, five-hour kids’ mini-series that has won wide acclaim.

  A Country Practice gets the PM’s vote

  May: Is Wandin Valley a marginal electorate? The town received a visit from the Australian Prime Minister, with Mr Bob Hawke making a cameo – as himself. The Prime Minister attended a rock concert in Wandin Valley to assure the youth of Burrigan High that he supported their stand against potential nuclear bases being established in the area. It was a big day for local cop Sergeant Frank Gilroy, who walked alongside Mr Hawke, providing lone-hand protection in case of trouble.

  This could be part of a disturbing trend. Mr Hawke appeared on Young Talent Time last year – also as himself but mercifully not singing – while Perfect Match host Greg Evans recently turned up on Prisoner as a celebrity judge of a telethon dance marathon. Don’t ask. Just go with it.

  Not so perfect in Match host’s chair

  October: It’s not all peaches and cream behind the scenes of Perfect Match at the moment. The show will have a new look after host Greg Evans announced that he does not intend to continue with the show next year, instead moving to Nine to develop new projects.

  His bombshell follows the axing of hostess Tiffany Lamb, a former Perfect Match contestant from the Gold Coast, who has recently been replaced by Kerrie Friend, formerly of Seven’s Brisbane-based shows, Play Your Cards Right and the Trivial Video Show. Nineteen-year-old Lamb’s departure comes only nine months after she took over from the show’s original hostess, Debbie Newsome, who left to pursue a singing career. At the time, Lamb was thrilled to get the role, having also auditioned to replace Delvene Delaney on Sale of the Century and for Simon Townsend’s Wonder World.

  ‘I didn’t think you could live for four days on prawns and champagne,’ was how she greeted the news of her Perfect Match gig.

  Return to Edenski?

  May: Ten’s new series version of Return to Eden, created in the wake of the success of the mini-series three years ago, is proving a major hit in Poland. Star Rebecca Gilling has revealed that on a recent trip to Poland, she was amazed to find that the series was such a hit that polling booths for the country’s general election were forced to change their hours to accommodate people who wanted to be home in time for that day’s episode.

  Gilling starred in the original miniseries as plain Stephanie Harper, who was pushed into a crocodile’s jaws and left for dead, but survived, had plastic surgery and returned as a super model – as you do. The current series picks up the storyline seven years later, with Gilling reprising her role.

  MEMORIES

  > At 18 Nicole Kidman is one of Australia’s rising young stars. Since her appearance in the movie BMX Bandits she has worked on Matthew and Son, Five Mile Creek, Bush Christmas and the movie Windrider, co-starring with Tom Burlinson.

  > Ten’s Good Morning Australia is given a tougher edge, with more current affairs content, to bring it into line with its chief competitor, Nine’s Today.

  > Richard Zacchariah replaces Clive Robertson as host of Seven’s daily morning news and current affairs show, 11 AM.

  > Cameron Daddo makes his TV debut on Ten’s kids show, Off the Dish.

  > Nine launches the new kids show, C’mon Kids, described as a ‘Ray Martin show for kids’.

  > Vivean Gray from The Sullivans who played Mrs Jessup, (below) joins Neighbours as the meddling Mrs Mangel.

  > Jana Wendt attracts the nickname, ‘the perfumed steamroller’.

  > SBS expands into Perth and Hobart.

  > Another Royal wedding – this time that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson – is televised.

  > Neighbours screens for the first time on the BBC on 27 October.

  > The AUSSAT satellites are launched and the ABC begins relaying to remote parts of Australia. GWN Western Australia and QSTV Queensland soon follow.

  > Gold Logie: Daryl Somers

  > Hall of Fame: Neil Davis (cameraman, posthumously)

  LIVE SPORT

  Live sport and television – what a team! Unbeatable on occasions, and always such consistent performers. From the great grand finals to Cathy Freeman’s magnificent run in Sydney, TV has become a major part of modern sport, which has benefited both the sports themselves and the networ
ks that broadcast them.

  Welcome back to the …

  A fact: the arrival of television in Australia and the opening of the 1956 Olympics were two months apart. While many marvelled at the action from the footpath outside the local electrical goods store, the Melbourne Olympics kick-started a relationship that, 50 years later, has become as close as a cricket stump and a miniaturised camera.

  Back then, all sport was fair game for Australia’s nascent TV channels: rugby league, Australian Rules, surf carnivals, tennis, swimming, the trots, horse racing. But the first live sporting event seen on Aussie TV wasn’t Dawn Fraser swimming towards her three gold medals – it was the Pelaco Golf Tournament in Sydney on TCN-9.

  Three years after the Olympics, Melburnians were watching the Ashes from Sydney, thanks to five mountain-top broadcast links. From 1957 to 1960, the VFL allowed the live broadcast of the last quarter of games in Melbourne, and while the Melbourne Cup was transmitted to Sydney, sport on TV was predominantly local until 1960, when a coaxial cable connecting Melbourne and Sydney was installed.

  Sport through the 1960s remained hugely popular on TV, and grew to encompass wrestling and the roller derby and the biffo of regular boxing through HSV-7’s TV Ringside (1966–74), which put names like Johnny Famechon and Lionel Rose on the small screen.

  But if there is a moment when sport and television consummated their early relationship, the Kerry Packer-led birth of World Series Cricket may be it. Although one-day internationals had been played since 1971, Packer purchased a horde of the world’s best players, put them in garish uniforms, and by the end of the seventies had the whole shebang on TV. In one of Australia’s most important TV sport innovations, Packer also had games shifted to night time to cash in on the larger audiences available at that time.

  After two successful seasons, Packer signed a broadcast deal with the Australian Cricket Board. Packer’s Channel Nine became the cricket broadcaster and its band of commentators – ex-cricketing greats like Richie Benaud, the Chappell brothers and Bill Lawry – made merry long after their playing careers had trotted back to the pavilion.

  Through the eighties and into the nineties, Nine’s knack for capturing the sporting zeitgeist continued, with many of the world’s premier events appearing on the channel. The civility and soothing green courts of Wimbledon shone a ray of northern summer light into our wintry living rooms each year, while the golfing majors had us up early on a Monday morning to watch Greg Norman somehow contrive to lose.

  With broadcasting becoming a major revenue source for Australian sport, Aussie Rules grabbed the opportunity to maximise its appeal to the networks by largely reinventing itself for television. By 2005, games were spread across the weekend, umpires waited for a sign from the commentary box to signal the end of an ad break before restarting play, and the grand final was one of the highest rating TV events of the year.

  Most other sports have followed cricket and Aussie Rules in becoming more TV-friendly. The Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne is huge, so too the Australian Formula One Grand Prix and the Australian Open tennis. Australia’s golf coverage is considered among the world’s best. And through the ABC, air time has also been given to minority sports like archery, athletics and basketball – even bowls (remember Jack High?)

  Since 1980, SBS has become best known for its almost fanatical coverage of ‘the world game’ and the Tour de France – all the while proudly fronted by Les Murray. You only have to look at the World Cup to gauge their success. At Italia 1990, two million Australians tuned in. For Korea/Japan in 2002, 15 million people in Australia tuned in for some round-ball action. And for the Ashes cricket series in 2005, SBS enjoyed some of its biggest audiences ever.

  Indeed, as more live sport is consumed from the comfort of our own living rooms, the line between sportsman and entertainer, and the business of both playing and broadcasting sport continues to get stronger (or should that be blurrier?) by the broadcasting deal. If the last 50 years are anything to go by, Australia’s armchair sports fans don’t mind one little bit.

  Great sparting innovations

  TV networks have worked hard on finding ever-more-exciting or entertaining ways to bring live sport to home viewers. Here are some of the most memorable innovations:

  > ‘Up There Cazaly’ promo – In 1979, an edited sequence of back-to-back marks had never been seen. Set to the stirring strains of Mike Brady’s ‘Up There Cazaly’, this promo package paved the way for the many montages that now accompany almost every sporting broadcast.

  > RaceCam – In 1979, two ATN-7 engineers put Australian motor-sport fans in the hot seat by placing a forward-looking camera in a Toyota Celica for the Bathurst 1000. The system is now used around the world in all forms of motor racing.

  > Tracking cameras – When Cathy Freeman turned into the home straight on her way to victory in the 400 metres at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, we were there with her, thanks to the camera following her just metres away.

  > Animation – Beginning with the duck that accompanied a departing batsman, by the early nineties animation showed us precisely where a tennis ball landed. By 2005, we could trace a cricket bowler’s accuracy and see the play-by-play breakdowns of a rugby union match.

  1987

  The church bells have chimed over happy newlyweds while issues of media ownership dominate the headlines. Music shows have come and gone, some bright new smiles lit up our screens and a couple of kids’ favourites have each celebrated a very important birthday.

  Erinsborough’s soapy nuptials

  June: TV’s wedding of the year has been a ratings coup for Ten and had a surprising influence on the pop music charts. As rumours of an off-screen love affair gain momentum, interest in TV’s golden couple, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, has reached fever pitch. Over two million people in Australia tuned in to Neighbours to watch Scott Robinson marry Charlene Ramsay in a ceremony that did justice to their fairytale romance.

  After a rocky start – they first met when Scott mistook Charlene for a burglar and she responded by smacking him in the gob – their relationship grew to reunite the feuding Robinson and Ramsay families, Romeo and Juliet style.

  But luckily the big day ran smoothly, without any Shakespearean-style tragedy. The only real drama was when Lucy Robinson’s (Sasha Close’s) escaped mouse caused a ruckus at the reception. Scott also had a moment of doubt at the church, nervously asking best man Mike Young (Guy Pearce), ‘What if she doesn’t turn up?’

  He needn’t have worried, though; as the opening bars of Angry Anderson’s ‘Suddenly’ began to waft down the aisle, there she was, on the arm of brother Henry Mitchell (newcomer Craig McLachlan), a vision in taffeta and lace.

  The success of the episode has propelled ‘Suddenly’ up the pop charts, but Anderson isn’t the only one making his mark on the music scene thanks to Neighbours. Minogue has signed a recording deal with Mushroom and hopes her first single, ‘Locomotion’, will also pave the way towards giddy musical heights. ‘One day I want to sing at the Logie Awards,’ she says.

  Not so lucky yet is former jack-of-all-trades labourer McLachlan. Having been brought in to Neighbours to fill the hunky shoes of Peter O’Brien who left the show to take up the role of Sam Patterson in The Flying Doctors, McLachlan’s thrilled to be pursuing his acting dream but also keen to give the music business a nudge. He recorded a demo tape last year and sent it off to a major music publishing company. ‘I didn’t hear a lot about it,’ he laughed. ‘But we’ll try again.’

  Furry-nosed success

  January: Seven’s children’s magazine program Wombat is coming up for its 10th anniversary this year and is still burrowing deep into the hearts of young viewers. Having struck the right balance between being fun but also educational, Wombat last year became the first Australian children’s program to tackle the difficult subject of sexual abuse of children.

  Identical twins Gayle and Gillian Blakeney are two of the show’s most popular reporters. Practically indistingu
ishable on screen, the pair is not only a curiosity to their young fans but also at an advantage when it comes to staging pranks for the show. But they don’t necessarily intend to continue on as a double act.

  ‘I hope the next step in my career will be something on my own,’ Gillian told the Green Guide. ‘But if something good comes up for both of us, that will be all right, too. What I say is, we’re for hire – to be sold separately or together.’

  You can’t stop the music

  August: Molly Meldrum might have gushed his way through the last episode of Countdown in July, but the beat goes on with a spate of non-stop music video shows popping up on our screens. In April the ABC launched Rage, and just weeks later Nine put forward Richard Wilkins and MTV, while Ten tossed their hat into the ring with Nightshift and experienced radio disc jockey and producer David White.

  The latest offering is the ABC’s The Factory, a magazine-type show developed by former Countdown producer Grant Rule. However, handsome young hosts Alex Papps (Vinnie from The Henderson Kids 2) and Andrew Daddo (younger brother of Perfect Match’s Cameron) stress that the show is not meant to be a replacement for that music institution.

  Children’s favourite comes of age

  July: Break out the bubbly (soft drink, that is) – Playschool’s celebrating its 21st birthday. Since premiering in July 1966, the show has entrusted its bears, bananas and dolls to an impressive line-up of presenters, including Lorraine Bayly, John Waters, Noni Hazlehurst and Benita Collings. But the one who’s been mixing it with Humpty and Jemima right from the start is Alister Smart.

  ‘I must be the longest survivor,’ Smart says proudly. ‘In that time I’ve gone on from acting to directing – everything from Skyways to Cop Shop, Restless Years and Sons and Daughters. I’ve gone from car accidents, murders and rapes then back to Playschool.’