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Farnham special delivers nostalgic win…. who next?

Nine capitalises on its own archives for a crowd-pleasing special ... so who else could they showcase from their video library?

TV programmers got a reminder last night that nostalgia – and John Farnham in particular- rates.

John Farnham: Celebrating 60 Years topped entertainment at 865,000 in National TV Audience and helped Nine to win Thursday.

Given Nine had strategically sifted through its own archives to package together a nearly 2 hour special, it begs the question: who next?

It was great bang for buck in terms of TV spend and networks could easily find further nostalgia specials.

Home & Away was second highest in entertainment at 804,000.

7:30 was 681,000 then Highway Patrol (556,000 / 506,000) and Top Gear Australia (247,000).

At 8pm Grand Designs Australia was 532,000 then later RPA (391,000) and Australia’s Most Dangerous Prisoners (357,000).

Nine News drew 994,000 then A Current Affair (915,000) and Tipping Point (615,000).

Seven News was #1 at 1.2m then The Chase (593,000). Ron Iddles: The Good Cop managed 310,000.

ABC News was 781,000. Long Lost Family (353,000), Hard Quiz (313,000), A Bite to Eat with Alice (161,000) followed.

10 News First averaged 293,000 for 10. The Project was 231,000 then Deal or No Deal (197,000) and Movie: Mission Impossible II (118,000).

On SBS it was SBS World News (164,000 / 120,000), National Parks from Above (91,000), Going Places with Ernie Dingo (89,000), Mastermind (82,000) and Paris Has Fallen (70,000).

The Morning Show: 234,000 / 153,000
Today Extra: 144,000 / 96,000

National TV Audience: Thursday 31 October 2024

16 Responses

  1. Channel 4 in the UK aired 10 episodes of the Best of Big Brother where the aired the whole episodes from their collection. It was the start of the Covid lockdowns. 10 could do the same in the lead up to their revival.

  2. Seven should do a 35-year anniversary clip show for Home and Away, would win them a night. 20 years of Sunrise. Maybe a weekly show called ‘Anniversary’ easy and cheap to fill 2 hours of tv

    1. That would mean having to discuss history of the show (H&A) which the current executive producer doesn’t seem to like doing. If you started watching in the last few years, you wouldn’t know Alf had any sisters.

  3. There’s some I wouldn’t mind seeing specials on, however not sure they’d have the drawing power, Normie Rowe would be a great one, though that may fall more into documentary with the Vietnam War call-up through to the appearance on the Midday Show with Ron Casey. Russell Morris is another, still performing now and selling records, plus even though he’s sadly passed away Billy Thorpe would be good, however again would they draw an audience (Billy might).

  4. I watched the John Farnham special last night and I thought it would be nice if networks aired nostalgic specials of variety shows. Because I feel its sad we don’t have variety shows but trash we have on television these days

  5. If you are talking about that 1976 special known as The Best of ABBA, which was aired internationally as ABBA in Australia, I remember reading on an ABBA fansite that the rights to it would belong to Fremantle, (along with a percentage of ABBA: The Movie) because Fremantle owns Grundy, which not only produced the special, but was also the licensor for ABBA merchandise during that time.

    1. For these kinds of qs just use Search, which is all I would do to answer it. TVT is deliberately very self-serve for this reason, I try to give readers much the same access I have. I think Antiques Roadshow has been on a while since The Drum ended, plus the ratings system has had an overhaul anyway.

  6. There’s always “Hey Hey it’s Saturday – the 100th Special Show”. Lol.

    The John Farnham special did better than I thought. The upcoming Countdown special should hopefully do wonders for the ABC too.

        1. Daryl Somers hosted the 1976 version of Bandstand.

          If he also produced/owned it, that might present the same hurdles as that of Hey Hey.

          PS Don’t look at IMDB : it’s never heard of this version.
          Daryl must not update his page.
          (Hint! Hint!)

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Celebrating 50 Years since Countdown 1974 - 1987