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What show would the Programmers revive?

If they could wave their magic wand, what show would Programmers love to see back on air?

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AIFiWe’ve had The Block, Big Brother, The Price is Right, Young Talent Time, It’s a Knockout, Hey Hey It’s Saturday and Spicks and Specks is on the way.

But what other show would networks like to revive?

TV Tonight recently asked network Programmers, if they could wave their magic wand what show would they most like to bring back?

There were some surprising answers….

ABC: Brendan Dahill
THE FAT

“I would love to try and find a way of merging Sports and Entertainment in a way that The Fat used to. I’d love to find a way of doing The Fat.

“Sport is still a national obsession in this country and I don’t think anyone has managed to find a way of eventing their sporting love outside of Before the Game or The Footy Show which is pretty much just straight up and down chat. We have to find an entertaining way of embracing Australia’s love of sport. I lay awake at night thinking ‘How do I crack Sport and Entertainment?'”

Seven: Angus Ross
TV BURP

“This is a favourite with a number of us in at Channel Seven. A variety of factors contributed to its underperformance but it’s a great format nonetheless.”

TEN: Beverley McGarvey
AUSTRALIAN IDOL

“I think it’s fairly obvious from our crowded schedule that we do miss our Idol days. It was the grandfather of those shows that are doing everywhere right now.

“Idol was such a brand defining show with the Sydney Opera House finales, they were fantastic TV. It was sort of the beginning of Event Television for us.”

NINE: Andrew Backwell
AFL

“When Nine had both the NRL and AFL (plus the Cricket) we essentially owned football (sport) on television… sport is also almost guaranteed to perform consistently… out of the two codes however, I’m very happy to have the NRL as it makes far more commercial sense for our company.”

SBS: Tony Iffland
WILFRED

“It represents great Australia creativity, that resonated around the world as bold and innovative. I really want SBS to reclaim that space in comedy for daring and risk taking and of course humour. I guess broadcasting Tropfest this year and Wilfred being a Tropfest finalist also aligns beautifully with where I am taking SBS1.”

60 Responses

  3. The Panel was a great show….Under-produced but a great team…Would love to see it returned. Perfect for TEN, but only if Working Dog produced it. Other networks tried to copy it – but it failed as the on air team was not right. Problem is I very much doubt Working Dork would want to go back there.

    Other one is Enough Rope….But Andrew will not want to do it.

    Australia needs an live audience interview program!

  4. Sunday, especially the investigative stories they used to do, very much missed. Plus would be great to have L.Oakes back to doing the regular agenda setting interview as well. Sunday was one of the best things Nine did during the Packer era. The trashy tabloid Today show does not do it for me.

    Also, The Times, one of the most innovative current affairs programs this country ever saw, loved the editing style.

    Blankety Blanks with Shaun Micallef would be a great idea, have Bob Downe as a regular panelist.

    And a low budget trashy camp soap opera, much in the vein as the original Prisoner, Chances, etc. Where you could see there was not much of a budget with cheap sets, with the onus put on the script writers to be as creative as possible with no boundaries. For late night of course, like 9.30pm or 10.30pm. The new upcoming Prisnoner looks like it will be too polished and over produced, time will tell.

    And midnight to dawn movies, back in a time before the infomercials took over. I would rather test pattern instead of infomercials if the neetworks can’t afford to run programs on the mid-dawns.

    And rage without the watermark would be nice! It is rather unwatchable with it on there. Come to think of it, why do we need those watermarks anyway? The UK grew up a few years ago and took them off their main channels. If the networks must have them, please only put them on your news and sporting programs only.

    And lastly, when analogue finally gets switched off, can the main channels be switched back to HD please? HD set top boxes can be bought for less than $20, there is no excuse anymore.

  6. Ah yes Good Guys Bad Guys was an awesome show. Stingers, Sale of the Century, Sports Fever, The Panel, The Fat.
    We really could do with a good panel show.

  8. “Full Frontal”, “Fast Forward”, “Acropolis Now” “Hey Dad! (produced by anyone other than Screentime), “Who Dares Wins”, “The Weakest Link”, “It Takes Two”, Burgo’s “Wheel of Fortune”, So You Can Think You Can Dance: Australia (on Channel Seven, produced by anyone other than Fremantle), “Saturday Disney” back on the main Seven channel.

  10. Santo, Sam and Ed’s Cup Fever was a brilliant show, a perfect complement to SBS’ coverage of the 2010 World Cup.
    Increasing its scope to cover all sports once the World Cup was over should have been a surefire hit once the lads crossed over to 7.
    Instead it lost its mojo (perhaps so as to not offend sponsors or the all-powerful AFL, CA, and NRL), and was shunted around the schedules before its ignoble end.
    I’d like to see it given another go, perhaps back on SBS, and with the lads allowed to return to the irreverent humour that made the original show so enjoyable.

  12. Club Buggery with Roy And HG (or a variant there of).

    Wouldn’t mind Blankety Blanks either, though with Bob Downe hosting (like how the UK did it with Lily Savage hosting).

    Would love to see some Australian Network delve into making average TV again, by that I mean like New Zealand do with Co Girls, Outrageous Fortune, The Cult, Almighty Johnsons etc. The days of Number 96, The Box, Pacific Drive, Chances, need to be revived, we need some take the brain out and just enjoy a show for it’s quirkiness time.

    @nicks I agree would love to see Twin Peaks come back as has been speculated about lately by NBC, think it is time for that sort of show to surface again (we’ll be in a take a fantasy story and update it overload next year), so time to step outside the box again. I loved the times of Picket Fences, Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, would love to see the quirky come back to TV again.

  13. Definately “Sale of the Century” or some sort of nightly Variety show.

    If they were to bring back Hey Hey, it should be a short 6-8 episode series, airing every few weeks: “Hey Hey it’s Easter!”, “Hey Hey it’s the Grand Prix”, “Hey Hey it’s Winter!”… Etc.

    We really don’t have an avenue for established musical acts etc..

  15. There’s quite a few shows that could be revisited: Mr Squiggle, All Together Now, Grass Roots, Sunday, Blankety Blanks, Sale of The Century, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, Australian Idol, Micallef Tonight, The Fat, Secret Life of Us, Wildside, Club Buggery, Recovery, Ronnie Johns, The Panel.

    Micallef could host Blankety Blanks, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and Micallef Tonight as well as acting in Mr & Mrs Murder. I’d put Micallef Tonight on 5 nights a week to ensure Micallef never leaves our TV screens.

  18. Good to see that even TEN want Australian Idol back. I would add So You Think You Can Dance Australia, Good News Week, Your Gen and Amazing Race Australia.

  19. Wow, if some of you have you way, Shaun Micallef will be a busy boy!!!!! Great choice though.

    Oh yes, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, that was a great show. The Big Gig was another great show, would be great to see that come back.

    Despite the criticism, I enjoyed the Australian version of Survivor. Loved The Weakest Link too, used to find some expressions of contestants faces hilarious when they were told to go, especially that guy who had a dummy in his mouth and spat it out. The look on Cornelia’s face was priceless.

    Another thing I’ve missed at the last few Olympics & Commonwealth Games was Roy & HG’s show afterwards.

    Forget Idol, we have enough ‘talent’ shows already, don’t need another one.

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