FTA-TV TV you miss from the past

[Gasometer]

Video Hits on Ch 10 on a Saturday morning

 

[Soups]

Getting home from primary school and watching Passions

Weirdest show.

 

[emuboy]

I miss having the serialized drama series that Australia used to make so well back in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if I wasn't a fan of a particular show due to it not being my thing the production standard was good and gave actors around Australia work. Now it's mostly all reality shows (varying degrees of awful) on FTA and a handful of shows with limited appeal to a wide audience on streaming, with increasingly fewer opportunities for young actors starting out.

As just one example, Samantha Barrett - a tall, pretty red-haired actress from Perth - was able to land the role of Chloe on Home and Away in late 2020, but her tenure on the show proved short and she departed after March 2022, since then vanishing into obscurity. Chances for a young actress like Sam Barrett for single episode roles to further her career were plentiful in decades past in shows like Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Stingers, Police Rescue, All Saints, Rescue Special Operations, City Homicide, Good Guys Bad Guys, Murder Call, Halifax FP, Packed to the Rafters or The Secret Life of Us among others. But now these shows are long gone with nothing to replace them, and it is a real shame.

 

[Gasometer]

I miss having the serialized drama series that Australia used to make so well back in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if I wasn't a fan of a particular show due to it not being my thing the production standard was good and gave actors around Australia work. Now it's mostly all reality shows (varying degrees of awful) on FTA and a handful of shows with limited appeal to a wide audience on streaming, with increasingly fewer opportunities for young actors starting out.

As just one example, Samantha Barrett - a tall, pretty red-haired actress from Perth - was able to land the role of Chloe on Home and Away in late 2020, but her tenure on the show proved short and she departed after March 2022, since then vanishing into obscurity. Chances for a young actress like Sam Barrett for single episode roles to further her career were plentiful in decades past in shows like Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Stingers, Police Rescue, All Saints, Rescue Special Operations, City Homicide, Good Guys Bad Guys, Murder Call, Halifax FP, Packed to the Rafters or The Secret Life of Us among others. But now these shows are long gone with nothing to replace them, and it is a real shame.

Quality crime shows like Janus

 

[emuboy]

I miss the long-gone days of 1993-1994 where once a week I could scare myself stupid by watching 'The Extraordinary' by Warwick Moss. Although The Extraordinary was nowhere near as scary as some segments on 'Unsolved Mysteries' hosted by the late Robert Stack. Some of those stories still live in my mind along with the eerie theme music to Unsolved Mysteries, replaying in my imagination when the time comes to turn off the last light at night before bed...

Talking about Warwick Moss, a few years after 'The Extraordinary' he hosted a special documentary called 'The Most Haunted Town In Australia', which I watched one evening on an ordinary Tuesday where nothing remotely interesting or memorable had happened. Like the day I had had before, there was nothing extraordinary (pun intended) about this documentary centering around supernatural phenomena in the town of Kapunda, South Australia, about an hour and a half from Adelaide. I continued to watch TV as crime drama 'Stingers' came on, then came the first newsflash on the screen about a serious aviation incident in New York City where a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center ...

 

[Roobs321]

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Getting home from primary school and watching Passions

Weirdest show.

Timmy freaked me tf out

 

[dumb]

will happily watch iron chef, specifically japanese. the episodes are around if you look.
took itself very seriously but in a ridiculous way that cooking shows nowadays will never be able to replicate because they are far too weighty or emotional or always building or on a journey.
something like 'nailed it' comes close but the contestants are set up (and maybe encouraged) to fail. is also much funnier, for most of the early seasons.

have fond memories of 'love is a four letter word'. set in a pub that wants to resist pokies to keep live music. shenanigans between owner and partner/family, social issues. the music probably dates this away from present audiences.

 

[Roobs321]

Ethan & Theresa
Luis & Sheridan
Whitney & Chad
Miguel & Charity (& Kay)
Sam & Grace (& Ivy)

and those evening parties that dragged on for several weeks

 

[emuboy]

My nieces and nephews enjoyed watching 'Saturday Disney' when they were younger, enjoying the Disney live action and cartoon shows, as well as the TV segments with the three hosts.

This type of television format - block programming - and its complete demise from the TV landscape in recent years shows just how much things have changed in a decade.

Imagine telling modern kids with all the modern streaming services available 24/7 that they could only watch their favorite TV shows on a certain day at a certain time and that a team of young adults in a studio would present it to them in a series of fun linking segments? It would be completely alien to them, like the world of the 1920s captured on film in grainy black and white and sepia footage.

Again, its a shame because lots of journalists, tv presenters and actors got their start as presenters on kids' television blocks.

 

[vanders]

I miss when free to air tv wasn't reality shows every night

 

[emuboy]

I miss when free to air tv wasn't reality shows every night

You know things are bad when you think back to reality TV show 'Married at First Sight' in its early years of 2015 & 2016 and how it featured less couples with more of a genuine effort to match two suitable people, with more support to the couples and less drama - then compare it to what it is now. The early series of MAFS look like grounded, responsible TV.

Going back further to the 2000s and there was shows like 'The Mole' which was interesting. There were other shows mainly from the UK but there were some local versions - about bad drivers, dysfunctional families going on holidays together and not getting along, Wife Swap, Ladette to Lady and Young Dumb and Living Off Mum (spoiled, irresponsible and lazy young men and women aged 18-24 living together and become more responsible) - but while hardly classy TV shows they did have entertainment value, were pretty harmless and a guilty pleasure.

Now the same reality shows just get recycled year after year and always try to be more outrageous yet end up just looking sad and pathetic.

 

[Vader]

You know things are bad when you think back to reality TV show 'Married at First Sight' in its early years of 2015 & 2016 and how it featured less couples with more of a genuine effort to match two suitable people, with more support to the couples and less drama - then compare it to what it is now. The early series of MAFS look like grounded, responsible TV.

Going back further to the 2000s and there was shows like 'The Mole' which was interesting. There were other shows mainly from the UK but there were some local versions - about bad drivers, dysfunctional families going on holidays together and not getting along, Wife Swap, Ladette to Lady and Young Dumb and Living Off Mum (spoiled, irresponsible and lazy young men and women aged 18-24 living together and become more responsible) - but while hardly classy TV shows they did have entertainment value, were pretty harmless and a guilty pleasure.

Now the same reality shows just get recycled year after year and always try to be more outrageous yet end up just looking sad and pathetic.

The Mole still exists, albeit on Netflix, with US competitors. The first season was set in Australia, the second in Malaysia.

On SM-X205 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Cleavy]

will happily watch iron chef, specifically japanese. the episodes are around if you look.
took itself very seriously but in a ridiculous way that cooking shows nowadays will never be able to replicate because they are far too weighty or emotional or always building or on a journey.
something like 'nailed it' comes close but the contestants are set up (and maybe encouraged) to fail. is also much funnier, for most of the early seasons.

english dubbed version on youtube. so good!

 

[crafty_bernardo]

Popular series

In a religious way I miss the experience of Cheez TV

Amazing (the game show)

Saturday morning cartoons on ch9 the Batman animated series, and then the Disney cartoons such as Kim Possible, Recess

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Popular series

In a religious way I miss the experience of Cheez TV

Amazing (the game show)

Saturday morning cartoons on ch9 the Batman animated series, and then the Disney cartoons such as Kim Possible, Recess

Taking me back to my childhood with my brother

 

[No Quarter]

When reality tv meant:

 

[JackOutback]

I miss when free to air tv wasn't reality shows every night

Adjacent to this, I miss appointment television, when you knew that everyone else had watched the same thing the night before and could talk about it. I understand why television changed, I understand free-to-air has come to rely on sports and reality as the only content it can control, but people bingeing things in their own time (some the first night, others over weeks) removes the social element.

I have been making a point of watching Thank God You're Here with the kids at the same time every week, it's the only time we watch something as a family.

 

[Gasometer]

The whole landscape has changed in 10 years, which lends itself to where will FTA be in another 10?

Staggering that the 6pm News still drives programming

For who Boomers?

 

[raskolnikov]

Dallas