Last night on ABC1 they didn't go to normal programming and replaced it with coverage of the Brisbane floods.

I am NOT trying to sound insensitive AND it is a complete disaster of a thing to happen and my heart goes out to all effected by the floods... BUT, does this mean Saturday night's rage may be axed due to more footage of the Brisbane floods?

We had all better hope not :-(

Who knows what will happen?

Although it's somewhat strange as to why the ABC would put their all day news service on ABC1 - isn't that what ABC4 is all about?

The whole floods crisis has been terrible to watch and I hope QLD can recover from it. I think we'll be seeing wall to wall TV coverage for awhile yet - if Retro 3 isn't on this Saturday one assume they'll hold it off until the following week - meaning only 4 Saturdays of Retro this year.

That all pales of course to the QLD disaster - mother nature can indeed be sometimes a cruel mistress.

Call me selfish BUT there is NO need to coverage the floods on Saturday night when there is an ABC News channel.

I WANT COUNTDOWN!!!!!!!!

I do agree with that. Why are the ABC showing wall to wall news on ABC1 when it created ABC4 just for that purpose?

Besides which the commercial channels are doing exactly the same thing - very strange - especially considering ABC1 didn't cover the Victorian bushfires in 2009 in the same way - and even then they didn't have ABC4 either. I certainly don't recall wall to wall coverage of the bushfires on it back then.

Again, we'll simply have to wait and see...

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jason and all,

It looks like Rage won't be affected but as a guide, this is the schedule for ABC1 until further notice:

ABC TV is providing up‐to‐date live coverage nationally of the Queensland floods on both ABC1 and ABC News 24.

Until further notice, ABC1 programming will include:

1230‐1900: Continuing rolling news coverage from ABC News 24
1900‐2000: National one hour news bulletin (Sydney time) Live
2000‐2100: National one‐hour 7.30 News Special: Floods with Leigh Sales
2100‐2155 Ashes to Ashes
2155‐2225: The Bionic Vet
2225‐2255: Late Edition News (extended)
2255‐2340: Grand Designs (repeat)

ABC1 BRISBANE (local times)
1900‐1930 Locally produced 7pm bulletin
1930‐2000 Locally produced 7.30 Report
2000: Continuing rolling news coverage from ABC NEWS 24

ABC1 PERTH (local times)
1900 Locally produced 7pm bulletin
1930 Replay of Qld 7.30 Report
2000: Continuing rolling news coverage from ABC NEWS 24

Other states: (local times)
South Australia: 2030‐2100 ABC News 24 coverage
Northern Territory: 1930‐2100 ABC News 24 coverage
Western Australia: 1800‐1900 ABC News 24 coverage

Until further notice, ABC NEWS 24 will continue to run unbroken rolling coverage as follows:

1900‐2000: National one hour news bulletin
2000‐2100: National one‐hour 7.30 special
2100‐2400: Continuing rolling coverage from the ABC NEWS 24 team

Tomorrow Morning: (Friday, 14 January)
0530‐1000 News Breakfast
1000 Return to normal ABC1 schedule

Flood waters are starting to subside so I wouldn't imagine it will affect programming on the weekend.

Rage won't be starting until about 1am anyhow so it will be a fairly short night. I find it odd that Rage wrote "and the much hyped ‘End Of The Decade’ Countdown Special!" Really, who hyped it? I think that noise was not hype but groans at another episode being repeated again.

You have to feel for the people who've gone through this. Here we are worried about Recovery and repeats and these people have real issues.

I hope Redacted Adjective hasn't been hit by this weather in Brisvegas. Not sure if any other forum users are from up in that area.

We don't know whether the ABC are going to have a decision to screen or not to screen Rage Retro Week 3 on Saturday when the ABC having its live coverage of Queensland floods.

It is too hard to tell at this stage what will happen but it seems that Rage Retro will proceed but the start time has gone back from 11:55 to 12:57 and they are now mentioning 3 Countdowns and not 4.

It looks like we will be losing either the 1981 Australian Made Countdown or the 1984 Boy George as the other 2 are up in their latest blurb.

"For all you Countdown fans, we have three very special episodes including a 1980 show hosted by Daryl Braithwaite and featuring clips by the B52’s, Madness and live performances by Daryl Braithwaite & The Reels, and the much hyped ‘End Of The Decade’ Countdown Special! "

I still don't know how an episode which has already been shown 3 times and nobody requested can be much hyped, it appears to be self hyping.

I hope the Australian Made episode is moved to next week - more appropriate with Australia Day - and that they retain the 1984 episode.

I guess we will find out tomorrow. Then again if things take a turn for the worse in Queensland then the whole thing might be cancelled.

Looks like that is what is going to happen Guru - if you click on the "More Info" section at the very bottom of all the blurb for this week, it takes you to a longer more detailed page - and the confirmed 3 episodes are 1984, 1980 and the end of decade special. Looks like Australian made is deferred to next week with the shorter running times obviously impacted by all these late changes with the Queensland floods.

Well that is a relief if they are keeping 1984. I have only seen one episode for the 1982-87 era so far as I didn't bother watching the repeated 1984 show.

How utterly vile...

Thank goodness the 1984 episode is still there or I would have been FURIOUS!

Marilyn contacted me about the 1984 episode regarding the interview with George and Maz via Facebook and said this:

That's the one I was juss mentioning on yours!! Ahv got yellow outfit on!!Look like a ****** banana LOlol!!Yup...ahll do mah e.mail for ya!!xx

Maz is so hilarious!!!



ABC are such nightmares, there is a 24 hr ABC news channel for what exactly?

I find it pathetic that the 1981 episode is being cut when the END OF A DECADE should be!

More disappointments as January goes on... Which means ONE less Countdown next week, ARGH!

Considering absolutely NO ONE asked for a repeated - for the 4th time! - episode of the End of Decade special, why isn't this one bumped from the schedule?

Again I question why the ABC are doubling up their resources in delivering news about the floods when they have ABC4 which was expressly created for delivering 24 hr news? It makes little sense for them to repeat this on ABC1 - especially when the other commercial networks are showing exactly the same wall to wall coverage.

The litmus test will be tonight's Rage. If Friday/Saturday morning is partially or totally affected then it doesn't bode well for Saturday.

Again of course this all pales to what the people of QLD are going through and my thoughts are with them - I hope they all go ok in the coming days/months.

This from Rage Twitter an hour ago:

Due to extended news coverage rage will be finishing at 6am this Saturday morning. This means that our morning hits, new releases and retro hour will no longer be aired. Fear not, they will be back next week, meanwhile tune in for Friday and Saturday night programming which will go ahead as scheduled. That means all your retro goodness Sat night!


So I assume this means Rage will air in full on Saturday night after all? We shall wait and see...

I am not to fussed about Saturday morning BUT Saturday night is a different thing.

It seems on Foxtel IQ guide that rage starts at 1 am on Saturday night still!

So I presume that the 1981 episode is still being cut which means only 2 Episodes of Countdown being 1984 and 1980 are the only things I will be staying up to watch. What a complete F U C K I N G waste of a January retro night.

We have been waiting all year for January and it's getting so stale this year compared to last year which was HEAVEN in comparison!

I am SO over rage this January, absolute crap!

You aren't being insensitive at all. As other point out big news stories that demand extended coverage need to be shown on ABC News 24. That is what the channel is for after all. Instead we ge morbid sensationalist saturation coverage.

The first big news event I remember causing consternation among viewers was the outbreak of teh Gulf War twenty years ago. The most ****** viewers were those who wanted to see their serials, but there was no digital tv and much fewer channels in those days so there was more of an argument for it. 9/11 was a similar event which the media were secretly in their glee about, they dream about these sort so of events.

And I don't want to sound insensitive myself but I heard today that 350 people drowned in flash flooding in Sri Lanka recently but I haven't heard any mention of it at all. Does anyone remember the old D-Gen sketch from years ago about the deathalizer in the news room and the 'racially adjusted figures'...? (That'll be on Back-Chat!!)

The ABC look less and less like an independant media icon and more and more like a bunch of rating *****s on heat as far as I'm concerned.

As discussed on an episode of Media Watch last year, the commercial channels (and sadly now the ABC, it seems) seem desperate to be able to lay claim to 'being first' with bringing the viewer the big news events. As the Media Watch host argued, however, does the viewer really care which station was 'FIRST!!!!11!!' on the scene? I think not. Anyway, TV news is so passe... I never watch it, but whenever I do catch a glimpse, it's always of stories I've already seen earlier that day on yahoo news etc. when I check my emails So much for being 'first'.

I too remember the top 50 on Rage being interrupted one Saturday morning with the news that Iraq had invaded Kuwait. I was quite disappointed at the time, as I wanted my chart positions!

With the advent of ABC24 News, surely there is no need for this on ABC1?

I do wonder though, would the ABC and other channels interrupt, for example, televised coverage of the AFL grand final if this event had happened then? It would be fascinating to see which would be seen as the bigger priority by the station.

As I mention in a, I believe yet to be published, Rage guestbook post, in Australia, the order of priority for TV channels is:

1. sport
2. news
3. watermarking

somewhere near the bottom: music

Nathan,

I totally agree with all you say above. Music is ALWAYS last on the list int his country and horrid sport and anything typically "Australian" which is ALWAYS bogan comes first, it's positively sickening.

Agree with that. I remember when former South Australian Premier Don Dunstan died in 1999 the Top 50 was interupted so the ABC could be the 'first' to report his death. Presumably this only happened in Adelaide and I found it rather morbid. Mind you that newsbreak came right in the middle of an N*Sync song so maybe that wasn't so bad after all....

Back to tomorrow's Retro night. I find it bizzare Rage are calling the End of Decade special 'much hyped'. I've also seen them throw a 'we're all so excited about Saturday's Retro' comment on Facebook as well - either they genuinely believe that or simply get excited very easily...

If only some of us were in charge of Retro - it would be a thousand times better than what's been dished out thus far.

It just gets worse doesn't it.. I'm gonna roll the recorder from midnight anyway, if someone happens to be an area where only half the opening countdown episode gets broadcast I can certainly help you out if we get it in full.

I also wanna know what the hell is going on in putting Marilyn Manson on during retro month and using near 90 minutes of airtime for this stuff! Grrr....

Frankster30, it's because the current Triple J TV Rage staff are Gen Y, thinking their oh-so-'alternative' mid-late 90s icons and $hite like Recovery/10:30 Slot are more important than Countdown and its ilk.

OMG Nathan,

I just SO love what you just said!


Everyone is that extra angry today because we have all HAD ENOUGH!

The way that rage are boasting about this weekends programming is just embarrassing as they actually believe that the Playlist for this weekend is
KICK A R S E and it just isn't.
In fact, I wouldn't even rate it at a 3 out of 10.

1 out of 10 actually just for the 1984 show only!


It's just so criminal that there is SO much AMAZING material that could be played and ONLY has the opportunity of seeing the light of day in January's. The fact that rage are treating it like a joke is not only disrespectful but showing that they do NOT give a **** about their audience who actually posts on their Forum and who have made this show what it is.

I actually don't mind *some* 90s 'alternative' stuff. I even have a few Marilyn Manson vids that I've recorded from Rage over the years. BUT, it doesn't belong in retro month. Same for Recovery/10:30 Slot. They play that $hit all year round. January is supposed to be different.