I see on their website, there was no playlists for Friday night and this morning. I was expecting a Joe Cocker tribute, but saw nothing. Just a handful of 80's clips. Just had a thought, what if Joe finds his way into retro month!

Also, I got a bit of the guest programming last Saturday night and around 5am, they repeated some of the Rick Astley programming from a year ago??? Is this usual?

Another thing I forgot to add....what is the go with this on tonight's playlist:

3:30am

MOLLY MELDRUM ON COUNTDOWN 20 MAY 1984 Michael Jackson and U.S. Drink Driving Campaign (ABC)

Is this a mistake, or are they warming us up in the lead up to retro month. ie a s h i t load of Countdowns.

I think tonight is a compilation of the best GPs for 2014. I can't remember who but somebody did play this excerpt of Countdown earlier in the year

It seems that rage are becoming increasingly neglectful of updating their playlists. The mobile/iPad app has the missing playlists though, but yes, not everyone has access to those. However, the 'coming up' section (which is now stupidly only on the app) has not been updated since the start of December, and neither has the 'guest programmer' section of it. As Jason mentioned on the Facebook page, there also hasn't been ANY mention of retro month yet anywhere, either. Maybe it's not happening

Most of tonight's playlist is missing because they're airing the Rage 50 for the first few hours, which they don't want to reveal until it airs. I do find it interesting thought that the rage Facebook page only has 8 comments to their post about 'what will be #1?' on the rage 50, despite being posted 4 days ago. Just about every other post rage make on the page has many more comments than that. Does that indicate a general apathy towards the rage 50 from viewers?

Rage are airing for about 4 and a half hours on New Year's Eve (technically New Year's Day). I remember at the start of this year that someone from rage posted on the Facebook page that they couldn't post the playlist on their website for the New Year's Eve/Day special, as the program they use for the playlists doesn't allow them to add playlists for week days (other than Friday night). I guess it will probably be the same this New Year's Eve, though at least someone from rage posted the playlist on the Facebook page.

Actually, that was 2 years ago now . I didn't mind, though, because when it originally aired, the watermark was in the 4:3 screen area. Oddly, though, I don't think it was a direct hour taken from his programming, because it started with him saying 'good evening', and then on a later segment where he introduced a video, it was 'good morning'.

The week before, the 5-6am Sunday slot was Van She programming an hour of Vault videos. The majority, if not all (I haven't checked their previous playlist) of the videos they chose they also chose when programming in 2012. I wonder if that was another random hour of repeat from 2 years earlier? Again, I didn't mind, because last time the watermark was in the 4:3 area.

For the last couple of months, rage have aired retro videos between 5-6am Sunday, which is great

Yeah, I had a feeling the playlists might be on the app. I was aware of the rage Top 50 videos of 2014 being played tonight. I don't know why they make it a highlight of this every year. Videos are so lame today. It would be good if they told us how many people voted. So I guess the best GP of 2014 kicks off at 3.30am with the Countdown excerpt.

Molly was on Spicks & Specks repeat tonight, so I'm hoping the ABC/rage are warming us up for a s h i t load of Countdowns.

Thanks Nathan.

I suppose they're trying to make the rage 50 a bit like the Hottest 100; though that too is of course lame

When I briefly paid attention to the first couple of rage 50s, I found it interesting that generally commercial/chart-friendly stuff (e.g. Britney Spears) made up the bulk of the 50, rather than the traditional 'alternative' triple J stuff rage has always plugged.

I actually voted in the rage 50 this year, as I have done in previous years, though the acts I chose (Neneh Cherry, Lamb, and one other I forget) all debuted in the 90s at the latest . I looked through the list of voting options mainly to see whether there were any not-meant-to-be-on-the-list retro videos that they'd re-acquired this year, as have appeared in previous years' lists. I couldn't spot any though this time I agree that today's videos are lame.

The TV guide has mentioned retro month now stating this:

12:18am - 5:00 am
Duration: 282 minutes
Channel: ABC Victoria
Title: Retro Month
Production Year; 2015

Rage fires up the time machine and travels back through the ABC archives to bring you Retro Months. Airing never-before repeated episodes of classic music programs like Countdown, Hitscne, GTK and Rock Arena



Now, that sounds great EXCEPT for the 5 am finish!!!?????!???????? WTF!!! Why not 6:30??????????? 2015 had BETTER be chock blocked with COUNTDOWN!!!!!

I can't see Sunday morning's guide yet on the site I use to check the TV guide, but does it actually end at 5am, or is there another later segment of rage after that? (on the TV guide I use, they segment the show at 5am, and then again at 6am on Sunday mornings.

I was wondering actually whether retro month would be affected by their recent programming, where 5-6am is an hour of retro videos (which I like) repeated on Tuesday night on ABC3, and 6-7am is new releases repeated (which is repeated again on ABC3 on Wednesday night)?

I'm also not thrilled there's mention of GTK and Hitscene (sorry, I'm not a fan of either), and no mention of Countdown Revolution or The Factory. Unless that's just a generic description they submit to the TV guide sites without modifying it each year.

I like the bit where it says never before repeated episodes, hopefully that will be exclusively but I am suspecting 70's repeats will be thrown into the mix.

Disappointing if Retro gets cut off at 5am considering it already starts after midnight and Rage goes until 7am on Sunday mornings these days but five Saturdays should give us a fair amount, a bit over 20 hours at that rate. Don't tell me there is some basketball or hockey tournament starting in January.

Please, no Joe Cocker Special....unless they show Countdown episode 531 which Joe Cocker and Angry Anderson hosted and has a great Countdown clip for Jean Beauvoir - Feel The Heat

Joe Cocker hosting Countdown episode 531 - October 19 1986

I'm also hoping they keep the Joe Cocker tribute (if there is one, surprised there wasn't this weekend) stuff to Saturday morning.

I must say I'm not a fan of when rage air 'themed' nights during retro month, like this year's Elton John-themed night which was just awful IMO, or when they started each episode with an hour+ long concert performance a couple of years back. I much prefer random retro nights.

I also get the feeling there'll be a couple of 70s Countdown repeats.

Rage are going to 7am according to the online guide I checked
http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/TV/static/MelbourneNight.html?

Yesterday afternoon, they replied to one of Jason's comments on the Facebook page with:

rage

Early in the new year we will have an 'extras' page (where the Rage 50 lives right now), this will allow us to feature the 'Coming Up' info we (and you!) have been begging for, along with a bunch of other stuff like interviews and lists of past Indie/Clip of the Weeks. This will also make it easier for us to update the app.

The issue we are going yet again to have this retro month is the ABC committing themselves to wall-to-wall coverage of tedious sporting events again. The main one is the Asian Cup Soccer throughout January. There is hockey and basketball looking through January as well. And we all know soccer means extra time, shootouts and all the other hideous crap that goes with it. Expect games and shows to run overtime and Rage to be trimmed down on the night to fit.

Dont think there will be anything to get excited about, it will be doubly frustrating when shows we look forward to seeing dont happen at all. Dont say you werent warned.

I too hope there is NO Joe Cocker special and like Guru Bob, the only thing I welcome is Countdown episode 531 which Joe Cocker and Angry Anderson hosted for the ehavenly Countdown clip for Jean Beauvoir's Feel The Heat!

I heard about the Asian Soccer nightmare and now basketball and hockey?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Why do I sense A LOT of anger coming towards the ABC in January!

We better get at least 17 un repeated Countdown episodes!

At Nathan, I too am not pleased about the GTK & Hitscence crap. How I LOATHE those 2 programs!!!!!

There is one thing that may save us from the soccer violations, and that is the ABC3 repeats may include footage cut out from the main program as has happened before.

Besides Nathan, I don't know how closely anyone follows Rage during the year but when Russell Morris guest programmed on November 29 they cut off the Billy Idol special at the end due to some hockey or basketball that was being shown. It was then shown during the week on the ABC3 repeats.

If anything gets cut off we can request that it is shown during the weekly repeats.

It's a glimmer of hope anyhow.

The other thought is that they are leaving 2 hours spare which will still maneuver around to accommodate 2 hours of soccer which may not be at a defined time yet.

So.... can I have the run down on rage repeats on ABC 3.

What days do they happen, times? e.t.c....

Yes, because of the 7 am finish Guru, this does mean a little extra time but the point is that rage shouldn't be interrupted period. It so angers me, especially during January which is the only time that matters

In a nutshell, on ABC3:

Sunday 9:30pm-2:00am: repeat of 6:00am-10:30am Saturday morning
Monday 9:30pm-10:30pm: repeat of 5:00am-6:00am Saturday morning
Tuesday 9:30pm-10:30pm: repeat of 5:00am-6:00am Sunday morning
Wednesday 9:30pm-10:30pm: repeat of 6:00am-7:00am Sunday morning
Thursday 9:30pm-10:30pm: repeat of 10:30am-11:30am Saturday morning


The exception to the above is obviously when rage finishes earlier than 7:00am on Sunday (like back when Dr Who was airing on Sunday mornings) - they were then repeating the last hour of Saturday night's rage on Wednesday night, and the 2nd last hour of Saturday night's rage on Tuesday night.

The ABC3 repeats are almost always watermark-free, too. I've only seen the ABC3 watermark on rage once or twice, though I only check/record it when there's something I'm after (which is usually Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday night). It's also a great back-up option if I get a digital signal glitch on the weekend, though sometimes it happens during the week instead (as happened to me during the Billy Idol special, where all of the widescreen clips they repeated were affected).

As Guru has said, occasionally rage will air material that was cut from the original Saturday/Sunday programming on the ABC3 repeats, like they aired Rococo's 'Italo House Mix' from the Vault special on a Wednesday night. I did ask them to do so on the Facebook page, which may have helped... or they might have had that scheduled anyway (they didn't air an exact replica of the last hour of the Vault special that night, it was a selection of clips from the last 2 hours from memory).

I think they generally try and keep the ABC3 repeats PG rated, too, so usually they will cut any 'M' rated clips from those repeats (or those timeslots on the original weekend broadcasts will contain only PG-rated clips).

This post informing us "in a nutshell" is very handy and I refer to it very often. I need to copy and paste it somewhere for easy access.
My timer recording ended one minute before the end of COUNTDOWN April 26th, 1987. As you are aware this episode was between 6:00am and 7:00am. Does this mean that I get a second shot at it in on Wednesday night? Hopefully there are no exceptions.
Of course I would trade it off for the COUNTDOWN September 21st, 1986 which was cut. I'm wishfully thinking that it will get considered in the next Retro Month being January 2016.

Yes, it will re-air on Wednesday night on ABC3 from 9:30 - unless they re-arrange what they air (probably on either Tues or Wed night, though it would be nice if they scrapped the needless repeat of new release videos on Monday night) due to the un-aired Countdown.