Television arrived in Australia in the mid-1950s, and it didn’t take long for the country to embrace not just the small screen but also the media surrounding it. By 1957, just over a year after Australian TV first went to air, the nation saw the launch of its first dedicated television magazine, TV-Radio Week.

The Birth of a TV Staple

TV-Radio Week hit Melbourne newsstands on 5 December 1957. Back then, television was only available in Melbourne and Sydney, and the new pocket-sized magazine sold for one shilling. It was launched in partnership with GTV Channel 9, which needed its own print platform to promote programs, as rival HSV7 already had strong newspaper connections.

The first cover featured GTV9 favourites Geoff Corke and Val Ruff, with program listings for both TV and radio. Within a year, a Sydney edition appeared, and the name was shortened to TV Week.

In 1958, the magazine also began what would become one of Australian television’s most enduring traditions, the TV Week Awards. The first “Star of the Year” went to Graham Kennedy, host of In Melbourne Tonight. Kennedy himself later coined the name “The Logies” for the awards.

Rivalries and Expansion

Competition arrived in 1959 with the ABC-owned TV News-Times (later renamed TV Times), sparking a two-decade magazine rivalry. Meanwhile, TV Week expanded alongside television’s own growth, launching editions in Queensland and South Australia in 1959, Tasmania in 1960, and Western Australia in 1961.

By 1968, TV Week had grown from a pocket-sized publication to a full A4 format, matching other glossy weeklies and boosting circulation.

The Battle of the TV Guides

The late 1970s brought another challenger, the Australian edition of the US TV Guide. But the biggest shake-up came in 1980 when Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) bought ABC’s share of TV Times and merged it with TV Week and TV Guide. The new, consolidated TV Week dominated the market but soon faced insert-style competition from women’s magazines like The Australian Women’s Weekly (TV Weekly/TV World) and Woman’s Day (TV Day).

Despite these challengers, TV Week thrived in the 1980s, peaking at 850,000 copies a week.

Decline and Change

By the late 1980s, free TV guides in newspapers began eating into TV Week’s readership. The convenience, and price of these inserts saw circulation slide. The 1990s brought further competition from online listings, although TV Week made headlines in 1994 as the first Australian magazine to publish G-Codes for easy VCR recording.

The Logies Legal Battle

In 2002, Kerry Packer’s ACP fully acquired TV Week, ending the long-standing joint venture with Southdown Press. Rival publisher Pacific Publications responded with a new magazine, What’s On Weekly, and a legal battle erupted over the rights to the Logie Awards. ACP ultimately won ownership, cementing TV Week as the official host of the Logies.

What’s On Weekly disappeared within months, but TV Week remained, adapting to the digital era with an online presence while continuing to publish in print.

A Lasting Legacy

From its humble beginnings as a one-shilling pocket magazine to an Australian television institution, TV Week has been part of the nation’s living rooms for over six decades. It has chronicled the evolution of Australian TV, celebrated its stars, and helped make the Logies one of the country’s best-known entertainment events.

Even in the streaming age, TV Week continues to blend nostalgia with modern coverage, reminding us of a time when the weekly TV guide was an essential household item.