australian television information archive

The history behind the site

As a long-time fan of the many Australian TV series that have aired here in Canada, I created this site to provide a comprehensive source of information for these series as well as the numerous other Australian programs that have found fans around the world. Updated continuously since 1998.

The very first Australian series I saw was Paradise Beach which aired latenight over the summer of 1994 on CTV. Far from great TV, watching this series was more about the novelty of seeing something Australian among the usual glut of American programming we normally received.

The idea behind the Australian Television Information Archive was born a few years later after the launch of a series of new cable channels is Canada resulted in a seemingly continuous stream of Australian televisions series appearing on our screens.

The first of these series was Phoenix. I recall seeing the show reviewed on the CBC’s Midday programme and making a note to check it out. This brilliant series was start of my fascination with Australian TV shows. Shows like Criminal Justice (Janus), Fire, Halifax fp, Good Guys Bad Guys, Water Rats, Adrenalin Junkies (Medivac), Raw FM, A Country Practice (…the list goes on) soon followed.

Being completely ignorant of the Australian entertainment industry, I had no knowledge of the people in these shows and after seeing a few series, familiar faces would begin to appear but I had trouble recalling what I’d seen them in previously. The solution was to start keeping track of what I was watching. Primarily this was the show’s starring actors, but as time went on this spread to episode summaries, guests stars, writers, directors, and crew information (I have notebooks filled with the stuff). This information soon found it’s way onto computer so I could search through it all.

In late 1998 I put the information together and on October 30 of that year launched this web site. At the time the site covered just 20 series, almost all of which had aired in Canada. In the 5+ years since, the site has grown to cover nearly 300 series, miniseries and telemovies, most of which I haven’t seen!

Goals and incentives

From day one my goal has been to not just have a web site about Australian television, but to have the best web site about Australian television. This meant not just in terms of content but in site design and management as well. If you’ve been coming to this site for a few years you will know the site is constantly being reworked.

Unfortunately over this time I’ve been able to see fewer and fewer Australian series and as a result, my driving interest in the site has changed from the content to the technical aspects of delivering the site.

Fortunately, due to advances in technology, I'm now able to watch many more programs than in the past when I had to rely on shows being broadcast in Canada. As a result I can keep up with all the new seeries and even catch up on older series I never had a chance to watch. This means I can provide more and better content for the site.

The future

I have no plans to stop now! The site will continue to grow as new shows go to air in Australia and elsewhere overseas in the years to come.