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American Origins
The Simpsons airs on the
Fox Network
in the US. It originally started as short clips on The Tracey Ullman
Show, before being spun off into its own show in late 1989. Currently
in its ninth season in the US, the show is one of the highest rating shows
on the Fox Network.
The Ten Network in Australia
In Australia, The Simpsons are broadcast on the
Ten Network and affiliates.
The show is one of Ten's best performers, and normally comes first or second
in its trying timeslot (originally 7:30pm Wednesdays).
According to Tony Lammens, original maintainer of these pages, the show
was first broadcast on Sunday evenings amid a fanfare of publicity. The show
failed to attract an audience, in large part because of Ten's unusual
advertising campaign, which pointed out what a horrible brat Bart was.
Over-protective parents stopped their kids from watching the show, and it only
became popular when word of mouth started to spread. By 1994 it was such a hit
that Ten opted to strip the show five nights a week, first at 6:00pm, and then
in 1995 at 7:00pm. As a result, most episodes have now aired in Australia at
least six or seven times.
The nightly 7:00pm screenings ceased on 4 December 1995, when a second
edition of Ten's Sports Tonight moved into the slot. Failing ratings
for Ten meant they resumed nightly 6:00pm screenings in March of 1996. A weekly
repeat slot at 6:30pm on Saturdays was also added, but new episodes ceased being
shown in March 1996, with Roseanne taking over the slot.
Weekly new-run episodes recommenced at 6:30pm on Saturdays from 3 August
1996, but ceased in November. The episodes rated extremely poorly due to the
early timeslot and tough competition.
The Simpsons returned to their original Sunday night timeslot in
early 1997, and new episodes recommenced at 7:00pm on Sundays from early
February 1997 (though with the end credits cut). From mid-May 1997, new
episodes were switched to 7:30pm, with repeats from 7:00pm. New episodes, from
Season Eight, were exhausted in July, and Season Seven repeats were shown for
the first time. After a brief hiatus, credit-cutting also returned, in August.
September saw Season Four move into the first timeslot, while Season Seven
repeats continued in the second.
At this time, the weekday 7:00pm timeslot was showing repeats of Mad
About You. Weekday stripping of The Simpsons resumed in June
1997 at 7:00pm. October inevitably saw the Hallowe'en specials all stripped,
and stripping ceased for the summer on the 28th November, with Roseanne
initially filling the timeslot.
The end of November also saw the Sunday timeslot shifted half an hour later
for the summer, to 7:30pm. Season Four and Seven repeats dominated the summer,
though not entirely consistently. At the same time, Season Six was stripped
for the first time, from 12th January to 6th February at 6:00pm. Having
screened the entire season (but still no sign of the three missing episodes),
The Nanny took over the weekday timeslot.
Season Nine commenced on the 11th February in a new, Wednesday timeslot at
7:30pm. The Sunday hour began screening repeats from Seasons Eight and Seven,
respectively. March 1998 saw the appearance of all four missing episodes, with
the last episode of Season Eight shown on 11th March, and the three bonus
episodes from Season Six finally screened on the first three Sundays of the
month, albeit with their closing credits cut.
FOX8 on Foxtel Pay TV in Australia
Foxtel, meanwhile, has been broadcasting The Simpsons, uncut and
in order, almost since its inception, on FOX8. While originally they had rights
only to Season Five, October 1997 saw this somewhat expanded, to include every
episode so far seen on Channel Ten, and a couple more! This includes three
episodes from Season Six previously not seen in Australia, and uncut versions
of Season Eight episodes.
Over the summer of 1997-98, Foxtel greatly increased the number of Simpsons
episodes being shown each week. At the height of their power, in the last week
of January 1998, 47 episodes of The Simpsons were shown, with 33 of
them being "unique!" This was subsequently scaled back somewhat.
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US Seventh Season (1995-96)