Countdown was a long-running popular weekly Australian music television show broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from late 1974 until July 19, 1987. It was created by Executive Producer Michael Shrimpton and producer/director Robbie Weekes. The earliest music of Australia was the folk music of the Australian Aborigines. ... Indigenous Australian music (indigenous aboriginal music is just SPLEnDID!) includes the music of Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are collectively called Indigenous Australians, it incorporates a wide variety of distinctive traditional music styles practised by Indigenous Australian peoples, as well as a range of contemporary musical styles both... Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s and still influencing contemporary Australian music today. ... Australia is home to several large immigrant communities, including the Vietnamese, Indonesians, Filipinos and others. ... The trends of Australian music have often mirrored those of the United States and Britain. ... Samples of Australian music can be found on the articles of the following artists: Pop music The Church - Under the Milky Way Kylie Minogue - many, including Locomotion (1987), Confide In Me (1994), Where The Wild Roses Grow (1995, with Nick Cave) and Slow (2003) The Whitlams - No Aphrodisiac (1998) Rock... Subcategories There are 3 subcategories to this category. ... The Herd performing live on stage in 2005 Australian hip hop music began in the early 1980s, primarily influenced by hip hop music and culture imported via radio and television from America. ... Jazz is an American musical genre largely originated by African Americans but the style was rapidly and enthusiastically taken up by musicians all over the world, including Australia. ... Australian country music is a vibrant part of the music of Australia. ... Australian rock and rock musicians have produced a wide variety of music. ... Australian indie rock is part of the overall flow of Australian rock history but has a distinct history somewhat separate from mainstream rock in Australia, largely from the end of the punk rock era onwards. ... Australian hardcore punk is an active rock music subgenre with a dedicated following. ... The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry. ... The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known as ARIA Music Awards or ARIA Awards) is an annual awards night celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA). ... The Deadlys are an annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement in music, sport, entertainment and community. ... The ARIA charts is the main Australian music sales chart issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. ... The Triple J Hottest 100 is an annual top 100 list, based on the votes of Australian youth radio station Triple J listeners, in order to determine their favourite song of the year. ... A music festival is a festival that presents a number of musical performances usually tied together through a theme or genre. ... This is a list of music festivals in Australia // A-E Aquarius Festival Australian Gospel Music Festival Big Day Out - national - from 1992 Darwin International Guitar Festival Earthcore F-L Falls Festival Gone South Homebake M-O Meredith Music Festival List of Meredith Music Festival lineups by year Offshore Festival... The Big Day Out (BDO) is an annual music festival that tours Australia and New Zealand. ... Livid was an Australian alternative rock music festival, which was held annually from 1989 to 2003. ... Homebake is an annual Australian rock festival, featuring an all-Australian lineup (with the occasional artist from New Zealand). ... Snout playing at the 2001 Falls Festival The Falls Festival is a New Years Eve music festival, held annually in Australia since 1993-94. ... Stompen Ground Festival in Broome, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned, designed and managed arts and cultural festival. ... The Tamworth Country Music Festival is a celebration of Australias rich country music culture and heritage. ... WOMADelaide 2005 First held in 1992, WOMADelaide is an annual world music and dance festival held in Adelaide Botanic Gardens, Adelaide, South Australia as part of the Womad series of music festivals. ... The Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) is an organization founded in 1980 by Freda Glynn, Phillip Batty and John Macumba in order to expose Aboriginal music and culture to the rest of Australia from its Alice Springs media centre. ... Countdown was a long-running popular weekly Australian music television show broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from late 1974 until July 19 1987. ... Rage is an all-night Australian music video program that is broadcast on ABC TV on Friday and Saturday nights. ... Triple J (JJJ) is a nationally-networked, government-funded Australian radio station (a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), mainly aimed at youth (defined as those between 12 and 25). ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australias national non-commercial public broadcaster. ... A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that is evoking and eulogizing the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nations government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people. ... Advance Australia Fair is the official national anthem of Australia. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australias national non-commercial public broadcaster. ... July 19 is the 200th day (201st in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 165 days remaining. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Countdown gained a huge audience and soon exerted a strong influence on radio programmers, because it was broadcast nationwide on Australia's government-owned broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Countdown was the most popular music program in Australian TV history, and it had a marked effect on radio because of its loyal national audience -- and the amount of Australian content it featured. It also gained double exposure throughout the country by screening a new episode each Sunday evening, and then repeating it the following Saturday evening. It followed this format for most of the time it was on air.

The program's talent co-ordinator Ian "Molly" Meldrum began appearing on-air in 1975, presenting the Humdrum music news segment and conducting interviews. He soon became the face of Countdown. He appeared regularly on-air until 1986. From video The Ultimate Kylie 2004 Ian Molly Meldrum (born January 29, 1946) is an Australian popular music critic, journalist, and record producer, and musical entrepreneur best known as talent co-ordinator, on-air interviewer and music news presenter on seminal popular music program Countdown. ...

Cultural influence

Teen-oriented pop music still enjoyed strong popularity during the 1970s, although much of it was sourced from overseas, and the proportion of Australian acts in the charts had hit an all-time low by 1973. That trend began to change around 1975, and many credit that largely to the advent of Countdown. Much of the show's influence derived from its timeslot (Sundays at 6pm) and the fact that each week's show was repeated the following Saturday at 5pm; the series also undoubtedly benefitted hugely from the long-delayed introduction of colour television in Australia, which was introduced four months after Countdown premiered. Because of this, Countdown was also one of the first Australian TV series to be made entirely in colour, although, regrettably, most of the master videotapes from first twelve months of the series were later erased and recycled during an ill-advised "economy drive" at the ABC. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... An American family watching television in the 1950s. ...

Although not widely recognised, Countdown also had a strong international influence, because it was one of the first TV shows in the world to promote the regular use of the music video as a major part of its programming. Because of its receptivity to these music videos (which were in fact something of a necessity because of the comparative rarity of tours by overseas acts) Countdown proved to be instrumental in the worldwide success of a number of important overseas acts of the period. Madonna achieved her first hit single when "Burning Up" reached the top twenty in 1982 following repeated showings of the video clip on Countdown and other international artists including Blondie, ABBA, John Mellencamp, Meat Loaf, Boz Scaggs and Cyndi Lauper, achieved their first hits in Australia, thanks to their video clips being aired on Countdown, and this in turn led to their records being picked up and becoming hits in America and/or Europe. A music video (also promo) is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. ... Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (born August 16, 1958) is an American pop singer, dancer, songwriter, producer, actress, and author. ... Blondie are an American rock band that first gained fame in the 1970s and early 1980s. ... Look up Abba in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... John Mellencamp, Circa 1996, from johnmellencamp. ... Picture of Meat Loaf Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday September 27, 1947) is an American actor and rock and roll performer who is particularly noted for his smash hit album Bat Out of Hell. ... Boz Scaggs album cover Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs, June 8, 1944) is an Ohio-born Texan singer, songwriter and guitarist. ... Cyndi Lauper Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (born June 22, 1953), better known as Cyndi Lauper, is an American pop singer and actress whose melodic voice and wild costumes have come to epitomize the 1980s, the decade in which she first came to fame. ...

Many international acts who would otherwise have gone largely unheard on Australian commercial radio, gained important exposure in Australia on Countdown through their music videos; the list includes many UK "New Wave" acts like XTC, The Beat, Elvis Costello, The Specials, Lene Lovich, Joe Jackson and The Cure and US acts such as The Ramones and The Cars. New Wave is a term that has been used to describe many developments in music, but is most commonly associated with a movement in American, Australian, British, Canadian and European popular music, in the late 1970s and early 1980s born out of the punk rock movement. ... XTC is an influential pop rock band from Swindon, England. ... The Beat (known in the US as The English Beat) were an essential two-tone/ska revival and pop music group who formed in the Birmingham, UK in 1978 and disbanded in 1983. ... Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954, in London), better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is a popular British musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish ancestry. ... The Specials are a British band formed in 1977 in Coventry (see 1977 in music). ... CD reissue of Lene Lovichs first album, Stateless. ... There are several people named Joe Jackson: Joe Jackson, musician Shoeless Joe Jackson, baseball player Joseph Jackson, father and manager of the Jackson 5 Joe Jackson, football player This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... The Cure are a British band widely seen as one of the leading pioneers of the British alternative rock scene of the 1980s. ... The Ramones (L-R, Johnny, Tommy, Joey, Dee Dee) on the cover of their debut self-titled album (1976), cementing their place at the dawn of the punk movement. ... The album cover for Heartbeat City, one of The Cars most successful and well known albums. ...

Countdown was, above all, crucial to the success of many leading Australian acts like AC/DC, John Paul Young, Sherbet, Skyhooks, Dragon, Marcia Hines, Split Enz, The Angels, INXS, Mondo Rock, Men At Work, Icehouse, Little River Band, Renee Geyer and Jon English. AC/DC is a hard rock band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young and his brother, lead guitarist Angus Young. ... John Paul Young John Paul Young (born June 21, 1950 in Glasgow, Scotland) is an Australian singer. ... Sherbet were one of the most prominent Australian rock bands of the 1970s. ... Skyhooks was an Australian rock band of the 1970s, sometimes classified as a glam rock band, although this is mainly the result of the bands flamboyant costumes and makeup. ... Dragon was the name of a popular New Zealand/Australian rock band, led by lead singer Marc Hunter and his brother Todd Hunter. ... Marcia Hines (born July 23, 1953) is an American born singer who achieved great success in her adopted homeland of Australia. ... Split Enz with ...costumes and hair. ... The Angels were a hard rock band from Adelaide, Australia in the 1970 and 2000. ... INXS (pronounced In Excess) is an Australian rock group. ... Men at Work was an Australian reggae-influenced rock band of the early 1980s (see 1980s in music). ... Icehouse is an Australian rock & roll band. ... Little River Band (also known as LRB) is an Australian rock music band. ... Renee Geyer (born September 11, 1953 in Melbourne, Australia) is a singer most often identified with jazz and blues music, who also achieved several hit singles as a mainsteam pop singer. ... Jon English. ...

The program dominated Australian popular music well into the 1980s, although some critics felt that in later years it tended to concentrate on pop-oriented major-label acts and that it failed to reflect much of the exciting independent scene of the time. MacGyver - 1980s hero The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ...

See also

• List of Australian television series
• List of Australian Broadcasting Corporation programs

This is a list of Australian television series and television programs. ... This is a list of Australian Broadcasting Corporation television programs. ...

External link

• Countdown at the Internet Movie Database