Countdown was a long-running popular weekly Australian music television show broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from late 1974 until July 19 1987. The earliest music of Australia was the folk music of the Australian Aborigines. ... Ŵú Australian Aborigines are the native peoples of Australia. ... 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. ... Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture. ... The trends of Australian music have often mirrored those of the United States and Britain. ... Problems listening to the files? See media help. ... Subcategories There are 3 subcategories to this category. ... Australian hip hop 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 very substantially created by African Americans. ... 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 Record 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 are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres. ... 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 Datsuns playing at the Melbourne BDO, 2004 The Big Day Out is an annual one day music festival which tours Australasia. ... LiViD, short for Linux Video and DVD, was a collection of projects that aim to create program tools and software libraries related to DVD for Linux operating system. ... 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. ... 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. ... Rage is an all-night Australian music video program that has been 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 public broadcaster. ... A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that is formally recognized by a countrys government as their states official national song. ... Advance Australia Fair is the official national anthem of Australia, not, contrary to popular belief, Waltzing Matilda. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australias national public broadcaster. ...

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.

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. Well-known examples are Blondie, ABBA, Meat Loaf, Madonna, Boz Scaggs and Cyndi Lauper, all of whom who had 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 video clip, promo) is a short film or video meant to present a visual representation of a popular music song. ... Cover of the 1976 album Blondie Blondie is a rock band that first gained fame in the 1970s and early 1980s. ... ABBA (clockwise from top left: Anni-Frid (Frida), Benny, Agnetha, Björn) on the cover of their single Summer Night City. ... Picture of Meat Loaf Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday September 27, 1947 in Dallas, Texas) is an American actor and rock and roll performer who came to fame with his album Bat Out of Hell and for his movie performances such as Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. ... Madonna Ciccone Ritchie, (born Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone on August 16, 1958 in Bay City, Michigan) is a famous United States pop singer, author, dancer, fashion icon, actress, composer and producer. ... Boz Scaggs album cover Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs June 8, 1944) is an Ohio-born Texan singer, songwriter and guitarist. ... Cyndi Lauper CD single Stay Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (born June 22, 1953), better known as Cyndi Lauper, is a singer whose melodic voice and wild costumes have come to epitomize the 1980s, the decade in which she first came to fame. ...

Countdown was crucial to the success of acts like AC/DC, John Paul Young, Sherbet, Skyhooks, Dragon, Marcia Hines, Split Enz, The Angels, INXS, Men At Work, Icehouse, Little River Band, Renee Geyer, Jon English, and it 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. AC/DC is an Australian hard rock band. ... John Paul Young John Paul Young (born June 21, 1950 in Glasgow, Scotland) is an Australian singer. ... Sherbet was 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. ... 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. ... The band INXS, as they were with the late Michael Hutchence The band INXS, with new lead singer J.D. Fortune 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. ...

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