Information about Home And Away

Home and Away
2007 Opening Credits .
Created by	Alan Bateman
Country of origin	Australia
No. of episodes	4530 (as of October 19th, 2007)
Production
Running time	Approx 22 minutes per episode (excluding commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	Channel Seven
Picture format	PAL (576i), 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	January 17 1988 – present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile

Home and Away (H&A) is a soap opera that has been produced in Sydney by the Seven Network since July 1987. The show first went to air on Sunday 17 January 1988 with a two hour slot and then premiered as a weeknightly program the following evening, airing at 6:00 pm before Seven News which then aired at 6:30 pm. Home and Away has also aired at the 6:30 pm timeslot, however from 1992 onwards the 7:00 pm slot has been its stable time.

The show is broadcast in Australia on the Channel Seven Network and its affiliates from Monday to Friday at 7:00 pm and is exported to many countries including United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ireland, Estonia, France, Norway, Sweden, Israel and many Asian countries.

When the show began in January 1988 ratings were low but soon improved and gradually the show's popularity grew. Originally Home and Away focused primarily on the characters of Pippa and Tom Fletcher who ran the Summer Bay Caravan Park and lived there with a succession of foster children, but Currently Home and Away focuses on Sally Fletcher and Alf Stewart (who run Summer Bay Caravan Park) and the rest of the residents of Summer Bay.

History

In 1985 the Seven Network axed the poorly-rating soap Neighbours; they continued producing that series for its remaining contract, ultimately producing 170 episodes. However Seven Network was unaware that Network Ten, a rival television network, was in talks with the production team to air the soap on their network in 1986. When Neighbours returned, on Ten, in 1986, it initially attracted low ratings.^[1] The Network worked hard to publicise Neighbours^[2] by revamping the show and adding several new, younger cast members, and they launched a concerted publicity drive largely focused on these new actors.^[3] This paid off for Neighbours and its popularity grew; by the end of 1987 it was attracting high ratings in Australia.^[4] In October 1986, Neighbours started being broadcast in the UK, where it began to attract strong viewing figures. From about 1988 to 1991 Neighbours was regularly watched by 20 million viewers in the UK.

In late 1986 the Seven Network’s head of drama Alan Bateman was tasked with creating a pilot for a soap opera that was in no way a copy of Neighbours. Bateman soon found his inspiration when he stopped in Kangaroo Point, New South Wales on a family outing. Chatting to locals Bateman discovered that the townspeople were angered over the construction of a home for foster children from the city. Seeing the degree of conflict the plan for the new youth centre had produced within the community, Bateman recognised the drama that could be generated by this situation and began to develop it as the basis for the new soap opera.

Cast

Main Cast members

Actor	Character	Years in Show
Ray Meagher	Alf Stewart	1988 - Present
Kate Ritchie	Sally Fletcher	1988 - 2008- Present
Lynne McGranger	Irene Roberts	1992 - Present
Lyn Collingwood	Colleen Smart	1988-1989, 1997, 1999 - Present
Ada Nicodemou	Leah Patterson-Baker	2000 - Present
Indiana Evans	Matilda Hunter	2004 - Present
Tim Campbell	Dan Baker	2004- 2008- Present
Mark Furze	Ric Dalby	2004- Present
Sharni Vinson	Cassie Turner	2005- Present
Jodi Gordon	Martha Mackenzie	2005- Present
Paul O'Brien	Jack Holden	2005- Present
Jon Sivewright	Tony Holden	2005- Present
Rhys Wakefield	Lucas Holden	2005- 2008- Present
Todd Lasance	Aden Jefferies	2005, 2007- Present
Amy Matthews	Rachel Armstrong	2006- Present
Jessica Tovey	Belle Taylor	2006- Present
Bobby Morley	Drew Curtis	2006- Present
Chris Sadrinna	Brad Armstrong	2006- 2007- Present
Charlotte Best	Annie Campbell	2007- Present
Lincoln Lewis	Geoff Campbell	2007- Present
Gabrielle Scollay	Tamsyn Armstrong	2007- Present
Holly Brisley	Amanda Vale	2005-2007-Upcoming (Main Cast Member, October 29 2007)

Recurring cast members

Actor	Character
Luke Carroll	Dr. Lewis Rigg
Jessica Chapnik	Sam Tolhurst
Lara Cox	Dr. Marie (Intern)
Cornelia Frances	Morag Bellingham
Rebecca George	Const. Lara Fitzgerald
Lisa Hayson-Phillips	Nurse Julie Cooper
Chloe Marshall	Pippa Saunders
Kim Knuckley	Sgt. Darren McGrath
Jack Richard	Rory Tolhurst
Cooper Scott	V.J. Patterson
James Mitchell	Jonah Abraham
Isaac Gorman	Ryan Baker
Simone McAullay	Vivian Anderson

Upcoming and Departing

Upcoming

Actor	Character	Status
Damian De Montemas	Henk Van Minnen	Returns mid October 2007
Holly Brisley	Amanda Vale	Returns October 29, 2007
Scott McGregor	Andrew Cousins	Debuts November 2007
Conrad Coleby	Roman Wilson	Debuts 2007
Claire Ryan	Character unknown	Debuts March 2008
Jade Wilson	Character unknown	Debuts March 2008

Departing

Actor	Character	Status
Chris Sadrinna	Brad Armstrong	Departs December 2007
Tim Campbell	Dan Baker	Departs Early 2008
Rhys Wakefield	Lucas Holden	Departs February 2008
Chloe Marshall	Pippa Saunders	Departs April 2008
Kate Ritchie	Sally Fletcher	Departs April 2008

Deceased cast members

Actor	Role	Duration	Year of death
Megan Connolly	Rebecca Nash	1998 (temporary recast)	2001
Gwen Plumb	Doris Peters	1988 (guest)	2002
Belinda Emmett	Rebecca Nash	1996-1999	2006
Richard Morgan	Donahue	1989 (guest)	2006

Production and broadcast schedule

The show is filmed five days a week for 46 weeks of the year. The crew is given a four week holiday at Christmas and a two week break for recuperation mid-year. A normal shooting day is 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, but can go later if shooting goes over time. There are an average of 8 weeks between shooting and airing the program. All interiors for the show are filmed at Seven Sydney's Epping studios. The exterior scenes are filmed on location mainly at Palm Beach and at Fisherman's Beach, Collaroy in Sydney's Northern Beaches region. Location filming normally takes place early in the week, though occasionally demanding schedules mean they can be on location for 4-5 days a week.

Australian broadcasts

Home and Away is broadcast in Australia on weekdays at 7:00 pm. The show airs for 46 weeks each year (except for occasions where worldwide events take priority such as the Olympic Games). Each new season begins on the second Monday in January, and the season finale airs on the last Friday of the ratings period, at the end of November (the 2006 season however, started, and thus finished, one week later than normal).

The show rates very well in its timeslot, receiving between 1.1 and 1.5 million viewers per episode. The show's main rival is Temptation on the Nine Network, which usually comes second in this timeslot. In this timeslot Network Ten screens, at various times of the year, programs such as the Big Brother Australia Daily Show, The Biggest Loser, or repeats of The Simpsons, which usually come third in ratings behind networks Seven and Nine.

During the broadcast there are three ad-breaks and immediately following the broadcast of each episode there is a short promotional trailer for the next episode.

Repeat episodes of the series were broadcast between 1999 and 2002, with a one-year break in 2000. The first 623 episodes (except for Episode 469, which was overlooked when Seven were showing the tennis in September 2001) were shown in this run, before it was taken off in May 2002, and so far has never returned. Restrictions due to contracts with actors who appeared in the early days of the series prevent the Seven Network from showing repeats of Home and Away, or releasing DVD sets[1].

United Kingdom broadcasts

The show has more overall viewers in the UK market than it has in its home market, but Australia, because of it's lower population, has a higher proportion of viewers than the UK.

The series commenced at 5:15pm on Saturday 11th February 1989 (5:05pm on Sunday 12th February in the LWT & Yorkshire regions). UK regions have historically had different timeslots for the programme. Most regions originally aired it at 5:10pm, however Central & Anglia both originally showed it at 6:35pm, later moved to 6:00pm, Thames and Granada moved it to 6:00pm, Border moved it to 6:30pm & TSW moved it to 3:27pm from Wednesday 20th September 1989, after they had completed showing another Australian soap opera, Sons and Daughters. TSW moved it slightly back to 3:23pm from September 1990 onwards. TSW's scheduling was controversial. In 1991 the lunchtime showing was 1:20pm with the repeat following at 3:23pm. (The precise times of both 3:23pm & 3:27pm were used because TSW fitted in their daily birthdays' slot, Gus Honeybun after the show & before CITV started at 4:00pm (3:55pm from September 1990). So, Gus was shown at 3:57pm in 1989 & 3:53pm from September 1990 onwards). TSW persisted with the 3:23pm slot for a long period (apparently to avoid having to schedule two quiz shows consecutively) despite the fact many of Home and Away's teenage followers would still have been at school at this time. By early 1992 though, TSW's argument was extremely hollow as they had five half hour Australian soaps follow each other from 1:20pm on some days - Home and Away, A Country Practice, The Sullivans, The Young Doctors and then the Home and Away repeat. However, in September 1992, TSW finally moved it to a later time-slot of 6:30pm for their final 3 months on-air, before their successor Westcountry Television moved the series back to 5:10pm on Monday 4th January 1993. All ITV regions screened it at 5:00pm from March 1999 onwards, until June 2000, when they lost the rights to show it to Five.

In 1999, UK Living began airing repeats from 1988, starting with episode 138 and continued up until the 1990 season. The episodes were then skipped to 1996 and the repeats later moved to Trouble (one of Living's sister channels) and episodes from 1996 to 1998 were aired.

In the UK episode from 1993 onwards were sometimes censored for content. Two episodes were dropped in their entirety, one due to similarities to the Dunblane massacre, another due to similarities to the James Bulger kidnap and murder.



In 1999, ITV2 began broadcasting an omnibus on Saturday Mornings and by 2000, episodes aired in the UK were aired only one week after first showing in Australia. However, the shift in the UK in June 2000 from ITV to Five damaged the programme's ratings, as contract obligations kept it off air in the UK for a year. Also, Five having a smaller audience share than ITV contributed to the show achieving ratings significantly lower. Five funds more than half of the production costs, and it was officially Five's second highest rated show. However now due to the fact Prison Break has changed hands over to Sky One, Home and away is officially now Five's top show, and the only real competition on Five comes from American drama House and British drama Suburban Shootout United Kingdom is currently ten weeks behind Australia's broadcast. But it's expected by December 2008 that the UK would have caught up with Australia's.

Other international broadcasts

In New Zealand, the show used to be broadcast on TV One, later TV2 but now screens on TV3 on weekdays at 5:30 pm, (repeated 10:30 am on weekdays and an omnibus airs on Sundays at 10:15 am). 1995 episodes were briefly shown on Prime TV at 3:30 pm weekdays. New Zealand is exactly six weeks behind Australia.

In Ireland, the national state broadcaster RTÉ has shown the programme since its inception. The pilot episode was screened over two nights at 6:00 pm on Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 October 1988. From 5 October it was shown at 6.30 pm, a timeslot at which it has remained since. It has continually been a highly popular show, that has attracted a very wide and loyal fan base. The show is broadcast weekdays at 1:25 pm on RTÉ One and repeated at 6:30 pm on RTÉ Two regularly getting into the top 5 ratings for that week. The RTÉ screening is approximately 12 weeks (59 episodes) behind the Australian transmission. Effective from late 2006, the show has been given an encore screening on RTÉ Two with three episodes on Saturdays and two on Sundays usually around 1:00 pm (subject to no live sport etc.)

The Director of Broadcasting & Acquisitions for RTÉ, stated in an email dated August 2007 that Five have negotiated a European premiere for the show, and there is nothing RTÉ can do about this as Five fund part of the show's production costs. This is the first time any broadcaster has over-taken the RTÉ transmission as they were always first to screen the show after Australia. Currently Five are two episodes ahead of the RTÉ broadcast, but this stands to change in the near future, as RTÉ will broadcast the same daily episode that Five screen. The statement from RTÉ also reads that Five is only available to less than 5% of Irish households, and their [Five] playing the episodes first has in no way affected RTÉ ratings.

United Kingdom however did not start airing the show until January 1989. The pilot was not shown by ITV 1 and instead of starting on a Monday, the show had started on a Tuesday instead, but from there on in Home and Away screened most Monday's except at Bank Holiday Easter and Christmas. Bank Holiday and Easter the show was taken off for 1 or 2 days at most whereas at Christmas it could have been anything up to 2-3 weeks. However, in the last 6 months of its stay with ITV 1 Home and Away had a rather unsettled schedule pattern. Sometimes it will just air 3 or 4 times a week. The last 3 episodes of Home and Away on that channel, 2838-2840 were shown starting on a Tuesday evening and ending that Thursday lunchtime. No more new episodes were allowed to be aired until July 2001 after. When Five began airing episodes 2840+ as of July 2001, the episodes followed a regular pattern and has only been taken off the air 3 times (all coincidentally happening to be on Bank Holiday Monday. Twice in May 2007 and once in August 2007) But unlike ITV the show normally airs on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year still at the NORMAL time unlike Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Neighbours who all have an irregular pattern at Christmas. This is likely to be the case up until December 2009 when Five would have fully caught up with Seven. The 2008 episodes of Home and away should commence on Five at about February or March 2008. When Five life commenced in 2006 it made a big deal of the event that it's first full launch day also conincided with the episode of Home and away where Zoe blew up Jack and Martha's wedding reception and after that episode had aired on five, the next episode aired straight after at 6.30pm for a sneak peak which has been running for 1 year as off October 2007.

Estonia is quite behind various other countries. The show has screened on ETV in the 1990s and on TV1 in the 2000s. Currently episodes from 2003 are shown on Kanal 2 every weekday at 6:30 pm. In summertime (June-August), two episodes are shown instead of one.

Other countries that broadcast Home and Away include: Belgium on Kanaal Twee with a double broadcast on weekdays; Belgium are just 6 weeks into the 2006 season at present date; Denmark; Iceland; Israel; Lithuania; Norway; Poland; Serbia; Greece; Macedonia; South Africa; Sweden it is broadcast weekday mornings at 7:25 on TV3 currently on the 2005 season; France.

The series is also broadcast in the following countries via the Australia Network: American Samoa; Cambodia; Cook Islands; East Timor; Federated States of Micronesia; Fiji; French Polynesia; Guam; Hong Kong; India; Indonesia; Japan; Kiribati; Laos; Macau; Malaysia; Maldives; Marshall Islands; Mongolia; Niue; Northern Mariana Islands; Norway; Pakistan; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Philippines; Samoa; Singapore; Solomon Islands; South Korea; Sri Lanka; Taiwan; Thailand; Tonga; Vanuatu; Vietnam.

Theme

The theme's lyrics have remained the same since the pilot episode, but have been gradually reduced in length to keep newer versions of the song at a shorter length. The theme was released as a single in the UK in 1989 and peaked at #73 on the UK single charts. The single track includes the opening and closing themes and an additional saxophone section. Since the launch of the 1995 version of the theme tune, extracts from the second verse of the full-length soundtrack have been used to close the show, as opposed to an edited version of the opening song which was used until this point. The theme was shortened in 1996, and again in 2004.

• Version 1: Mark Williams and Karen Boddington (1988-1995)
• Version 2: Doug Williams and Erana Clark (1995-1999)
• Version 3: The Robertson Brothers (2000-2003)
• Version 4: The Robertson Brothers (2004-2006)
• Version 5: Israel Cannan (2007)
• Version 6: Luke Dolahenty (2007-)

The current theme was recorded by 20-year-old actor and musician Luke Dolahenty. Originally Israel Cannan sang the theme in early 2007, but due to complaints from fans, Channel Seven decided to redo it, making it the shortest running theme tune in the programme's history.

References

External links

• em>Directory of Home and Away sites
• Home and Away on Yahoo!7
• Home and Away on five.tv

•  • [ e] Home and Away
Current characters: Brad Armstong Dan Baker Leah Patterson-Baker Ryan Baker Morag Bellingham Annie Campbell Geoff Campbell Drew Curtis Ric Dalby Donald Fisher Sally Fletcher Jack Holden Lucas Holden Tony Holden Matilda Hunter Rachel Hyde-Armstrong Martha MacKenzie Irene Roberts Colleen Smart Alf Stewart Belle Taylor Cassie Turner
Character lists: List of Home and Away characters Current Home and Away characters Recurring characters of Home and Away
Locations: Summer Bay
Further information: Theme tune