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'''A Country Practice''' was one of the longest-running Australian television drama series. It ran on the Seven Network for 1,058 episodes from November 18, 1981 to November 22, 1993. It was produced in ATN-7's production facility at Epping, Sydney. It also ran from April to November 1994 for 30 episodes on Network Ten.
Though sometimes considered a soap opera, the storylines of the show's two one-hour episodes screened over any one week formed a self-contained narrative block, so it did not have the open ended narrative of a traditional soap opera and so was technically a ''series'' ^[1]. Nevertheless many storylines were developed as sub plots for several episodes before becoming the focus of a particular week's narrative block. Overall, the programme "so emphasised the ongoing storylines of its major characters as to make the distinction between series and serial more or less meaningless" ^[1].
In addition to being broadcast in Australia, it also ran on ITV in the United Kingdom, as well as in many European countries and Hong Kong. It was also carried on a variety of Canadian stations, both during the show's lifetime and after. It was estimated that at its height, the show received a worldwide audience of five to six million each week.
The show followed a medical practice in the small fictional New South Wales country town of Wandin Valley. The show's stories focused on the staff of the practice and the hospital and their families, and through weekly guest characters - frequently patients served by the practice - various social and medical problems were explored. The series examined such topical issues as youth unemployment, suicide, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, and terminal illness as well as Aborigines and their place in modern Australian society.

Contents

Cast list

Seven Network series

Network Ten series

DVD release

UK and Ireland transmissions

ITV Regional Scheduling

North American Broadcasts

CBET

ASN

Showcase

External links

Notes

Cast list

Seven Network series

★ Dr. Terence Elliott - Shane Porteous

★ Dr. Simon Bowen - Grant Dodwell (1981-1986)

★ Vicky Dean/Bowen - Penny Cook (1981-1985)

★ Frank Gilroy - Brian Wenzel

★ Shirley Dean/Gilroy - Lorrae Desmond (1981-1992)

★ Robert "Bob" Hatfield - Gordon Piper (1981-1992)

★ Esme Watson - Joyce Jacobs

★ Brendan Jones - Shane Withington (1981-1985)

★ Molly Jones - Anne Tenney (1981-1985)

★ Matron Marta Kurtesz - Helen Scott (1981-1983)

★ Vernon "Cookie" Locke - Syd Heylen (1982-1992)

★ Judy Loveday - Wendy Strehlow (1982-1986)

★ Chloe Jones - Emily Nicol (1983-1986)

★ Matron Maggie Sloan - Joan Sydney (1983-1990)

★ Jo Loveday - Josephine Mitchell (1985-1989)

★ Ben Green - Nicholas Bufalo (1985-1988)

★ Kelly Shanahan - Annie Davies (1985-1986)

★ Dr. Alex Fraser - Diane Smith (1986-1989)

★ Peter Manning - Mark Owen-Taylor (1986-1988)

★ Donna Manning - Caroline Johansson (1986-1988)

★ Cathy Hayden - Kate Raison (1987-1990)

★ Michael Langley - Brett Climo (1987-1989)

★ Matthew Tyler - John Tarrant (1988-1992)

★ Lucy Gardiner - Georgie Parker (1989-1992)

★ Dr. Cris Kouros - Michael Muntz (1989-1991)

★ Jessie Kouros - Georgina Fisher (1989-1991)

★ Luke Ross - Matt Day (1989-1991)

★ Stephanie Brennan - Sophie Heathcote (1990-1991)

★ Matron Ann Brennan - Mary Regan (1990-1991)

★ Matron Rosemary Prior - Maureen Edwards (1991-1993)

★ Dr. Harry Morrison - Andrew Blackman (1991-1993)

★ Kate Bryant - Michelle Pettigrove (1991-1993)

★ Perce Hudson - Allan Penney (1991-1993)

★ Darcy Hudson - Kym Wilson (1991-1993)

★ Hugo Strzelecki - Gavin Harrison (1992-1993)

★ Anna Lacey - Anne Looby (1992-1993)

★ Billy Moss - Jamie Croft (1992-1993)

★ Bernice Hudson - Judith McGrath (1992-1993)

★ Tom Newman - Jon Concannon (1992-1993)

★ Ian McIntyre - Paul Gleeson (1993)

★ Claire Bonacci - Claudia Black (1993)

★ Fatso the wombat

Network Ten series

★ Dr. Harry Morrison - Andrew Blackman

★ Matron Maggie Sloan - Joan Sydney

★ Esme Watson - Joyce Jacobs

★ Ian McIntyre - Paul Gleeson

★ Claire Bonacci - Claudia Black

★ Danny Sabatini - Vince Colosimo

★ Jess Morrison - Jane Hall

★ Georgie Wilks - Laura Armstrong

★ Sarah Wilks - Alyce Platt

★ Fred Bates - Katherine Murray

★ Miles Ferdenbach - Chris Lyons

DVD release

''A Country Practice'' is available on DVD (Region 4, Australia). Two box sets, entitled "Series One" (containing all 14 1981 episodes) and "Series Two" (containing only the first 30 1982 episodes) were released on 3 April 2006 by MRA Entertainment. Two 12-disc box sets featuring the remainder of the 1982 episodes and the first part of the 1983 episodes were released 11 April 2007. Later the second part of Series Three was Released in a 12 Disc set featuring the remeainder episodes 149-190. Scedueled for Release November 2007 is Series Four in a 2 Part set each containing 12 Discs for al 1984 Episodes.

UK and Ireland transmissions

''A Country Practice'' was shown regionally on the ITV Network with some regions ( Thames, Anglia, Border, Granada, TVS and Yorkshire) starting to screen the series weekly from 22 October 1982 on Wednesdays at 2.45pm in the original hour-long format. Central Television did not start the show until 1988. Yorkshire Television chose to break away from the main Network transmission in 1984 and were the first television station in the world to break the programme into two half-hour episodes screening on Mondays and Tuesday at 3.30pm. This would lead them into difficulties with the screening of the series as whenever a public holiday occurred (usually on Mondays), the 3.30pm slot would be unavailable for A Country Practice. This led to Part one of an episode starting on a Tuesday with viewers having to wait until the following Monday to conclude it. Yorkshire also transmitted the incorrect episode on one occasion due a fire in their building meaning that their feed from Thames Television for the preceding programme over-ran into Yorkshire's local programming meaning that the Yorkshire viewers saw a Thames episode which was considerably ahead (1991) of where Yorkshire were up to.
Over time all 14 of the ITV regions screened the show at their own pace after breaking from the Network Thames Television pattern. All regions eventually adopted the Yorkshire Television method of splitting the episodes into two. Carlton Television, who superseded Thames Television, became the first to conclude the series followed by Anglia Television in their daily 1.50pm half-hour slot. Anglia Television then commenced a short repeat of the first 40 or so episodes shortly after reaching the end.
Due to the content of the episodes, a substantial amount of episodes were withdrawn from transmission by certain regions as the content was considered unsuitable for daytime viewing. This led to various regions skipping considerable chunks of the story.

ITV Regional Scheduling

'ITV Region'	'Programme Schedule Pattern (all end at Episode 1058 unless otherwise stated)'
	Start Date	Days Screened	End Date
Anglia Television	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	During 1986 screened weekly hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30. Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987. Screening 1 hourly episode weekly in July 1989.Mondays-Fridays around 13.50 in half-hour eps. Re-ran the first 40+ episodes after completion. Aired 12.55-13.25 from 1994.	late 1997
Central Television	Summer 1983, relaunched Friday 16 September 1988 14.00	Initially Tuesdays 11.10 during summer school holidays in 1983. Series dropped in September 1983 for five years. Then, the series was relaunched from the beginning on Fridays in the original hour format from 14.00 from 16 September 1988. From Tuesday 2 January 1989 series moves to 12.30 Mondays to Wednesdays in half hour slots. Taken off air at the end of January 1989. Monday & Tuesday hourly episodes re-started in early 1989, followed by the addition of a Thursday episode a short time later. From January 1990, stripped in edited half-hour editions from 1345-1415 Mon to Fri. This changed to 1325-1355 during summer 1992 with ''Home and Away'' airing 1255-1325. The two soaps then switched timeslots in early 1997. The end credits were removed from each episode during 1995.	mid-1999.
Border Television	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	During 1986 screened weekly hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30, Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987.then???, Aired Thursdays at 14.00 hour long in September 1989, then ??? possibly joined the Granada episodes from 29 December 1993.	Autumn 1996
Channel Television	as TSW	As TVS from 1 January 1986	as Meridian
Grampian Television	???	During 1986 screened weekly hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30, Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987, then ???, then Aired Thursdays at 14.00 hour long in September 1989, then ???Screens at 14.15 hour long episodes on Wednesdays and Fridays in January 1993. Screening half hour episodes on Mondays and Tuesdays at 17.10 in January 1995.	???
Granada Television	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	Screened 1 hour long episode per week in 1985 on Wednesdays at 13.30 until 21 August. After a week off for regional sport the series moves to Thursdays at 13.30 from 5 September 1985 until at ???. Slot changes to 13.00 from 23 July 1987. Dropped the series for networked ''Richmond Hill'' in November 1988. Granada then reduced the ''Richmond Hill'' episodes to reinstate ''A Country Practice'' in its Thursday slot. It was still airing 1 hour per week in 1990, and then became Tuesdays to Fridays 13.50 in half-hour slots during 1991. The final two seasons aired 17.10-17.40 from Tuesday 13 September 1994.	Autumn 1996.
HTV West & Wales	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	Screened in 1 hour episodes on Thursdays at 13.30 during 1986 and 1987, Slot changes to 13.00 from 23 July 1987.then ??? until 1990. Series moved to 15.25 Wed-Fri as replacement for ''Sons and Daughters'' in half-hour eps. Aired 17.10-17.40 from 1995.	1998
Scottish Television (STV)	???	Always aired in hour-long episodes. Wednesdays at 15.00 used in 1986. Moves to Thursdays at 13.30 in January 1987. Slot changes to 13.00 from 23 July 1987. Then generally 1 hour per week on Fridays. During 1988 series was shown on Thursdays at 13.30 hour long. Network programming in the slot from October forced ''A Country Practice'' to move to Tuesdays at 13.30 then to 14.00 on Tuesdays. From September 1989 when network programming had left the Thursday slot ACP returned to Thursdays but at 14.00, then ??? Dropped from the schedules in early 1994, after episode 486. Brought back in June in its old time slot for a few weeks, and then from episode 491 screened five mornings a week at 10.55 in hour long episodes for the duration of the Summer school holidays (around 6 weeks) until Friday 2 September. Reverted back to its old Tuesday slot the following week. Dropped completely after episode 588, never to return, and replaced by ''Blue Heelers''.	Never completed
Television South (TVS)	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	During 1986 screened hour long episodes on Tuesdays at 13.30 until spring 1987. In April 1987 TVS becomes the second region to broadcast half episodes of the show. This is done on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 13.30, Slot changes to 13.00 from 21 July 1987, then 14.00, then ???, 13.50 Mondays to Fridays in half-hour episodes	???
Thames Television & Carlton Television	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	Off air in mid 1986 from ??/??/1986 for a lengthy period until the series returned on Wednesday 5 November 1986 in the slot used by most regions, 13.30. Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987. 12.30pm Mon to Wed in July 1989. 13.50 Mondays to Fridays in half-hour episodes. FINAL THAMES EPISODE on Thursday 17 December 1992 involved the story with Mike Peters abandoning his baby daughter. Next day a filler programme Who's The Boss? is used in the last 13.50 regional slot of the year. Carlton altered the episodes to delete the closing credits of the programme for London viewers. Reduced to two halves a week on Tuesdayy and Thursdays in September 1995 as episodes were running out.	Thursday 25 April 1996 13.50. First to complete.
Tyne Tees Television	October 1983	During 1986 screened hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30, Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987. then ??? then Aired Thursdays at 14.00 hour long in September 1989, Mondays and Fridays at 13.50 (2x60 min)in 1992. Series increased to three hourly episodes a week in Sunmmer 1992 on Mon/Wed and fri probably to catch up to YTV as much as possible before the two compnaies merged and transmitted the same episodes. then Tue, Wed, Thur 13.50 from 05/01/93 (3x30min)Various episodes skipped from 05/01/93 to catch up to Yorkshire. Then as Yorkshire	as Yorkshire
Ulster Television	???	During 1986 screened hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30, Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987. then ???, Aired Thursdays at 14.00 hour long in September 1989, then ??? in early 1992 Mondays and Tuesdays 15.20 were used half hour.	???
Television South West (TSW)	???	During 1986 screened hour long episodes on Wednesdays at 13.30 Slot changes to 13.00 from 22 July 1987, then ???	???
Yorkshire Television (YTV)	Wednesday 22 October 1982 14.45	Due to Thames TV going on strike and being unable to provide other regions with certain acquired material, YTV broke away from the Thames offering and screened it themselves on Mondays and Tuesdays in half episodes at 15.30 from Monday 3 September 1984. When a Bank Holiday or Budget broadcast fell on on of the afternoons YTV replaced the other episode with other programmes initially. This practice later stopped. From 29 February/1 March 1998 YTV vacated the slot to increase ''Sons and Daughters'' episodes and moved the show to 13.30 hour long episodes to replace ''Carson's Law'' starting on Thursday 10 March. When networked programme ''Richmond Hill'' ousted ''ACP'' in October 1988, ACP was off air after episode screened on 298 September. The series then found a temporary home in the half hour weekday 15.30 slot from Monday 13 March 1989 replacing ''Sons and Daughters''. In September ''The Young Doctors'' pushed ''ACP'' out of the weekday slot and moved to Wednesday and Thursday half hour episodes in the slot vacated by Richmond Hill 13.50. Later increased to Tuesday - Thursday. On a Tuesday a Thames episode was accidentally screened due to the Yorkshire TV building being evacuated and YTv were unable to screen their own episode. Increased again around mid 1993 to daily Mon-Fri episodes as the networked News forced Yorkshire to dump its 90 minute weekly afternoon film resulting in 60 of these minutes being used for ACP.	Autumn 1998

NB During 1986 many regions screened it on Wed at 13.30. This was possibly semi-networked (except Tyne Tees who were behind) however if it was networked it is hard to tell whgich region was playing the episodes, as Thames dropped it for a period in 1986. The other three big regions (except Central who had dropped it years before) played their own episodes.
In the mid-1980s, ''A Country Practice'' also became a prime-time series on Sky Channel, airing twice a week at 21.00 from at least 1985. During August 1985 the series was screened at 19.20 - 20.10 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings in hour long episodes. The channel also screened ''The Sullivans'' and ''The Young Doctors''. When the Sky Channel was launched on the Astra satellite in January 1989, it became Sky One and ''A Country Practice'' was dropped from the schedule, although ''The Sullivans'' and ''The Young Doctors'' were retained, presumably as they were now out of production and cheaper to air, whilst ''ACP'' was still an extremely popular series around the world and still being made. For a brief period, later episodes were shown in 1997 on the cable channel Carlton Select.
The show was also aired in the Republic of Ireland on RTE One Television, Monday to Friday at 17:30, from the start of series to the end, it was several months behind Australia

North American Broadcasts

CBET

The entire series was broadcast, from start to finish, by the CBC Television affiliate in Windsor, Ontario, CBET, Channel 9, which serves the Metropolitan Detroit-Windsor-Toledo area. Two episodes were broadcast daily, Monday through Friday, starting in the late 1980s, until they were caught up to contemporary episodes in the early 1990s.
Detroit, Michigan in the United States and Windsor, Ontario in Canada are twin cities on the north and south banks of the strait called the Detroit River. Because they are part of the same advertising market, they are subject to the North American Border Protection Rule, under which Detroit television stations cannot carry programming licensed for broadcast in Windsor, and Windsor stations cannot carry programming licensed for broadcast in Detroit. Historically, 40% of Canadian network programming has been American content, none of which could be broadcast in Windsor. Only so much programming can be repeated, and only so many times - and no network produces programming to air on only one station - so, most of the American programming that cannot be broadcast in Windsor is replaced by programming imported from Britain and Australia. Many Australian soap operas, ''A Country Practice'' among them, have thus found loyal audiences in the Metro Detroit area, while they otherwise remain unknown in North America. [1]

ASN

From 1991 to 1994, the show also aired on ASN in the Canadian Atlantic provinces. Four hour-long episodes aired each week, from Monday to Thursday with Monday's and Tuesday's episodes repeated on Saturday and Wednesday's and Thursday's episodes on Sunday. The station aired the show from episode 1 to somewhere in the early 700s, stopping when Showcase Television launched on January 1, 1995, and started airing the show from the start again.

Showcase

Showcase Television began airing the show from episode 1 starting in January of 1995. It broadcast one episode daily, from Monday to Friday, and completed the entire series run (including the 30-episode Network Ten series) in June 1999. It began rebroadcasting the entire series on June 28, 1999, with promises that the entire series would be broadcast for those who missed the first airing. However, a single line of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen during the August 21, 2000, episode announced that the show would be removed from the Showcase lineup as of Monday, August 28, 2000. According to the station's email autoresponse at the time, the decision was based on "declining viewership and a demand by viewers for more current programming". Sometime after that, Showcase changed their format to favour a less family-oriented and more adult-oriented viewership.

External links

★ Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital

★ Encyclopedia of Television

★

★

★ A Country Practice at the National Film and Sound Archive

Notes

1. Bowles, Kate. ''Soap opera: 'No end of story, ever' '' in ''The Australian TV Book'', (Eds. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham), Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000. ISBN 1-86508-014-4 p 127
2. Bowles, Kate. ''Soap opera: 'No end of story, ever' '' in ''The Australian TV Book'', (Eds. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham), Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000. ISBN 1-86508-014-4 p 127