| Extra | |
|---|---|
Extra and Weekend Extra Logo |
|
| Also known as | Brisbane Extra |
| Genre | Public Affairs |
| Presented by | Heather Foord (2009) |
| Country of origin | English |
| Language(s) | Australia |
| No. of seasons | 18 |
| No. of episodes | 4540 (approx) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | QTQ, Brisbane, Australia |
| Running time | 23 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Nine Network |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original run | 9 February 1991 – 26 June 2009 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | A Current Affair |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Extra (originally Brisbane Extra) was a nightly tabloid local current affairs programme, broadcast on Nine Network Queensland, every weeknight. The last host was Heather Foord, as Brisbane's version of Nine's National A Current Affair, hosted by Tracy Grimshaw. A weekend version also aired on a Saturday afternoon named Weekend Extra hosted by Melissa Downes.
Contents |
Presenter Jillian Whiting returned from maternity leave[1]. However, during her time away, various television, radio, and media celebrities from around Queensland and Australia had been asked to step into the hosting role for a week each. After this trial was finished, both Melissa Downes and Miranda Deakin, presented the remaining few weeks and over the summer break. The official word from the Nine Network was that Jillian Whiting would return to Extra and her former role as presenter of the Gold Coast's National Nine News, from the very first program in 2008, however this was delayed by two weeks.
On 9 February 1991, Brisbane Extra launched alongside other sister productions in capital cities around the country. A Current Affair reporter, Rick Burnett, made his debut as host, with ex-ABC personality Doug Murray and a team of young reporters. One year later, the sister programs were axed, but the Brisbane program proved so popular with its local audience, it continued, changing its name to simply Extra.
Since then, Extra has been an important part of south-east Queensland airing both informative and entertaining stories, covering community issues, consumer affairs and telling viewers about interesting people and things happening in their town. During its history, Extra’s turned plenty of ordinary people’s ideas and hobbies into successful businesses.
In 2000, Extra celebrated its 2000th episode with a free family fun day at South Bank including a special performance by Hi-5. And celebrated its 3000th episode in 2004 by giving viewers 3000 presents every day for a week.
In 2006, Extra continued on its winning ways, welcoming a new host, newsreader and journalist Jillian Whiting. Jillian continues to host Extra in 2007, with the program now going statewide on the WIN Television Network. And as Extra celebrates its 16th year, it marks a record run for a locally-produced Australian program. WIN Dropped Extra 6 months later.
Due to the shows great success and high television ratings it had been widely speculated that the show would soon air nationally. However, viewers worry that the shows stories and interviews would not remain local to Queensland and therefore adapt a format similar to that of same network show A Current Affair.
Despite its eighteen long years of popularity and ratings success, the local current affairs program was axed by the Nine Network on 17 June 2009, due to a major schedule clean up for making space for Nine's new one hour current affairs program, This Afternoon, hosted by Andrew Daddo, Katrina Blowers and Mark Ferguson from 4:30pm weekdays starting the following Monday after the final ever broadcast. The decision was apart of a push to nationalise lead-in content for the network’s struggling news bulletins. The game show Millionaire Hot Seat was moved to replace Extra at 5.30pm.
The fate of the show's presenter Heather Foord was initially unclear, however, it was later announced by the network that she would rejoin Nine News as weekend news presenter.
The final broadcast ended with a final goodbye on 26 June with a message from Heather Foord thanking all the viewers for their support, with the emails, phone calls and faxes with in protest over the decision to cancel Extra - The broadcast closed with a montage of memories over the program's 18 year-run.
One week later, Extra's local website was later removed following the final episode.
Two weeks after the final episode, This Afternoon was axed on 15 July 2009 because of the network being very unhappy about the disappearance of the Afternoon News bulletin from the Nine News brand.