1 9 8 6 (Australia)
ABC TV’s short-lived Edge of the Wedge was a controversial rock and youth affairs programme that screened three times weekly (on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 6.00 pm) from its debut in March 1986 until it was given the chop in October of the same year.
The show had an “Australian music only” policy and went out of its way to help young Australian bands. It also tried to raise important youth issues such as accommodation, relationships and drugs in a magazine-style segment each week.
The ABC officially axed Edge of the Wedge because it rated badly, but the 6pm time-slot allotted to the show (a time when the majority of viewers stick ferociously to the commercial networks during the prime time news and current affairs hour) meant it could never really survive.
