User:Cafejunkie/Turnitup



Turn It Up! is a television show that aired in various versions from October 1994 to November 1996, hosted from inception by Paul Fidler, who also served as Co-Producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40-type music interspersed with Music Videos. The Music was introduced by Fidler and other co-hosts that included Lindi-Jane Hunter, Darren Cousins (Neighbours) and Popular Musical Artists. At least one popular musical act, running the gamut from DJ Bobo to Tamia - would usually appear in-person to lip-sync or sing live one of their latest singles.

Turn It Up! was the first Music TV show to be aired on multiple commercial networks around Australasia and Europe in the 1990s that exposed American R&B Music Talent to a new generation of viewers. Four of its shows had a viewership of 88 million from a broadcast footprint believed to be greater than 1.1 billion people. Turn It Up was the first music TV show that attained an equivalent global viewership since American Bandstand in the 1990's, and was the first music show to be streamed online as a webcast in August 2000.

Turn It Up! began production as a Music TV Show formerly called "Rhythm NATion" (the NAT standing for Northern Access Television) and was first broadcast on the 7th October 1994 on C31 Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, the show being introduced by the then budding show host Rove McManus. It was dropped by Northern Access Television and picked up by SKA-TV (St.Kilda Access) after the initial 3x30 minute Pilots. It then gradually gained popularity as more TV stations rebroadcast the show, as the content was initially made freely available to syndicated partners. The show progressed through Channel 31 and its affiliates to Optus Vision, and in its second series was initially relayed to 22 countries through South East Asia by Australia Television and relayed again through Inmarsat throughout Europe. The resultant Satellite feeds were rebroadcast to Major Commercial Terrestrial TV Stations in over 39 countries from Hong Kong, through to Dubai and the United Kingdom, by the end of the second series.

Repeats of its series have been known to be aired at various television stations around the world as late as 2004, where the series was known to be replayed in its entirety in Adelaide, Australia, nearly ten years after its first broadcast.

Program Format/Evolution
Turn It Up premiered locally in 1994 as a music video show, Rhythm NATion, in Melbourne, Australia and produced live-to-tape at Jooce Nightclub in Ringwood, Victoria.

The series originally featured Lindi-Jane Hunter merely hosting collections of music videos. The first music clip played being "Chains" by Tina Arena was accompanied by an interview and the making of the video, The format soon evolved and changed to a familiar format of having kids dance to hit records, an inspiration that came from American Bandstand only modernised for the 1990's.

Upon Global Syndication, the second series had a "worldly" music feel, premiering the first music video made entirely by a computer - Tommy C's "Lessons On Love" (Sony/BMG), as well as the making of Music Videos by Paula Abdul, Quincy Jones, and DJ Bobo. The production changed its name to Turn It Up! and moved from Jooce Nightclub to OptusVisions' studio in South Melbourne, where it transformed itself to a 'music/entertainment magazine' type show, adding various new live chroma and luma-key effects to the production giving the show format a "glossy magazine" look and feel. Various Music content was also sourced by satellite and packaged into the show that was recorded live at other clubs and venues around the world.

In 1996, the program entered into a hiatus for licensing reasons. At the time, Record Companies were increasingly reticent to release content for the show as its broadcast footprint was so large that they did not have a distribution vehicle to release music content to compliment the amount of exposure that the companies received by having artists promoted on the show over a multitude of countries within a week of first showing in Australia, relegating the task to the producer to seek individual clearances to each individual act. Internet was at its infancy at the time and the process was very exhaustive, which lead to the program being shelved for an indeterminate period as the amount of content required weekly to produce the show could not immediately be cleared before going to air.

In 2009, the record industry climate has considerably changed, allowing the program to re-commence production. The internet has now become the dominant tool in music distribution around the world, allowing Record Companies to capitalise of the exposure that the "Turn It Up" vehicle conveys. The series returns to a live stage, and will broadcast its 2009 Pilot to major national and international commercial TV networks from March. The 2009 Series Pilot will be rebroadcast to over 40 countries around the world shortly thereafter.

The Music TV Series is planned to debut at the opening of the Neverland Entertainment Precinct and will utilise its stage facilities for its "live" lineup of Celebrity Performing Artists, interspersed with both live and debut content from well-known musical artists worldwide. The series will progress from a "Live to Tape" to include some episodes from time to time as "Live to Air" specials based at the Entertainment Precinct in Melbourne, Australia.

The Hosts of the 2009 series will feature well-known artists and celebrities hosting and co-hosting various segments of the show. Chidiac will again return to produce the series however Fidler will co-produce and voiceover some segments. The show will continue its successful "magazine style" presentation in a densely-packed program format and will encourage viewer participation.

Theme music
Turn It Up originally used a snippet of "Rhythm Nation" by Janet Jackson without written permission from the artist as its theme song. In its format evolution the theme song chosen for the introduction became "Bop Gun (One Nation). As the show continued to gain popularity and began broadcasting internationally, the producer had remixed a commercial release of "Push The Tempo" by Funkadelia and revamped the shows introduction entirely, stretching it out to a 1 minute "teaser" intro, now used as a popular format in many other "magazine" type TV shows.

Target Market
The show initialy marketed itself to the 18-21 year old age group in its promotion and exposure of American R&B Talent, but broadened its music selection for its international syndication to a "Hot Adult Contemporary" Format, with a slant to Established R&B Artists.

In 2009, the show will return to a familiar Hot A/C Format aimed at a broad, general english-speaking audience.

Musical Talent
The Various Artists, Highlighted, Featured, Interviewed and Guest Hosted the show included (alphabetically):

Paula Abdul, Peter Andre, Tina Arena, Boyz II Men, Brandy, Brownstone, The Corrs, Quincy Jones, CDB, Def FX, DJ Bobo, Aaron Hall, Heavy D, Ini Kamoze, Intro, Immature, Janet Jackson, Kulcha, Lisa Loeb, London Jones, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Past II Present, R. Kelly, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Renegade Funktrain, Simply Red, Teddy Riley, Salt-n-Pepa, Shai, Take 6, Tamia, This Perfect Day, Tommy C, Karyn White, Y?N-Vee

The Top Ten "Countdown"
A prominent feature of the show was its "Viewers Choice" Top 10 countdown, which was a "mash up" compilation of the most popular music made by the viewers voting for their favourite track by calling a specified phone number in their relevant state and registering their favourite song.

The "Top Ten" was removed from Series 2, but is planned to be re-added to the 2009 series currently in production, with both SMS and website voting modernising the viewer feedback that determines the Turn It Up "Top Ten" Chart. As the program expands, localised versions of the chart are planned to be inserted into regional show packages specific to the US, UK, Asia and Australia.