{"id":821078,"date":"2026-07-24T15:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821078\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T15:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T15:04:16","slug":"friday-flashback-terence-donovan-tv-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821078\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Flashback: Terence Donovan | TV Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tCheck out the subtle newspaper headline in a Division 4 episode, from actors with a not-so-subtle cause.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The late Terence Donovan was one of several advocacy actors who rallied to Make it Australian in the 1970s, by carrying a coffin through Melbourne streets<\/a> representing the future of local drama unless quotas were put in place by the Whitlam government.<\/p>\n

He was joined by Ted Hamilton, who was instrumental in its staging, Gerard Kennedy, Patsy King, Chuck Faulkner, Gary Day and more. It was a pioneering protest which continues to this day, given recent industry moves to seek the same from streaming platforms. Their chief target was Doug McClelland, the minister for a newly-created Media portfolio.<\/p>\n

But it came at a personal price too, seen to be biting the hand that feeds them.<\/p>\n

TV executives were aghast that actors from Crawfords cop shows had protested. Suspiciously -or not- \u00a0Homicide, Division 4\u00a0and\u00a0Matlock Pollice were all axed within a few months of each other.<\/p>\n

Check out this image from a Division 4 episode with Terry Donovan\u2019s character Sen. Det. Mick Peters reading a newspaper headline reads \u201cTV Unions Torpedo McLelland.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end the government did enforce strict quotas. Thanks Terry.<\/p>\n

Source: Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Check out the subtle newspaper headline in a Division 4 episode, from actors with a not-so-subtle cause. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-821078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}