The Bill was broadcast on ITV under the title "Woodentop" on 16 August 1983. "Woodentop" starred Mark Wingett as PC Jim Carver and Trudie Goodwin as WPC June Ackland of London's Metropolitan Police, both attached to the fictional Sun Hill police station. Although originally only intended as a one-off, "Woodentop" impressed ITV to the extent that a full series was commissioned, first broadcast on 16 October 1984 with one post-watershed episode per week, featuring an hour-long, separate storyline for each episode of the first three series. The first episode of the full series was "Funny Ol' Business – Cops & Robbers". With
Lost television broadcast – game and variety shows, talk shows, and sports broadcasts (notably football, racing and wrestling). In the realm of so-called 'quality' programming, the ABC was far-and-away the biggest producer in this period – by June 1964, the ABC had produced 185 of the 212 plays, all 31 operas, and 90 of the 95 ballets shown on Australian TV in that period. The near-total 'colonisation' of Australian TV in this period was quantified by the 1963 Vincent Report on the Australian media, which found that 97% of television drama broadcast in Australia between 1956 and 1963 was sourced from the USA