Rage (TV program)
Rage is an all-night Australian music video program broadcast on ABC TV on Friday and Saturday nights. It was first screened in April 1987. It is Australia's most popular and highly respected music video show.
It starts anywhere between 11pm and 1am and finishes between 11am to 12pm on Saturdays and at 6.30am on Sundays. On Friday it plays new and recent releases. On Saturday it has specials and often has guest programmers, including local and international personalities from the music industry. Sometimes these specials/guest programmers run long and cut short the top fifty, however if they run short (which has rarely happened, especially in recent years), they will repeat clips from the previous night's show.
| Genres | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organisations | |||||
| Awards |
| ||||
| Charts | |||||
| Festivals |
| ||||
| Media | |||||
| National anthem | |||||
| Cities and regions | |||||
| |||||
Rage has a very good reputation among viewers for its minimalist format which has remained largely unchanged for almost two decades. The only time a human is delivering dialogue to the camera is when guest programmers appear on the Saturday night edition. Otherwise, the videos are run end-to-end with the occasional quick branding clip or the rage logo accompanied by a voice that simply says "rage" to break them up. The titling on the videos is also very simple and no other logos or watermarks appear over the clip. Rage is a bonanza to anyone wishing to record music video clips.
Similar to the Triple J radio station, Rage tends to play more alternative music and other non-mainstream genres than its commercial counterpart(s) during the early hours of the morning. The specials on the Saturday night editions vary over time. Often it's a simple dedication to an established artist by showing a large amount of their work. These types of specials are a gold mine for any fan wishing to record video clips, although this practice has largely become irrelevant as music DVDs have appeared. As an example of the other types of specials shown, in early 2004 edited highlights from Countdown (from the 70's and 80's) and Recovery (from the 90's) were shown over many weeks. Due to its huge timeslot Rage can devote the air-time to show such large amounts of material.
Top Fifty
From around 7am to 10am on Saturday mornings and 4am to the end of show on Sundays it switches to the weekly top fifty from the ARIA singles chart. If a video from the top fifty is unavailable, unsuitable or non-existent, it will be replaced by a splash screen of the Rage logo and the charting position and the title and artist. Also, the videos shown up to 6am are uncensored (if they are available in that form). This arrangement is sometimes used to show two different video clips for the same song in the one session. When this happens it is often a live (or sometimes remixed) version that is shown earlier in the night/morning, while the "mainstream" censored version is shown in the top fifty due to classification laws in Australia which prevent adult oriented material being shown in its particular timeslot.
Rage has had to censor and remove videos which breach advertorial and editorial guidelines for ABC TV, for example in 1991 Adidas logos were blurred out in a music video by New Kids On The Block and in 2005 a music video by the Bratz Rock Angelz was removed due to its advertorial content. Post year 2000 Rage is more liberal and leniant with censorship compared to the 90's. For example, Rage by their own discretion opted to broadcast the Crazy Frog music video "Axel F" uncensored, showing the exposed penis of the frog, deeming it non-offensive.
From 2005 the Top Fifty was added to the ABC2 Digital channel programming schedule as well from 8am to 11am. The Top Fifty is also broadcast to Asia on ABC Asia Pacific and has a large cult audience in Asian countries due to the prevalence of pop music there.
Guest Programmers
Rage have had many bands and artists host the show on Saturday nights. They select and introduce their favourite music videos of all time. This gives an insight into the bands and artists influences which are highly regarded by fans. Tapings of Rage guest programmers are not only valuable but highly sought after too. Rage has had several artists host the show over its vast history, including the likes of:
Simulcast
Since Rage's inception, Triple J has simulcast Rage from 1am up until 6am. This ended in 2003 when Triple J introduced their new dance show The Club in the same timeslot.
Theme Song
The theme song used to open the show is sampled from Iggy Pop's "Real Wild Child", with Pop's vocals and the word rage manipulated backwards throughout.
The song used during the closing credits of the show is "Speed Your Love to Me" by Simple Minds.
Several years ago, a third theme was produced (also based on Iggy Pop's "Wild Child") to break up the guest programmer or special on Saturday nights.
In the last few years the show has been using another theme specifically for the for top fifty - sampled from the song "She Said" by now-defunct Brisbane band Lavish. It is now used instead of the opening theme to begin the top fifty and replace any missing clips.
During TISMs appearance on the show, they described the theme as "new and exciting" and its repetition as "always stimulating.. why see different songs when you can see this one four or five times"
Day of broadcast
Due to the fact that the show usually starts on one day and ends on the next, it is often unclear which day the show belongs to. The producers have decided that even if it begins after midnight, it belongs to the earlier day (Friday or Saturday) even though the majority of the show (if not all) will be on the later day. This is most likely because television guides in Australia start and end each day at 6am.
External links
- Rage official website
- ABC Broadband (Includes rage videos on demand)