The iconic Karl and Susan Kennedy, played by Alan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne.
Neighbours, aged 40 years, of Ramsay Street, Erinsborough, passed away on February 21, 2025, when an axe fell in Melbourne’s most trouble-prone cul-de-sac.
Born on March 18, 1985, to parents the Seven Network, Neighbours was adopted by Ten in 1986. It suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 2022. Revived by Amazon, Neighbours emerged from its coma in 2023, but tragedy struck once again.
Neighbours is survived by many friends and relatives, including the Robinsons, Kennedys, Rodwells and Varga-Murphys, one Grammy-winning pop princess, two Oscar nominees and everyone who moved to Queensland ...
Scott (Jason Donovan) and Charlene (Kylie Minogue) back on Ramsay Street for Neighbours’ 2022 finale, although it later returned.
The cancellation of Neighbours couldn’t have come at a worse moment. Just a few weeks shy of celebrating its 40th anniversary on March 15, a UK tabloid leaked the news before the cast and crew could officially be told.
Any celebration will be bittersweet now. Ten might get them a birthday cake or an interview with Angela Bishop, the last person at the network who shows any interest in TV’s longest-running Australian drama.
Compare that to EastEnders, which also celebrated its 40th milestone just last week. The BBC went Easties crazy, blowing up the Queen Vic pub and culminating in a live episode that had viewers voting on a plotline decision. There were spin-off specials such as EastEnders Sings at the BBC, two Antiques Roadshow tie-in shows and a new one-hour documentary.
Rebekah Elmaloglou, Henrietta Graham and Stefan Dennis on the set of Neighbours.
Neighbours will get nothing like that because Ten gave up on it years ago. They won’t replace it with a new local drama either, because Australian free-to-air networks are no longer required to meet any local quota points. Ten can replace it with repeats, and despite them once making groundbreaking dramas such as Number 96, Prisoner and Offspring, there will no longer be any Australian drama on the network.
Ramsay Street’s much-married Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) is Neighbours’ longest-running character. In the very first episode, back in 1985, he got drunk at a buck’s party where a stripper, Daphne (Elaine Smith), didn’t do much stripping. The Seven Network, who first aired the G-rated show, promoted it as: “Suddenly 5.30 TV isn’t kids’ programming any more.”
Being the show’s master manipulator, Paul Robinson would understand that sometimes, in business, you have to stretch the truth, and politics trumps everything. Seven axed Neighbours because it wasn’t delivering a big enough audience in Sydney for their all-important 6pm news. Ten snapped it up instead, only to be told the sets had all been “accidentally” destroyed in a fire. Hmmm, I’m pretty sure Paul Robinson said the same thing after “accidentally” burning down Lassiter’s.
The cast of Neighbours in 1989, including Stefan Dennis (far right), and Guy Pearce (back right).
Neighbours was on the verge of being axed again in 1986 until The Daily Mirror put Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan on the front page with a headline that screamed: “Teen Sex on Ten!” Only then did Neighbours slowly turn around and become a hit. Six months later, it began on British TV and eventually ended up being screened in 60 countries around the world.
Some of the most famous Neighbours graduates (clockwise, from top left): Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Delta Goodrem, Guy Pearce, Margot Robbie and Natalie Imbruglia.Credit: Matt Davidson
The phenomenal success of Neighbours led to copycat programming with rival soap Home and Away and an increase in British production. Until then, the Poms thought they were working hard by making two half-hour episodes of Coronation Street a week. When Neighbours took off thanks to five weekly episodes, Corrie and every other UK soap had to play catch-up.
Neighbour’s axing has many wondering if soaps are a dying art form. Coronation Street and Emmerdale are about to cut their six episodes a-week schedule back to just five. Hollyoaks has already shrunk from five to three instalments, and New Zealand soap Shortland Street is also down to four.
But it’s not all bad news. Behind the Gates, which premiered on February 22 in the US, is the first new daytime soap there in 25 years. They will be pumping out five hours a week, just like Days Of Our Lives, The Young and The Restless and General Hospital.
Neighbours, which was axed in 2022, returned a year later, having also reduced their output to four episodes a week. Thanks to its new international streaming model on Amazon, it was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards, and US viewers were able to have another crack at the “Aussie sudser”. They liked its huge outdoor sets and production values, but clearly, there weren’t enough of them to keep the show going.
The biggest audience for Neighbours has always been in the UK, but Channel 5 axed the show so its production money could be redistributed into new British drama. Commissioner Greg Barnett stressed at the time that: “This isn’t a series that is being axed because of poor ratings or performance.”
Mike Young (Guy Pearce) returns to Ramsay Street.
Now, it has fallen victim to media machinations again. Neighbours: A New Chapter began on Amazon Freevee, only to get shunted off to Amazon Prime when Freevee bit the dust. Tellingly, those Amazon executives who commissioned the show no longer work at the company, which shelled out $US1 billion last week to secure the rights to James Bond. Poor old Ramsay Street was never going to survive being in the crosshairs of 007.
So, despite Neighbours being in the top three shows watched every weekday on Amazon Prime UK, it’s going. Can it come back from the dead again, just like Harold Bishop (Ian Smith), who was swept out to sea in ridiculously calm waters, only to emerge years later working at the Salvos?
The answer is, never say never. Nobody expected Neighbours to return just one year after its pitch-perfect finale in 2022 when 4 million viewers in the UK and Australia watched Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, and Guy Pearce take one last stroll down Ramsay Street.
Neighbours’ audience might be minuscule in Australia (about 200,000 each episode), but us local fans are as loyal as the UK base. For those of you who couldn’t care less about it, at least consider this. Neighbours might still be daggy and cheesy, but it has moved with the times over the last 40 years. Don’t hold your breath for any biracial or queer families in Home and Away.
Let’s also have a conversation about what this means for the Australian TV industry. Neighbours has been an incredible training ground for numerous cast and crew. Where will the next Margot Robbie learn her craft, and will governments ever introduce new quotas for Australian stories on TV?
RIP Neighbours (or is it just in a coma again?).
Neighbours airs Monday to Thursday 4pm on 10 and 10 Play and 6.30pm on 10 Peach. It also streams on Amazon Prime Video. Its final episodes are expected to air in December.
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