In September 1992, Nine Network aired Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos, a programme so apparently objectionable that it was pulled off the air 24 minutes into its 60 minute run. Why was it ever made in the first place, and why was the plug pulled after they'd already made it?

I suspect others have had a crack at responding to this and been removed, but I'll see if I can provide some sourced material, since I've always loved this story.

The important background you need to know here is that Nine Network was owned and controlled at the time by the media baron Kerry Packer. The Packers (Kerry, his father Sir Frank and his father Robert Clyde - widely known as R.C.) at the time were an Australian media dynasty in the same vein as the Murdochs (Rupert and his father Sir Keith) and the Fairfax family. [1]

The Packers originally owned prominent newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne and from there accumulated wealth in both media and other ventures (particularly the Crown Casino chain). Through the middle of the 20th century these projects were quite lucrative and propelled the Packers to wealth and prominence.

Kerry Packer particularly was renowned for being a bombastic and intimidating character. In a famous episode in 1991, he was brought before the Australian House of Representatives Select Committee on Print Media to account for his bid to buy competing Fairfax Media (threatening to violate media ownership laws)[2]:

He overwhelmed the MPs’ questioning by both fair means and foul, simply ruling some areas out of bounds, for example, and sometimes treating the elected representatives with contempt.

“Packer was not just frightening, he was frighteningly smart,” writes Paul Barry. “As a public performer he was quite breathtaking.” [3]

As now former-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (who worked for Packer for a time) said:

"There is a tendency to see Kerry as a mono-dimensional raging tyrant, the great Citizen Kane type of press baron, always pounding the desk and hurling abuse at minions" [4]

All this information effectively sets up the events of Thursday 3 September 1992, when around 9pm, the only episode of Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos (ANHV) went to air on Channel 9. Packer was known for micromanagement of his television channel when programming went to air, but having grown up in print journalism, it's unlikely he was well involved in the production phases. [5]

The show was a one-off twist on Australia's Funniest Home Videos (a common format in the '90s) and consisted of video content submitted by ordinary people, as with other Funniest Home Videos episodes, but with a generally sexual flavour; awkward animal genitalia moments, flaming toilet rolls between buttocks, accidental bare breasts [6]. It had been approved by Channel 9's censor at the time and so was clear to air from a management and regulatory stand point.

But when it did go to air, Packer was dining at his home in Sydney and was watching. He was outraged by the content, called the broadcast station directly (where they had a special red phone to take his calls), and famously shouted at the technician who picked up, "Get that shit off the air!".

As a result, Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos never returned from the ad break. Viewers were instead greeted by a repeat of Cheers. There was no explanation given as to the change in programming at the time.

Although this was a historic (and never repeated) moment in Australian television history, the fallout was not actually that great. When it had gone to air, ANHV had only received about 60 complaints, but when the story of Packer's intervention was later propagated, over 600 complaints were received by Nine Media.

The offending episode of ANHV was actually broadcast in full 17 years later by Channel 9 in August 2008, with a joke about technical difficulties and Cheers credits inserted in the middle. All the original clips were aired, with the only changes being the removal of some of the presenter's jokes about overweight children, ironically being the content that didn't comply with 2008's media standards rules.

Packer was a very colourful character, and there are numerous other anecdotes about his temperament and behaviours (as well as a body of works from books to TV miniseries documenting his life). The story about ANHV is as much about him and the Australian TV/print media mogul age as about television or Nine Media.

While I know Wikipedia is not accepted as a source in /r/AskHistorians, I do recommend the Wikipedia article on this particular event as a good consolidated starting point for more information; unfortunately a behind-closed-doors event like this has to be reconstructed from a constellation of anecdotes.

[1]: History of Nine media

[2]: Kerry Packer addressing the House of Representatives Select Committee on Print Media

[3]: How Packer slipped on Fairfax, with help from Malcolm Turnbull

[4]: ABC Australian Story article on Kerry Packer

[5]: The moment Kerry Packer blew his stack

[6]: 23 years ago, 'Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos' was cancelled during its first episode