Longest Running Drama Series - Neighbours
Date of Record: 18/03/1985

Neighbours was first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show focusing on real life families, showing adults and teenagers talking openly and solving their problems together.
Although successful in Melbourne, the show underperformed in the Sydney market and struggled for months before Seven cancelled it.
The show was immediately bought by rival network Ten.  New sets were built then Ten began screening it on 20 January 1986, picking up from where the previous series left off, commencing with episode 171.
Neighbours has since become the longest running drama series in Australian television and in 2005, it was inducted collectively into the Logie Hall of Fame. On 11 January 2011, Neighbours moved to Ten's new digital channel, Eleven.
The show's storylines concern the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in Erinsborough, a fictional suburb of Melbourne.
The series primarily centres around the residents of Ramsay Street, and began with three families created by Watson – the Ramsays, the Robinsons and the Clarkes. The neighbouring areas are the Lassiters complex, which includes a bar, hotel, cafe, news office and park.
Pin Oak Court, in Vermont South, is the real cul-de-sac that has doubled for Ramsay Street since 1985. All of the houses featured are real and the residents allow Neighbours to shoot external scenes in their gardens. The interior scenes are filmed at the Global Television studios in Forest Hill.
Through its entire run in Australia, Neighbours has been screened as a twenty-two minute episode each week night in an early-evening slot.
The show is produced by FremantleMedia and has been sold to over fifty countries around the world, making it one of Australia's most successful media exports. Neighbours has proved to be more popular in the United Kingdom and was once the highest-rated daytime programme in the country, outside of news bulletins.