| Home and Away was first broadcast on the Seven Network in Australia on January 16, 1988. It premiered as a telemovie and ever since, it has stayed on air on the network, making it the second longest running show in Australian history.
The show is based around the residents of Summer Bay, an Australian coastal town in New South Wales. It was Alan Bateman, the head of Network Seven drama at the time, who created the idea of the show, after visiting the country where he saw a foster home being built. The beach scenes are filmed in the coastal town of Palm Beach on Sydney's Northern Beaches in NSW.
The show is screened in over 45 countries throughout the world, with audiences of well over 60 million viewers nightly. In Australia, Network Seven still has the show in prime time, at 7:00 pm each weeknight. During the time it has been on air, it has won the Logie Award for Most Popular Series eight years, including four times in a row between 1993 - 1996.
The show has been such a long-running and successful show that on March 9, 2001, the show celebrated it's 3000th episode going to air. A huge party was held to celebrate, and a special presentation on the Hot30.Com countdown was broadcast right around Australia on the Austereo Network. | 
