Heartbreak High

Heartbreak High was a popular Australian television programme that ran for five years, through seven seasons from 1994 to 1999 on both Network Ten and ABC. The programme dealt with the students of the fictional Hartley High (replaced by Hartley Heights from season 5 onwards), a tough high school in a multiracial area of Sydney, and proved to be a more gritty and fast-paced show than many of its contemporaries. It was a spin-off of the 1993 Australian feature film The Heartbreak Kid which had featured Alex Dimitriades and Claudia Karvan. However, in later series the show shifted emphasis away from the school setting and the Poulos family to the students' homes and hangout - the Shark Pool.

Transmission

The programme was transmitted by Network Ten between 1994 and 1996, and by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation between 1997 and 1999. It also was successful in sales internationally and was broadcast in over twenty countries in Asia, Europe, North and South America. After the sixth series the Australian Broadcasting Corporation axed the show as selling another series to foreign TV stations proved increasingly difficult. The BBC had no interest in buying an additional series; due to scheduling delays a backlog of episodes had built up, and the programme was forced to wrap up production.