International
Blue Heelers had a strong following not only in Australia but also worldwide; it has been sold to 108 territories and is shown in over 70 countries.
In New Zealand Blue Heelers screened on TV One in a popular timeslot. However, following the on-screen death of Maggie Doyle, ratings fell, and the show was moved to a 9:30 pm slot on Friday. Following that, the show moved to a late night Thursday slot where the rest of the episodes played out, with the show beginning anywhere between 11:30 pm and midnight. It aired its final episode on TV One on 20 March 2008.
Debuted on RTÉ on 15 September 1995, initially airing every Friday afternoon at 4:30pm. In 1998, the show moved to a late night slot on RTÉ2, typically airing around 1:00am on Thursdays.
Season 5 premiered in September 2001, and was promoted to weekday mornings at 10:30am on RTÉ One. With five episodes airing per week, the Irish broadcast quickly caught up with the Australian schedule. As a result, in 2004, RTÉ reduced its output to a single weekly episode, which aired late on Thursday nights, usually around 1:00am.
RTÉ began broadcasting the final season on 30 May 2008 in a late-night Saturday slot, with the series finale airing on 30 November 2008.
On 24 June 2009, RTÉ began re-airing Blue Heelers from the beginning, typically in a very early Sunday morning slot around 4:00am.
RTÉ screened all episodes in their original unedited state. The drama proved very popular in Ireland and rated very well.
Blue Heelers aired briefly in the United States of America in the early 2000s on the short-lived cable channel Trio (carried primarily by DirecTV). No episode after number 76 was ever shown in the United States, and when Trio changed their programming in 2004, Blue Heelers was dropped from the schedule. The series returned to US airwaves in September 2021 on the new digital network DigiTV, a channel devoted mainly to imported British and Australian series.
Blue Heelers was broadcast on Showcase in Canada, last airing on 15 May 1998.
In the United Kingdom, Blue Heelers was broadcast on most of the regional franchises of the ITV Network. At least ten out of the fourteen regional companies that formed ITV aired the first few years of the series and most initially broadcast it in the original hour-long format during the afternoon (with necessary edits to suit the time slot, usually regarding profanity). Some ITV regions edited each episode into two half-hour editions, and stripped these episodes across two or three days. This half-hour format of broadcasting Australian series was well established by ITV with A Country Practice. Very early hour-long episodes of Blue Heelers also ran unedited later in the evening, around midnight, on both Central and UTV.
Carlton Television and Westcountry Television were the first to broadcast Blue Heelers, and they began with three half-hour weekly episodes, Monday to Wednesday, 14:20-14:50, starting from 3 January 1995. Later in the year, they then switched to airing hour-long episodes, 14:20-15:20, on Mondays. Central Television were next to start in February 1995 with a late night 23.40-00:35 slot on Tuesdays, before following Carlton with the half-hour 14.20-14:50 slot on Mondays and Tuesdays from March. Central also reverted to hour long episodes in 1996, usually on Monday and Friday, 14:20-15:15, but went back down to one hourly episode per week in 1997, on Mondays, 13:50-14:45, as the gap with Australian broadcasts narrowed. By 2000, half-hour editions were being aired again, 13:30-14:00, but now on Tuesday and Wednesday. Central were one of the most consistent ITV regions to broadcast Blue Heelers, completing series 6 by summer 2001. The final batch of episodes shown in these regions were from Season 7. Westcountry and Central started to screened this series as hour long episodes each Friday 14:10-15:10 during the summer 2002, before reverting back to the half hour format during the autumn. Carlton kept the half-hour episodes screening the series in half-hour in the autumn, and finishing the season 7 on Wednesday, 20 November 2002 (Australian air date: 22 November 2000).
Blue Heelers also aired on Anglia Television, Meridian Television and Channel Television, typically Mondays at 14:20-15:15. During the summer school holidays, it was broadcast daily in a morning slot, usually from 11:05, until late 1998. Granada Television and Border Television also screened the series from 1995 in the hour long format but by 1998, these regions had dropped the series. Ulster Television (UTV) began airing Blue Heelers in early 1995. The show initially screened 3 times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons at 13:50, later moving to 14:20. UTV aired several episodes late night, around 11:40pm on Wednesdays or Thursdays during July 1997, as their content was deemed unsuitable for daytime viewing. UTV cancelled Blue Heelers in 1998.
Scottish Television began aired hour-long episodes from January 1995, airing on Fridays, Then Tuesday from May until Xmas 1995, the series was dropped as there was no room do to network programmes, 2 editions went out in 1996, the series returned on 9 January 1998 on Fridays until the end of march, then reappeared on 3rd Oct with Eps65 until 19 December. During 1999 From April until early August the series was broadcast at 04.30 most weekday morning before being dropped completely.
Grampian Television, HTV, Yorkshire Television, and Tyne Tees Television all chose not to purchase Blue Heelers, opting for locally made programming instead.
When the English ITV contractors reformatted as one company in late 2002, regionally-run programmes such as Blue Heelers and Shortland Street (which were at different points of the series in each region) disappeared from the schedules. No ITV region ever screened the series in full. Blue Heelers also aired on an early UK digital and cable channel, Carlton Select, in the late 1990s. Early episodes aired daily, and then in a weekly slot on Fridays at 20.00 as episodes became more recent. Episodes to the later part of the 1997 season were shown before the series was dropped, along with the entire channel shortly afterwards.
