The Final Hour

The Final Hour was a cooking-related TV series featuring Sam and Lyn and in a few episodes in 2018, The Final Hour featured Ricky who served as a guest member. From July 2018 until September 2020, the show was livestreamed. The Final Hour remains the last show broadcasted on Sam Wilkes Radio TV, Neon Entertainment and Austin Network.

The majority of the show focuses on numerous topics regarding real life activities. As of 2020, Sam Wilkes Jr. and Lynette Tyler were the last co-hosts. Sam Wilkes Sr. hosts The Final Hour during this tough limbo time. The Final Hour came to an end on 22 September 2020.

In 2023, he announced in an interview that some aspects from The Final Hour (along with Shopping Spree) were introduced in to Island Life back in 2020 - 2022.

### Characters

***Final host:***

*Sam Wilkes Sr. (April 2020 - September 2020)*

***Former co-hosts:***

***Sam Wilkes Holahan (December 2016 - December 2017)***

***Lyn Drummond (December 2016 - July 2019, January 2020 - March 2020)***

*Jake (December 2017 - February 2018)*

*Sam Wilkes Jr. (March 2018 - April 2020)*

***Special Guests:***

*Ricky (2018)*

*John (2020)*

## History of The Final Hour (Pre-launch)

#### 2014

The Final Hour has pre-launch history as far back as 2014. Production was to commence in 2014 but was delayed for an additional two years.

In 2014, there was 2 attempts made to launch The Final Hour but because the technology for the show was not readily available for the show, and the existing cameras were in use by other shows, including The School Days, the launch was delayed to September 2014. Another attempt was made later in September 2014 but the production team had quoted the show as "not ready" just yet as the demanding technology required for the show was still under construction and that the cameras used for The School Days would not meet the requirements for The Final Hour (The Final Hour needed 1080p resolution & 60FPS). In addition, The Final Hour was originally to focus on gameplay of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (retained this format up until 2015).

#### 2015

In January 2015, Sam had entered in to talks with the Sam's Seven Department about starting The Final Hour. The team announced that recording will commence in February 2015, but because of delays, the show did not commence broadcasting. It was later revealed in May 2015 that the Sam's Seven Department was being bought out by Sam Wilkes Radio. This put the delay of the show in to the end of 2015. In December 2015, new plans and discussions were underway. The demanding technology for the show was "underway" and had stated that by July 2016, it would be ready but another set of high quality cameras were ready but were in use for The School Days House, after the show was approved back in September 2015 (The School Days House was in 1440p & 60FPS/2160p (4K) & 30fps) (The Final Hour was expected to be filmed in 1440p @ 30FPS at the end of 2015). A different format was also suggested but was later scrapped.

#### 2016

Throughout 2016, Sam had been constantly updated on the progress of when the show can commence filming. Sam also left school early to help Lyn with his dinner on Wednesdays.

In May 2016, Sam had changed the expectations to film the show in 1440p at 60FPS.

In June 2016, Sam had announced that he is ready to begin the recordings of The Final Hour. However, further delays had occurred because of The School Days House causing further delays as the high demand cameras were in use for The School Days House and trials for the second set of TV cameras. In August, the TV cameras were being trialled and half the TV cameras were buggy and had problems. So, in October, the affected TV cameras were fixed and were trialled for November. Halfway in November, Sam graduated high school and announced that he can work on The Final Hour full-time by 20 November 2016.

## History (Launch and Post-launch)

#### 2016

At the end of November, Sam had begun talks with Sam Wilkes Radio Network and they had announced that the TV cameras were finally ready for The Final Hour. In addition, Sam announced a new format that remains in The Final Hour up until around 2019. He had agreed that filming will commence in January 2017, although the first episode began filming in December 2016, which drew in about 32% of all viewers of the show compared to January 2020. The Final Hour was originally filmed in 720p at 75fps.

#### 2017

In January 2017, the show began broadcasting the show twice a week ultimately. The broadcasting quality changed to 1080p @ 60FPS in mid-2017. In June 2017, in response to Sam's 19th birthday, the show began a livestream which Sam later authorized on 18 June and began a live broadcast feed and announcing to TV viewers to follow the livestream. He later started a new livestream feed after the other stream shut down after Sam Wilkes Radio Network announced to the streamer to take down the "illegal livestream broadcast". Sam later announced to Sam Wilkes Radio Network that the original stream was approved in June 2017, stating that "livestreaming is an option I'll consider in the future as most would rather view the show whenever they want, not when its convenient to broadcast on TV". The network apologized for the misunderstanding, however the streamer has not re-commenced livestreaming The Final Hour up until July 2018, however says that he will provide livestreaming by then, when the show is taken off the air ultimately. In November, the show had a livestream available at that point. However, by July 2018, the streamer has decided to continue livestreaming this show as Sam made a livestream port available to this livestreamer. He continued livestreaming episodes on 8 July 2018. This livestream feed serves well over 3.7 million viewers each episode. The livestreams slowed down by March 2020 and he did not livestream the anniversary special in 2022. It was announced in 2023 by his team that he discontinued livestreaming The Final Hour after it had moved to Russell Island, stating that livestreaming the program was no longer of any interest to them.

By November 2017, Sam Wilkes Holahan has said that he will depart at the end of 2017 following a decision to close his PawPatrolFan International Studio. On 27 December 2017, Sam made his final appearance as a co-host on episode 100 of the show, although completely unwell, exhausted and tired. Sam's parting gift on The Final Hour was to stream in 1440p @ 60fps. He later announced in 2019 that he wasn't sleeping well at night at the time that he broadcasted episode 100.

#### 2018

In March 2018, as Jake's parting gift, two new livestreams were made available and an old one was deleted. All archived episodes were moved to the two new livestreams.

In April 2018, Sam Jr. (Sam Wilkes Holahan's son) had announced that in the coming weeks, he will ultimately stream the livestream in 4K resolution at 30fps but says that he will try for 60fps in some parts and 45fps in other parts. He also announced that in 2022 (if the show continues at that point) he will try for 8K at 60fps, although he said to flick back on that and trial 8K in September 2019 and around 2022, he will trial Holocam quality for livestreaming before Austin returns to the show in 2023 (see 2019 since there have been updates for this).

In June 2018, Sam Jr. had finally announced that the show will ultimately move to livestreaming after 1 July 2018. On 17 June 2018, Sam Wilkes Holahan made his special appearance on this show and announce all the birthday and farewell cards he got from all the staff that were around at the time of Sam's leadership between 2015 and 2018. Also, Sam Wilkes Jr. was appointed as the new co-host with the remaining original co-host Lyn Drummond. In July 2018, Sam Jr. had announced a new guest was going to be added to the show. The guest is named Ricky. He joined as a guest on 25 July 2018. Despite Sam Wilkes Holahan's departure, Sam Wilkes Jr. had announced that his father, now named Austin, made his final ever appearance in December 2018, to farewell everyone. Austin has announced that he may return to The Final Hour in 2023, after his son departs for Friendly Falls. In December, Sam announced off-air that he is considering extending the stream time to 1 hour which was the original duration airtime of the show back in early 2017. In addition, Ricky was no longer part of the show since he moved away.

#### 2019

The extension to the stream time has now been delayed to later in 2019, for personal reasons. On 27 January 2019, Sam Wilkes Radio Network had decided to sell The Final Hour to the Austin Network for an undisclosed amount. Transactions began on 28 January 2019 and the Austin Network won the rights to The Final Hour branding by the afternoon. This included a new logo debut to replace the Neon Entertainment logo with the new Austin Network logo. After the acquisition, Sam Wilkes Jr. has decided to flick back on the extension to the stream time and had announced that the livestream will not be seeing any time extensions, leaving it to become the current 30 minute format. In April 2019, Sam Wilkes Jr. was robbed. Despite this, The Final Hour was more lucky than Shopping Spree and Tuesdays with Sam & Lyn as The Final Hour is filmed indoors. The Final Hour will be one of the only three TV shows to continue. Unfortunately, there was no livestream episode of The Final Hour on June 9, 2019, due to a disagreement. An episode will broadcast on 12 June, where Sam Wilkes Jr. will provide an answer as to why there really wasn't an episode to broadcast. In July 2019, Lynette Tyler left the show and filed a lawsuit that was later settled out of court and Tyler was released from her contract. Lyn was removed permanently just before the 3rd anniversary episode on July 21 was set to livestream. Because of this, Sam Wilkes Jr. will be the only host remaining. There are no traces of any original hosts from this point on, mainly from the change of crew in July 2018. Sam Wilkes Jr. has decided to scrap the resolution changes plans since some of them are deemed almost impossible. He will livestream in 8K resolution by the end of 2019 but Holocam cameras have been removed from the list since he deems this camera is "almost impossible to claim" at this time. However by September, he decided to delay 8K resolution recording until 2020. In October, Sam Wilkes Jr. began recording The Final Hour in 8K resolution. He will phase out the Full HD Video Cameras in June 2020 but livestreaming viewers will have the ability to downgrade the 8K and 4K resolution to 1080p or lower if they desire.

#### 2020

On January 1, a new logo was revealed, replacing The Final Hour logo in use since 2017. The 2017 logo had gone through subtle changes in July 2018, February 2019 and July 2019. Sam Wilkes Jr. had decided that the show focus on "time" rather than anything else. During his 2 week movie shoot which was his last in North Queensland, three in-program episodes of The Final Hour were broadcast during the exclusive movie shooting angles of Psycho Dad: The Movie 6. These episodes broadcasted 9. 11 and 14 January 2020. Normal episodes returned to livestreaming on 15 January 2020. 19 January sees the return of the surviving original co-host Lynette back on the show. An episode was not livestreamed on 7 February 2020 for an unknown reason but it was announced that The Final Hour will livestream on selected Fridays. In the early hours of 4 March, after Sam Wilkes Jr. was diagnosed with cancer and Lynette suffering a stroke, Sam Wilkes Jr. had announced that The Final Hour will end immediately, citing concerns for both himself and Lyn.

Later in March, Sam Wilkes Jr. had expressed interest on creating a new continuation series of The Final Hour. It is unknown when this show will broadcast as Sam Wilkes Jr. is leaving for the United States at the end of March but later extended his stay until the end of May or June 2020. Soon after, Sam Wilkes Jr. continued The Final Hour on a "short-term" basis. The Final Hour had been revived by Wilkes Jr. a few times on a temporary basis throughout March, April and by Wilkes Sr. in May. On 27 May, Sam Wilkes Sr. has placed The Final Hour on an indefinite hiatus until June 4, 2020 when Sam Wilkes Sr. brought it back up again moving the show to the Moreton Bay Islands, ending the 3.5 year long run at Woodridge. As a consequence of the move, Sam's VIP Office was no longer listed as a sponsor and Austin Network would continue as a sole sponsor of the show for the remainder of the program's run, which lasted until September. The third-party livestream also came to an end as it was no longer of interest for the team. All 400 episodes have been broadcasted/livestreamed. As of September 22, no new episodes are coming. Up until January 12, all users have the chance to download all archived episodes, after which the videos will be deleted on all livestream websites. Archived episode livestreams still remained online after the deadline, giving the viewers more time to find a way to download the episodes. On January 12, 2021, all livestreamed episodes were deleted by the site owners, marking the end of The Final Hour after four years. Sadly, no-one was able to download any episodes of the show.

There was another livestream program that replaced The Final Hour but because of slumped ratings, the new series was cancelled after two episodes, this livestreamed series was also deleted and no users have downloaded either episode. Since then, there have no new replacements but despite this, The Final Hour still broadcast episode anniversary specials, with the belated 5th anniversary in January 2022 and the upcoming 10th anniversary expected in December 2026 with no further specials to come. In 2022, Island Life recycled some aspects of The Final Hour on to the program though Island Life is stated to retain it's vlogging status.

#### Future & Special Anniversaries

In 2021, Wilkes Sr. has hinted that The Final Hour may return in the future. In January 2022, he teased that The Final Hour could return but has made no further announcements about the series since then. A special episode celebrating the belated 5th anniversary livestreamed in January 11, 2022. The next one will be in December 2026. There are no further specials to be made past 2026 as Wilkes Sr. has stated that he will be living a quiet life away from the spotlight from November 2025 onwards, with the exception of YouTube updates from time to time.

## Renewals

The Final Hour brought in a large viewership halfway through Season 1, that a second season renewal was necessary, which was approved in May 2017. Ratings suffered terribly near the second season finale, but because of brilliant ratings throughout Season 2 that in November, The Final Hour could do with a third season renewal. Sam Wilkes Holahan's final episode was the lowest-rated and the highest viewed episode as it shows multitudes of clips of him during his time on The Final Hour as an original co-host. Jake replaced Sam on the show starting episode 101. This change was short-lived as Jake was replaced by Sam's son known as Sam Wilkes Jr. in March. Under Sam Wilkes Jr. leadership, The Final Hour was renewed for a 4th season, although this will be the final season that will ultimately broadcast on TV as this show continues moving to its livestreaming platform. A 5th season renewal was confirmed on October 1, 2018, a month earlier than expected in November 2018. However, unlike the previous seasons, the show is solely focusing on Sam Jr. and Lyn before Sam Jr. has his dinner, instead of focusing on stirring dinner as its main highlight. He later announced that the new format was not suiting him and he decides that the current format will remain for the fifth season. The fifth season however did see its move to its new format majorly focusing on Sam Jr. and Lynette. This was the first time that a new format was introduced since its introduction in 2016. The Final Hour, Shopping Spree and The Breakfast Show were all renewed for another season. In May 2019, The Final Hour has been renewed for Season 6. Shopping Spree had unfortunately finished broadcasting in June 2019, mainly because of an incident with Woolworths. A new format was also launched, replacing the short-lived format they had set up in early 2019. In September 2019, The Final Hour was renewed for the 7th & 8th season, which will continue to air until 2020. Renewals beyond this point did not happen and episodes already ordered were accepted and honoured. In March, Sam Wilkes Jr. had planned to livestream the remaining ordered episodes of the seventh and eighth season while Lyn is in hospital. The seventh season was planning to finish 15 May 2020 but was delayed a number of times, eventually ending the seventh season on June 8. Additional episodes aired during this time. The show was then on hiatus for a short time until it was moved to the Moreton Bay Islands in June 2020, The Final Hour was earmarked for an 8th season in 2019 although in 2020, The Final Hour may not have a possible future. On 4 September, it was announced that the eighth season will be its last season, with the final episode livestreamed 22 September 2020, ending The Final Hour after 8 seasons and 400 episodes. Had it been renewed, The Final Hour would have lasted to 2022 but Wilkes Sr. said that ending it after Season 8 was a better decision at the time.

## New Host

In late December, Sam had announced that he would be leaving the show to pursue a career with Paw Patrol. A new host had to be assigned in the next few days. Sam had decided to bring a long-time friend who had viewing experience of the show to take over the show while Sam is away with Paw Patrol. The new host confirmed his name was Jake and took over in Sam's absence. The sudden change was fast. Sam left the show with a pre-recorded message shown at the start of episode 101, which broadcasted 31st December 2017. He passed away two years later in August.

## Demise and Relaunch and 2020 Permanent Ending

On 30th January 2018, the ratings had done so well but when Lyn's back broke, the network had also decided to cancel the show at this time, to prevent a second crash in to debt and planned to properly farewell the show with a best moments package provided by Jake, a temporary co-host of The Final Hour. Although The Final Hour was no longer broadcasting on the TV airwaves, the show relaunched online. The show livestreams on PAW Patrol channel and on The Final Hour official website, although the show is making a return on Neon Entertainment as the owner had called up the network and the network had apologized on their behalf, stating the mistake was "accidental" but decided to relaunch the show back on Sunday 4th February 2018, along with 2 additional internet broadcasts. In March 2020, Sam Wilkes Jr. described the future of The Final Hour as "Doomed". He cancelled The Final Hour on March 3 before temporarily reviving it later in March. In April 2020, Sam Wilkes Sr. has announced The Final Hour is done permanently. Sam Wilkes Sr. had then ended The Final Hour on 22 April 2020, ending The Final Hour after three years and 3 months. It was six days short of three years and 4 months.

## 2nd Demise - The End

Because of Sam's finances going down the drain and losing his celebrity spotlight, he has decided to end The Final Hour, as well as Shopping Spree and Fortnight Brunch on July 1, 2018. The final episode of The Final Hour will broadcast on 1 July 2018. At this time, the show had gone under an administration license, as did Shopping Spree and Fortnight Brunch (although Fortnight Brunch was least affected by this announcement). Fortnight Brunch is now known as Tuesdays with Sam & Lyn.

Sam's son Sam Wilkes Jr. has announced The Final Hour will not renew its TV license and will move to livestreaming instead. This announcement was officially made on The Final Hour via Livestreaming and TV on 3 June 2018. On 4 July 2018, the show will solely livestream instead of livestreaming first then broadcasting. Sam also announces that the majority of viewership of this show is through livestreaming with almost 80% of all viewers accessing the livestream as of 27 May 2018. Another 7% will be accessing the livestreaming by June 27 while an additional 3% will view on livestreaming by 4 July, which will bring the viewership to about 87% on to livestreaming. Thanks to newly installed transmitters, the livestream viewership will increase from 75% to 99%, about 97% of all viewers will be ready to view The Final Hour livestreams by the time the show moves to its livestreaming platforms. This means The Final Hour will cease broadcasting on TV after 1 July 2018 because the TV license for The Final Hour will not be renewed. The actual viewership was around 96-97% of all TV viewers viewing the show through its livestream ports on July 4, about 8% viewed the livestream through Sam's unlisted authorized livestream, Sam has mentioned that this livestream port was offered to someone that was formerly livestreaming the show in June 2017. Sam has announced that the move to livestream was a great move to make.

95% of all viewers have given positive feedback in to the move to livestreaming, with some saying that it was time to move it in to livestreaming, stating that this is the first ever TV series to do so.

## Logos

In 2016, as part of Sam Wilkes Radio TV Network, this show launched under the Sam Wilkes Radio logo also used in TV (2015 - 2017) and radio (2014 - 2017). In April 2017, the show had a marathon special to broadcast the March 2017 recordings under a new logo which stayed until January 2018 when Jake took over and the logo was slightly modified to include Jake's name in place of Sam's, although this change did not last long and in March, the logo reverted back and then under Sam Jr.'s leadership, the logo was changed again when the show moved to livestreaming in July 2018. A slight modification of the current logo was revealed in November 2018 when Neon Entertainment's new logo was in use by the network. Despite breaking away to livestreaming earlier in 2018, the new channel logo was added. In February 2019, The Final Hour was sold to Austin Network. Therefore, the Neon Entertainment logo was replaced with Austin Network. In 2020, the logo was modified again. Throughout it's final year, there have been subtle modifications with the 2020 logo.

## The Final Hour Concerns

### Co-host Cases

#### Mobile Phone usage (2017 - 2019)

At around September 2017, Sam had announced that he was banning mobile phone usage because they "are a distraction". After a few months investigation, there has been no traces of distraction with the phone, stating that his co-host was not distracted by the phone, but actually had an addiction with it. By this point, Jake, then new host of The Final Hour, finally gave the green light to mobile phone usage in the new year of 2018, under the new conditions that the phone is not to be used as a distraction. Although further investigation is being made about the mobile phone distraction, mobile phone usage is still safe until further notice is given. Another report given was the mobile phones in most cases are either a distraction or in the form of causing a distraction but Sam Wilkes Jr., next host of The Final Hour has not seen any cases of mobile phone distraction and still allows the use of mobile phones or smartphones on The Final Hour, provided Lyn listens to her co-host at any given interval. Sam Wilkes Jr. has seen a steady uptake on the technology since TV is "too boring". He was also aware of the new technology that his father and Jake turned a blind eye upon. Sam Wilkes Jr. has decided to focus the show on himself in the late half of 2019 and has dissolved the mobile phone usage limitation, again citing the uptake in technology.

### TV Cases

The TV broadcasting license for The Final Hour, Shopping Spree and Fortnight Brunch expired 1 July 2018, after which it will either cancel or move to livestreaming. This show is moving to a livestreaming platform and streams live on its official website. This show livestreams online 15 minutes (then 30 minutes) before TV broadcasting, this being the first show to do so. The license was set to renew in June 2018 but because of Sam (Austin)'s resignation from his celebrity spotlight in July, the license will not be renewed up to July 2019, as most of its viewership has moved to its online livestreaming. The livestreaming would last to September 2020.

## Hosts

Lyn Drummond (2016 - 2019, 2020)

Austin Holahan (2016 - 2017; 2018)

Jake (2017 - 2018)

Sam Wilkes Jr. (2018 - 2020 except 17 June 2018)

Sam Wilkes Sr. (April 2020 - September 2020)

## Logos

In 2016, as part of Sam Wilkes Radio TV Network, this show launched under the Sam Wilkes Radio logo also used in TV (2015 - 2017) and radio (2014 - 2017). In April 2017, the show had a marathon special to broadcast the March 2017 recordings under a new logo which stayed until January 2018 when Jake took over and the logo was slightly modified to include Jake's name in place of Sam's, although this change did not last long and in March, the logo reverted back and then under Sam Jr.'s leadership, the logo was changed again when the show moved to livestreaming in July 2018. A slight modification of the logo was revealed in November 2018 when Neon Entertainment's new logo was in use by the network. Despite breaking away to livestreaming earlier in 2018, the new channel logo was added. The Final Hour was then sold to Austin Network in February 2019 which then introduced the replacement of the Neon Entertainment logo with Austin Network. The logo was kept the same with Lynette being removed from the logo in July after she was released from her contract. In January 2020, the logo has gotten it's first facelift since 2018. Lynette re-joined later in January but was removed in March 2020. Sam Wilkes Jr. had continued the series and after Sam Wilkes Jr. passed away, the host names were removed from the logo, just leaving the network and show names, which was in use as a secondary logo up until the series came to an end. In June, the show was relocated to the bay islands and to coincide with the relocation, a slight modification of the logo was revealed with the Austin Network logo being removed. In September, the show came to an end after 400 episodes.