Home and Away is an Australian television soap opera. It was first broadcast on the Seven Network on 17 January 1988. The following is a list of characters that first appeared in that year, by order of first appearance. They were all introduced by the show's executive producer Alan Bateman who oversaw the serial before being succeeded by series producer Des Monaghan whose episodes first began airing in November. Sixteen of the original eighteen regular characters debuted in the pilot episode. The Fletcher family consisting of Frank Morgan, Tom and Pippa Fletcher, Carly Morris, Steven Matheson, Sally Keating and were introduced first. Summer Bay residents Alf Stewart, Floss and Neville McPhee, Bobby Simpson, Donald Fisher, Ailsa Hogan, Martin Dibble, Lance Smart and Matt Wilson also made t