Ballarat television turns 50

It was at 7.00pm on Friday, 27 April 1962 that Ballarat’s first television station – BTV6 – made its first official broadcast.

The channel was the fourth regional station to launch in Victoria and marked the completion of the first stage of the roll-out of commercial television in regional Victoria.  (The second stage, started in 1964, saw the introduction of television stations in Albury/Wodonga and Mildura)

BTV6, Friday, 27 April 1962 7pm Commence Transmission 7.01 This Is BTV Channel 6.  Documentary showing the development of Channel 6 since the station site was selected 7.15 Official Opening BTV6.  Introduced by Cr. Alan Pittard, Chairman of BTV Channel 6 7.30 BP Super Show – featuring Elaine McKenna 8.30 The Grey Nurse Said Nothing 10pm Movie: The African Queen. 1951 11.30 Close Source: TV Week, 23 April 1962.

The official opening of BTV6, led by the station’s chairman Cr. Alan Pittard, included pre-recorded greetings by national TV stars Bert Newton, Bobby Limb and Bob Dyer.  Also in attendance at the official opening was Dr J. R. Dowling, chairman of national broadcaster ABC.

After the official opening, BTV6 presented an episode of The BP Super Show, featuring Australian performer Elaine McKenna.  The program was followed by the 90-minute drama The Grey Nurse Said Nothing, written by Sumner Locke-Elliott.  The play, produced at Sydney’s ATN7 in 1960, starred Lyndall Barbour, Frank Waters, Nigel Lovell, Guy Doleman, Nancy Stewart and Ken Goodlet.

Although BTV6 was last of the first stage of regional channels to launch in Victoria, the channel did claim a number of ‘firsts’.  The channel was the first in Victoria to be equipped with Image Orthicon cameras – a more modern technology than those in use by existing television stations.  BTV was also to be the first Australian channel to have its transmission facilities co-located with ABC, which was due to open its Ballarat channel ABRV3 in the first half of 1963.

On its second day of transmission BTV6 presented its first news bulletin.  The channel, now the hub for the WIN television network in Victoria, continues to produce regional news bulletins each weeknight from the same studios in Walker Street for broadcast across WIN’s statewide network.

BTV6’s early line-up of presenters included children’s host Max Bartlett (later to gain national fame on The Magic Circle Club), newsreader Arthur Scuffins (pictured) and presenters Eric Gracie, Val Oldfield, Brenda Reid and David Bell.  Early program line-ups for the channel included Australian productions BP Pick A Box, Revue ‘62, The Johnny O’Keefe Show, The Bert Newton Show and The Best Of IMT.  And with the local ABC station almost a year away, BTV6 in August commenced the direct relay of rural affairs program Country Call from ABV2 in Melbourne, keeping viewers in Ballarat and Western Victoria up to date each week on rural and agricultural matters.

To boost its signal in the fringes of its coverage area, BTV6 later installed translator stations in Nhill (BTV7), Warrnambool (BTV9), Hamilton (BTV10) and Portland (BTV11).

As well as local news the channel maintained a steady schedule of local production over the next 30 years including children’s programs, rural affairs, daytime chat shows, sporting telecasts (including the annual Stawell Gift), religious programs, talent quests and variety programs.  Apart from News, possibly the most successful local production to come from BTV6 was the variety show Six Tonight, hosted by Fred Fargher.  The weekly program, often featuring local performers as well as national guest stars, ran for over a decade from 1972.  The program, later re-named Thursday Night Live, gained a wider audience in the mid-1980s when it was picked up by other regional channels across Victoria – giving the show a potential audience of around one million viewers each week.

BTV6 won a TV Week Logie in 1987 for its children’s production Kids Only – and the show’s host, Glenn Ridge, later became a national TV presenter as host of Sale Of The Century for over a decade.

Back in the days when country TV station staffers had to be jack-of-all-trades, Gary Rice was a musician and later sales manager at the channel.  He also read the local news and became general manager of the channel and later its parent company.  His experience in management at BTV6 led to him taking on executive roles at the Nine, Ten and Seven networks in the 1980s and 1990s.

In December 1989, BTV6 and its Shepparton-based sister station GMV6 were given a new on-air identity – VIC TV – as the two stations were soon to add STV8 Mildura to their network, and were preparing for the aggregation of regional Victorian markets which was to occur in January 1992.

Expansion across the Regional Victoria market as the Nine Network affiliate saw VIC TV dominate – the first ratings survey post-aggregation saw VIC TV outrate its competitors Prime and Southern Cross Network combined.

VIC TV became WIN Television following the takeover by the NSW-based broadcaster in 1994 but maintains studio facilities in Ballarat for the production of six newscasts – one for each region across Victoria – each weeknight.

Source: The Age, 26 April 1962.

1991: April 13-19

‘I miss him very much’
A Country Practice star Georgie Parker (pictured) speaks to TV Week about the death of a close friend from AIDS and is angry at the myths, misunderstandings and misinformation surrounding the disease.  “We were very, very close and his work was magnificent,” she told TV Week of the friend, who she has asked not be named out of respect to his mother.  “He was always painfully thin, but always jolly – and he was a great raconteur.  He used to tell the most wonderful stories.  I miss him very much.”  But while AIDS can force couples to be brutally honest with each other, she is angry at the amount of ignorance about the disease.  “The education system here is supposed to be the best in the world when it comes to AIDS, but you still get enormous numbers of people who think you can contract it by sitting on the toilet.  Now, I think that’s criminal.  They (also) immediately connect AIDS with homosexuality, exclusively, which is a complete farce.”

New team set Sale
Glenn Ridge and Jo Bailey (pictured) have emerged as the new host and co-host of Nine’s Sale Of The Century following the sudden departure of Tony Barber and Alyce Platt from the program.  The new presenters, who only met for the first time when they attended TV Week’s photo shoot, are enthusiastic and confident about their new roles.  “It really is a huge credit to Nine and Grundys that they’ve selected us,” Ridge told TV Week.  “They could have gone for people who were already well known, so it was absolute shock when I found out I’d been selected.”  Ridge comes to Sale after a career in regional radio and television.  He had hosted a music show Breezin’ for Bendigo channel BCV8, and at Ballarat’s BTV6 he had hosted children’s and music shows including TV Week Logie winner Kids Only.  New co-host Bailey had only recently joined Sale Of The Century as a model and had no idea she was being considered as Platt’s replacement.  “When I auditioned, they didn’t tell me what it was for,” she said.

‘We’ll kick its teeth in!’
While Sale Of The Century’s new host and co-host are confident of success, their rival over at Seven, current affairs host Derryn Hinch is less confident of the show’s future.  “I don’t believe Sale will last long without Tony Barber… I really can’t see who could possibly replace him,” Hinch told TV Week.  “But I hope it’s still there at the end of the year because I think we’ll kick its teeth in.” 

Brave Sheila soldiers on
Veteran actress Sheila Florance (pictured) has not let her health battles, including three recent cancer operations, stop her making a return to TV as a special guest star on Ten’s Col’n Carpenter, marking her return to the Ten studios where she worked on Prisoner for several years.  “I’m looking forward to seeing if there is anyone left at Channel Ten,” she told TV Week.  “It was one of the saddest days when I left Prisoner because those crews with whom I worked, they were like my sons.”  The 74-year-old actress, with more than 60 years in showbusiness, has also just completed her first starring role in a film.  A Woman’s Tale, written for her by Paul Cox, tells the story of an elderly woman dying of cancer.  “There is nothing uncomfortable in this for me,” she told TV Week.  “This woman is me.  It’s absolutely honest.  Every day of filming was a delight.”

Briefly…
Former Neighbours star Jason Donovan, back in Australia to promote his new single I’m Doing Fine, has made a guest appearance as the enigmatic surfie “Craig Donovan” (pictured) in Fast Forward’s soapie send-up Dumb Street.  “The great thing about Fast Forward is that, even though I take my career seriously, at the end of the day we’re all there to have fun,” he said.

After only a few months on-air, Network Ten’s new game show Let’s Make A Deal is about to celebrate handing out $1 million in cash and prizes.  Comedian Vince Sorrenti has settled into his new role as game show host.  “The producers have always let me do what I wanted,” he told TV Week.  “After the learning process I am now starting to have some real fun.  I don’t see Let’s Make A Deal as a game show.  It is entertaining people who wouldn’t normally watch a game show.”

Actor Gary Sweet has admitted that many of his previous roles have been “limited”, but his new role as photojournalist Larry in the ABC mini-series Sign Of The Snake he says is his most interesting.  “Larry is a thoughtful, creative photographer who is economical in his speech,” he told TV Week.  “Because he is not talkative, you suspect there is something bubbling under the surface of Larry.”  Sign Of The Snake, which also stars Linda Cropper, Lily Chen and Bob Peck, is set in China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.  Although it is set in China, most of the filming was completed in Sydney.  “There is no way we would be allowed to set foot in China,” he said.

John Laws says…
”It’s hard to know what to make of comedian Andrew Denton’s new Live And Sweaty series on ABC.  It’s aimed at extracting laughs from the world of sport and, like much of Denton’s previous efforts, it’s laced with satirical, over-the-top humour and razor-sharp asides.  In the first program, Denton kisses a woman’s toes and later announces he’ll collect celebrity sweat – a signal for guest Craig McLachlan to offer some from his underarm.  In the midst of all this mayhem, Live And Sweaty suddenly got serious and we saw reporter Debbie Spillane, sitting at a desk, reading a straight and serious “sports update”.  It was all a little confusing.”

Program Highlights (April 13-19):
Saturday:  Rick Astley, Jimmy Barnes, Choir Boys, Debbie Byrne and Tommy Emmanuel are guest stars in this week’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine). 

Sunday:  Seven’s afternoon of sport includes NBL, Westside Melbourne versus Brisbane Bullets, followed by Brisbane Bears versus Geelong in AFL and then motor racing with the Australian Touring Car Championship.  Sunday night movies are Planes Trains And Automobiles (Seven), The Untouchables (Nine) and Married To The Mob (Ten).

Monday:  Seven presents a two-hour telecast of the John Farnham Chain Reaction Concert, taken from his recent Australian tour.  The program is simulcast on radio station Triple M.

Tuesday:  Dr Nikki Tanner (Judy McIntosh) has fallen in love with Sean Bracey (Marcus Graham) in GP (ABC)… but she knows the affair is a disaster as the distraction is affecting her work and she fails to respond to a crisis call.  Bracey then invites her to go with him to Paris.

Wednesday:  ABC presents Frank Sinatra The Final Concert, recorded last month at the National Tennis Centre, Melbourne.  The concert also features Eydie Gorme, Steve Lawrence and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.  Seven presents the two-hour Comedy Festival Charity Gala from Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, featuring Wendy Harmer, Richard Stubbs, Steve Vizard, Garry McDonald, Barry Humphries, Mark Mitchell, Ian McFadyen, Maryanne Fahey and Kim Gyngell with cast members of Fast Forward, the D Generation and Acropolis Now.  The comedy event is a fund-raiser for the Salvation Army.

Thursday:  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), Jackie Crane (Nikki Coghill) and Guy Reid (David Reyne) are involved in a sensitive dilemma when a young mother is diagnosed as terminally ill, but refuses to accept her illness because there is nobody to care for her daughter.  The episode features guest star Shane Connor.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Sydney for the live telecast of the AFL game between Sydney Swans and Essendon.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  13 April 1991.  Southdown Press