50 years of TNT9 Launceston

Another half-century celebration for regional television this week with Launceston-based TNT9 having commenced official transmission on Saturday, 26 May 1962 for viewers across north and north-western Tasmania.  It was Tasmania’s second commercial television station, two years after TVT6 launched in Hobart.

The licence to operate the new channel was granted in 1960 to Northern Television Limited, a company owned by W. R. Rolph and Sons, owners of local newspaper The Examiner and radio station 7EX.

New studio premises were constructed at Watchorn Street, South Launceston that would ultimately house both TNT9 and 7EX, and TNT9’s transmitter was built atop Mount Barrow. 

TNT9 was officially opened by Governor Lord Rowallan (pictured) on the night of Saturday, 26 May 1962, accompanied by his wife Lady Rowallan, station general manager Arthur Evans and Edmund Rouse, the managing director of W. R. Rolph and Sons.

At the time of TNT9’s official opening the station employed around 30 staff.

TNT9, Saturday, 26 May 1962: 2pm Test Pattern 6pm The Mickey Mouse Club 6.45 TNT News 7pm Official Opening TNT9: Governor Lord Rowallan 7.30 The Flintstones 8pm BP Super Show 9pm The Dave Brubeck Show 9.30 Movie: Two Guys From Milwaukee 11pm News; Close Source: The Mercury, 26 May 1962

TNT9’s early line-up consisted largely of American imports but did include Australian shows from the mainland, including BP Pick A Box, Bandstand, The Mobil-Limb Show, Sunnyside Up, It Could Be You and Whiplash – while local programs included Hunter’s Tele-Quiz, Sports Club, Children’s Time, Easy Beat, Quiz Quest, Talk Of The Town and At Home With Nine as well as the nightly 15-minute news service produced in association with The Examiner.

Presenters at TNT9 during the 1960s included Rod Thurling, Joy Swain, newsreader Bruce Farrar, sports presenter David McQuestin and a young radio announcer from Victoria – Mal Walden.

During the 1970s local programs included the Logie-winning Saturday Night Show with Jim Cox and Graeme Goodings (now a newsreader for Seven News in Adelaide), talent quest New Faces and the Northern Lights telethon (pictured) which attracted stars from the mainland.  Ray James took over from David McQuestin as the main sports presenter and 7EX radio announcer Paul Murphy became TNT9’s newsreader and later news editor.  Some of Murphy’s successors at the news desk have included Tim Lester (now with Nine News), Diane Massey, Kaye Wilkinson, Steve Titmus, Kim Millar and current news presenter Jo Palmer.

The 1980s were a turbulent time in Tasmanian television, with TNT9’s parent company ENT Limited (formed in the 1960s with the merger of Northern Television Limited and Examiner Newspaper Pty Ltd) successfully taking over Hobart’s TVT6.  The takeover eventually led to TNT9 and TVT6 adopting a single on-air brand – TAS TV – and a uniform program schedule across the state.

By the end of the 1980s aggregation was on the horizon for Tasmania and Edmund Rouse, chairman of ENT Limited, told The Examiner in 1987 that competition would not be in the best interest of Tasmanian viewers:

“I do not necessarily believe that Tasmanian viewers will be better served under the proposed new system.  Firstly, we run 18 of the top 20 TV programs in Australia.  The two we don’t run have no relevance to Tasmania.  Secondly, inevitably the number of repeats will be substantially increased as any visitor to the mainland capitals would know occurs there.”

Nevertheless, ENT complied with the government’s aggregation policy and sold TNT9 to Tricom Corporation for $40 million in 1988 while retaining TVT6 (TAS TV), thus forming the basis for two statewide television networks, one based in Hobart and one in Launceston. 

Tricom (a predecessor to what is now Southern Cross Austereo) also owned Victorian regional stations BCV8 Bendigo and GLV8 Gippsland and in March 1989 branded all three channels as Southern Cross Network.

In April 1994 aggregation was implemented in Tasmania with Southern Cross Network (TNT) and TAS TV (TVT) now broadcasting in competition with each other across the whole of Tasmania.  TAS TV (now a branch of the WIN network) had an affiliation with the Nine Network for the supply of programs, while Southern Cross formed ties with both the Seven and Ten networks for its program schedule – and since 1998 Southern Cross has dominated the ratings across the Tasmanian market.

Digital television had arrived in the early 2000s and on 1 January 2004 Southern Cross and WIN launched a joint venture, a digital-only channel Tasmanian Digital Television (TDT) offering primarily a Network Ten schedule enabling Southern Cross to gradually move towards an exclusive Seven Network line-up.  The channel was the first of its kind in Australia, giving Tasmanian viewers a third commercial channel operated by the owners of the two existing networks – a concept that would later expand to Mildura and Darwin.  The introduction of the digital-only commercial channel led to the Tasmanian market having one of the fastest conversion rates to digital television in Australia.  According to the latest Digital Tracker survey, 86 per cent of Tasmanian households have converted at least their main television set to digital compared to the national average of 82 per cent.

Southern Cross Television in Tasmania has since expanded into the multi-channel environment with the network relaying the Seven Network’s digital channels 7TWO and 7mate to the Tasmanian market.  But the advent of competition, digital television and multi-channels have largely come at the cost of local production, although Southern Cross does continue to produce its own news service, Southern Cross News, seven nights a week.  Local production also includes a fishing program, Hook Line And Sinker, which is shown across Australia via 7mate, and coverage of the annual Targa Tasmania event.

Southern Cross Television won the 2011 ratings year in Tasmania with a prime-time market share of 39.8 per cent (comprised of 30.3% for Southern Cross, 6.7% for 7TWO and 2.7% for 7mate), well ahead of WIN (23.0%), ABC (18.5%), TDT (13.5%) and SBS (5.2%).

Source: The Mercury, 26 May 1962.  The Examiner, 26 May 1987. The Rise and Fall of Edmund Rouse, Stephen Tanner.  Regional TAM.  The Good Innings, Graeme Goodings.  University Of Tasmania.

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.

TV Week Logie Awards: 50 years ago

Tommy Hanlon Jnr (pictured, right), the American-born host of the daytime game show It Could Be You, and entertainer Lorrae Desmond were the winners of the Gold Logies at the 4th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Chevron Hotel on Saturday, 31 March 1962.

It was the first time that the Gold Logie was awarded to both a male and female personality – a custom that would continue on and off for the Logies until the late 1970s – hence making Desmond (pictured, below) the first female to win the coveted award.  Her award was also the first Gold Logie to be won by an ABC personality.

Hanlon was present at the Chevron to accept his Gold Logie, but Desmond – whose self-titled variety show was a hit for ABC – was in Hollywood at the time of the presentation but in her written acceptance to TV Week, she said it was the “nicest thing” that had ever happened to her:

“Quite honestly I have never been so surprised and delighted.  With every performer, I’m sure the most important thing in the world is to be liked by your own people.  Therefore, any measure of success in your own country is much more warming and rewarding than achievement overseas.  So from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the readers, judges and people concerned who gave me this award.”

Interstate guests were flown to Melbourne’s Essendon Airport via airline TAA’s ‘Operation Starlift’.  Upon arrival in Melbourne, the guests travelled via a fleet of open-roof cars, the procession guided by a police escort as it made its way through Melbourne to the Chevron.

The event was hosted by Gerald Lyons with 1961 Gold Logie winner Bob Dyer (pictured) handing out the statuettes.  The presentation had a 30-minute live broadcast on ABV2 in Melbourne with delayed telecasts in other states. 

The presentation also marked the first ever State-based Logies to be awarded to Western Australian and Tasmanian personalities – with ABC hostesses Diana Ward and Wendy Ellis being voted as most popular in those States respectively.

National awards:

Gold Logie – TV Man Of The Year: Tommy Hanlon Jnr (It Could Be You)
Gold Logie – TV Girl Of The Year: Lorrae Desmond (The Lorrae Desmond Show)

Best Variety Show: Revue ‘61
Best Compere: Bob Dyer
Best Drama Series: Consider Your Verdict
Best Youth Entertainment: Bandstand
Best Female Singer: Patsy Ann Noble
Best Male Singer: Col Joye
Best Comedian: Bobby Limb
Best Documentary Series: Anzac
Best News Feature Program: Four Corners
Best Commercial: Vacuum Oil Company's Mobil Oil

State-based awards:

NSW: Digby Wolfe, Dawn Lake, The Johnny O’Keefe Show
VIC: Graham Kennedy, Toni Lamond, Sunnyside Up
QLD: Brian Tait, Jill Edwards, Theatre Royal
SA: Kevin Crease, Joan Disher, On The Sunnyside
WA: Diana Ward (pictured)
TAS: Wendy Ellis

Pictured above – Top Row: George Wallace (Theatre Royal), Bob Dyer (Pick A Box), Bob Raymond (producer, Four Corners), Graham Kennedy (In Melbourne Tonight).  Middle Row: Brian Henderson (Bandstand), Peter Macfarlane (producer, Revue ‘61), Bobby Limb (The Mobil-Limb Show), Diana Ward (ABW2, Perth), Alf Spargo (producer, Sunnyside Up).  Bottom Row: Wendy Ellis (ABT2, Hobart), Patsy Ann Noble, Dawn Lake (The Mobil-Limb Show)

Top Row: Len Reason (Paton Advertising), Blair Schwartz (On The Sunnyside), Kevin Crease, Col Joye.  Middle Row: Brian Tait, Bill Collins (Sunnyside Up), Dorothy Crawford (producer, Consider Your Verdict), Kevin Ryder (producer, The Johnny O’Keefe Show), Darrell Miley (Federal Entertainment Director, ABC, on behalf of Lorrae Desmond).  Bottom Row: Tommy Hanlon Jnr, Toni Lamond, Jill Edwards, Joan Disher.

Source: TV Week, 14 April 1962.  TV Times, 28 March 1962.  Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April 1962.  The Age, 2 April 1962.  Australian Television Information Archive.

More stations turning the big 5-0

Two weeks ago Newcastle-based network NBN celebrated its 50th anniversary.  This weekend saw two more NSW regional stations hit the same milestone – though with perhaps a little less fanfare.

The first was CBN8, based in Orange and serving the Central Tablelands region of central western NSW, launching on Saturday, 17 March 1962.

CBN8: Saturday 17 March 1962: 6.15pm Faith For Today 6.45 Official Opening CBN8 7pm News, Sport 7.30 The Phil Silvers Show 8pm The BP Super Show 9pm Palladium Spectacular 10pm Alfred Hitchcock 10.30 Close

CBN8’s signal was broadcast from a transmission tower atop Mount Canobolas which, at approximately 1400 metres above sea level, made it the highest transmission tower in Australia.  This gave the station’s signal a wide coverage area, with reception of test transmissions recorded as far away as Canberra, the Blue Mountains and Sydney’s far western suburbs.

The station’s premises, a few kilometres east of Orange, were equipped with two indoor studios and an outdoor studio that was to be used for local agricultural displays and other programs of rural interest.

CBN8’s first general manager was Alan Ridley, a long-time resident of Orange who joined the station with 25 years’ experience in regional radio.  Other senior staff appointments came with experience in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, the United Kingdom and Canada.

The new channel, owned in partnership with local radio station 2GZ, promised an initial schedule of around 35 hours of programming each week.  Most programming was imported from the US but the station also established local programming, including a news service with bulletins each weeknight at 6.45pm and 10.00pm and at 7.00pm on weekends.  The newscasts combined local news stories with national and international stories sourced via Australian United Press.

BP Pick-A-Box, the BP Super Show and The Mobil-Limb Show were some of the first ‘national’ Australian programs to appear on the channel. 

CBN8 also produced programs like the long-running Jackpot Quiz, hosted by Bob McGready and which also introduced a young Sue Smith (pictured), who would later go on to a career in news and current affairs with the Nine Network.

In 1965 CBN had secured the licence to operate the new television station for Dubbo and the Central Western Slopes district.  The new channel, CWN6, was essentially operated as a relay station from CBN. 

CBN8 won a TV Week Logie in 1979 for a documentary, Goin’ Down The Road.

By the 1980s CBN-CWN had affiliated with another regional station, MTN9 Griffith, to form Mid State Television.  Then in the late 1980s, CBN-CWN had become part of The Prime Network (now Prime7), a newly-formed network of regional stations as the industry was preparing for the new era of aggregation.  Prime had aligned itself with the Seven Network for the provision of programming.  In March 1989, Prime extended its signal to cover the Wollongong and Canberra regions to compete with those areas’ local channels. 

Since 2010, studio production of Prime7’s local newscast for the Orange and Dubbo regions was relocated to the network’s centralised facility in Canberra.

WIN4, serving Wollongong, the Illawarra region and the south coast of NSW, made its official debut on Sunday, 18 March 1962.  The station’s first program on opening night was a news bulletin presented by Don Dive and which included a greeting to viewers by general manager Robert Lord.

The opening program also included a short film to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the new channel.

Other program highlights from the opening night included the 1944 movie Destination Tokyo and the variety show Playboy’s Penthouse, featuring Sammy Davis Jnr.

WIN4’s regular weekday schedule commenced at 5.15pm with the children’s show The Channel 4 Club, hosted by Ralph Fairbrother, followed by various imported serials such as Lone Ranger, Robin Hood and The Invisible Man before Don Dive presented a 15-minute news at 6.45pm.

Like its Newcastle-based counterpart NBN3, WIN4 also found itself having to compete with imposing signals from Sydney – and with its own signal creeping into the southern suburbs of Sydney the station faced opposition and a lack of co-operation in sourcing programs from the Sydney-based commercial channels. 

WIN also had to educate local viewers with existing or older sets that they may need to convert to be able to receive the Channel 4 frequency as the technical specifications of the frequency differed from what was in the original broadcasting standards formed several years earlier.

The channel was later bought out by budding media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who also owned Adelaide station NWS9 at the time.  In 1979, Murdoch had to sell off his interests in WIN4 in order to permit his bid to gain control of TEN10 Sydney and ATV0 Melbourne, the major stations in the 0-10 Network.

WIN4 was then bought out by businessman Bruce Gordon, who continues to own what is now a nationwide media organisation.  Through the aggregation of regional television markets and various acquisitions made along the way, WIN Corporation’s television outlets now broadcast throughout Southern NSW/ACT, regional Queensland, regional Victoria, Tasmania, Mount Gambier and Riverland in South Australia, and regional Western Australia.  The company also owns channels STW9 Perth and NWS9 Adelaide as well as a handful of radio stations and production company Crawfords Australia.

Source: TV Week, 17 March 1962.

NBN celebrates 50 years

This year will be one of celebration for Newcastle-based regional network NBN as 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of its debut.

Launching on Sunday, 4 March 1962, it was the first regional television station in New South Wales and the fourth nationally.  Construction of the station’s premises in Mosbri Crescent, Newcastle, had been 18 months in the planning – culminating in a two-studio complex capable of producing large-scale “live” production as well as news bulletins, women’s and children’s programs, weather reports and commercials.  Programs were then beamed from Mosbri Crescent to a 450-foot mast atop Mount Sugarloaf which would then broadcast the NBN3 signal to an area of over 420,000 people, stretching from Gosford and Sydney’s northern suburbs in the south, almost as far north as Taree and out west to Scone and Muswellbrook. 

TV Week previewed the station’s opening night a week beforehand:

“The Postmaster-General C.W. Davidson will officially open the new Newcastle station, NBN3, during the station’s first program beginning at 6.00pm on Sunday night, March 4.  Before the official opening NBN3’s production executive Matthew Tapp will welcome viewers and talk briefly about the programs the station will show.”

“Women’s show compere Ken Eady will then conduct a 20-minute tour of the station to show NBN3 viewers how its programs are made.”

“Ken will introduce NBN3’s children’s compere and newsreader Murray Finlay, who will complete the tour with a look at the station’s newsroom.”

“Matthew Tapp will then introduce the Postmaster-General for the official opening.  This will be followed by the station’s first news service read by Murray Finlay.”

NBN3 initially promised a schedule of around 56 hours of programming a week, starting transmission each day from around 2.30pm.  Like with many Australian stations at the time, programming was predominantly American but with the addition of popular Australian programs like BP Pick-A-Box (with presenters Bob and Dolly Dyer welcomed to the NBN3 studios at the time of its local debut).

But despite NBN3 being the region’s first television station many locals were more than familiar with television.  Much of NBN3’s coverage area also received fortuitous coverage of the Sydney channels – leading to a proliferation of high-mast antennas sprouting up on top of many homes to  get a clearer picture of the Sydney-based signals. 

To compete with the imposing signals from Sydney, NBN3 had a slate of local production from Mosbri Crescent.  A Saturday afternoon teenage music program, Tempo, was hosted by local radio 2KO personality Allan Lappan.  Ken Eady hosted women’s program Home At 3, with a special Friday edition sub-titled Anything Goes, promising “community singing, quizzes and what Ken Eady calls ‘some crazy stunts’.” 

New Zealander Murray Finlay (pictured) presented NBN3’s first children’s program, The Three Cheers Show, and was also the station’s first newsreader.  NBN3’s first news service (produced in association with 2KO) was a half-hour bulletin each night at 6.30pm, comprising a mix of local, national and international news.  The bulletin was later extended to 35 minutes, then 40 minutes and then, in 1972, a one-hour newscast – the first regional-based one-hour newscast in Australia – in a format that continues to this day.

Finlay was the front man for NBN’s evening news for over twenty years and his successor, Ray Dinneen, also served at NBN for over thirty years before retiring in 2010. 

NBN has always maintained a level of local production – with programs over the years including a local franchise of pre-school program Romper Room, the long-running Travel Time With Jayes, morning shows The Breakfast Club and Today Extra, and telethons and community announcements for local charities.  The station’s mascot Big Dog (pictured) has also been a favourite with junior viewers for many years and can still be seen each evening as he wishes boys and girls a good night.

NBN3 also provided production support for an early 1970s drama, Silent Number, for the Nine Network and produced the national program Variety Italian Style. 

Over the years, the station has been acknowledged for its contribution to television – winning a TV Week Logie in 1963 for excellence in programming by a country station and then another six Logies between 1976 and 1995 for outstanding contributions by regional television.

The advent of aggregation saw NBN’s signal expand across the wider Northern NSW/Gold Coast market from December 1991, adding the markets of Tamworth, Taree, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast to its coverage area as the Nine Network affiliate.

NBN now broadcasts to a market of 2,109,000 viewers – ranking it as Australia’s fourth largest market behind Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – and won the 2011 ratings year with 31.6 per cent market share (comprising NBN’s 23.6% and digital channels GO! 4.8% and GEM 3.2%).

NBN has had a number of owners since its inception in 1962, but since 2007 it has been owned by Nine’s parent company PBL Media (now Nine Entertainment Co.).

To celebrate its 50th anniversary NBN will be holding a reunion of past and present employees on Saturday, 10 March.  The event will include a collection of nostalgic footage and photos from the past 50 years.  Any past employees wishing to attend the reunion are invited to contact NBN by email turning50@nbntv.com.au or contact Promotions Manager Mike Rabbitt on telephone (02) 49292333.

And throughout 2012, NBN News will be presenting a series of special reports on different aspects of the station’s history and significant community events of the last half century.

Later this year it will be the end of an era when NBN switches off analogue transmission across its coverage area (excluding Gold Coast and Gosford, which will occur later) in the conversion to digital-only broadcasting – but more significantly it will mark the end of transmission from Channel 3 from Mt Sugarloaf, the signal that launched NBN 50 years ago.

Source:  NBN.  TV Week, 24 February 1962.  TV Times, 21 July 1979.  TV Week, 15 May 1982.  The Newcastle Star, 4 March 1987.  TV Eye – Classic Australian Television.  Regional TV Marketing. Regional TAM.

YouTube: markspyreport

BCV: Television Centre of Victoria

Saturday, 23 December, 1961 – fifty years ago today – brought an early Christmas present to residents in the Goulburn Valley and central Victorian regions with the respective areas receiving their first TV stations.

Just two weeks after the debut of GLV10 in Gippsland, BCV8 was opened in Bendigo and serving central and north west Victoria, and on the same night GMV6 was opened in Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley.

BCV8, Saturday 23 December 1961: 6pm Special: The Magic Mirror A Christmas Pantomime 7pm Official Opening BCV8 by Postmaster-General Mr C. W. Davidson 7.25 News 7.30 BP Super Show 8.30 Whiplash 9pm The Phil Silvers Show 9.30 Peter Gunn 10pm Adventures In Paradise 11pm Close Source: The Age, 23 December 1961

BCV8’s local programming in the very early days included a 15-minute news summary at 6.45pm each weeknight read by Ron Alderton (who would later appear on ATV0 and GMV6), with an expanded 30-minute bulletin from 6.30pm on Thursdays to include a weekly segment presented by the Department of Agriculture.  Alderton also presented Be My Guest, a brief interview segment screened in the mid-evening three times a week.  The channel’s afternoon children’s session was Cobber’s Teleclub, hosted by John Crook, who later went on to Hobart channel TVT6 and then had a long stint as a morning show host at Brisbane’s TVQ0.

On Saturday afternoons BCV presented a weekly Sports Roundup and on Saturday evenings during the winter there was Football Forum, presenting a post mortem of the day’s games of the Bendigo league.  On Monday and Tuesday evenings there was the latest on the local cattle sales in the Stock Report.  Local variety acts appeared in A Date With 8, a brief segment that appeared at various times during the week where there was an odd five or ten-minute gap to fill in the schedule.

Like many commercial channels in that era, BCV presented a line-up heavy in imported – particularly American – material but the channel in its first year did pick up a number of popular Australian programs from the capital cities, including Bandstand, The Mobil-Limb Show, The Channel Nine Show, Pick-A-Box and Sunnyside Up.

By the late 1960s regional stations were beginning to open translator stations to expand their signal to audiences in fringe areas where reception would normally be patchy.  BCV8 launched its Swan Hill translator BCV11 (later BCV10) in May 1967 with a variety program, Variety Eleven, hosted by national TV personality Tommy Hanlon Jnr and featuring performances by local artists from the Swan Hill area.  With the two channels in operation, the station then became known as BCV-TV.

Bendigo was the site of ABC’s first regional television station, ABEV1, launching in 1963 – and ABC stations were soon to spring up around Victoria in Shepparton (ABGV3), Ballarat (ABRV3), Albury (ABAV1), Gippsland (ABLV4), Mildura (ABMV4) and Swan Hill (ABSV2) with their own network of translator stations in smaller towns.

 

By 1973, BCV8 had partnered with GLV10 (later GLV8) to form a network presenting a common program schedule and offering national advertisers the advantage of offering a larger regional audience with a single buy of airtime.  They were later joined by Mildura channel STV8.

Like many regional channels, BCV presented opportunities for talent that would later become known on a wider scale.  Glenn Ridge was a presenter of a music program, Breezin’, in the early 1980s before becoming host of Sale Of The Century, and Sandy Roberts had a stint at BCV8 before joining the Seven Network.

In 1986, BCV8 won a TV Week Logie for most outstanding contribution by regional television for its local newscast, Newshour.  BCV continued to produce local news from Bendigo until the change in branding to Ten Victoria in 1994.

BCV and GLV are now part of the Southern Cross Ten network which through a series of acquisitions has now expanded through regional New South Wales, Queensland and parts of South Australia.

With three regional television stations opening within two weeks of each other in 1961, Victoria was leading the way in the roll-out of regional television – but there was to be an raft of new stations open during 1962 in parts of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania and in Canberra.

Barbie Rogers in Friday flashback

The Seven Network’s The Morning Show last week featured former model and TV personality Barbie Rogers as a ‘Friday Flashback’.

Rogers was a teenage model in the 1960s before becoming a national TV celebrity as hostess of Seven’s early 1970s quiz shows, Temptation and The Great Temptation, alongside host Tony Barber.

Launched as a one-hour daytime show in June 1970, Temptation later expanded into prime time with The Great Temptation debuting in a half-hour weekly timeslot in July 1971 – replacing the recently-departed Pick-A-Box.

The Great Temptation was later ‘stripped’ to five-nights-a-week and host Barber collected the TV Week Gold Logie in 1973 for Most Popular Television Personality.  Rogers also won Logies in 1973 and 1975 for Most Popular Female Personality in New South Wales.

Appearing on The Morning Show with presenters Todd McKenney and Kylie Gillies, Rogers also recalled a controversial incident when presenting movies for Seven.  A pre-recorded segment, with Rogers jokingly threatening to “rip the tits off” anyone who didn’t like the choice of movies presented, was headed for the end-of-year blooper reel but was accidentally broadcast and saw her banned from appearing on TV for two weeks.

Rogers was later back on TV in the ‘80s as a panellist on game shows like Celebrity Tattletales and daytime talk show Beauty And The Beast. 

These days Rogers is a guest speaker for Probus… and is apparently gagging for a stint on Dancing With The Stars!

Picture: TV Guide (South Australia), 2 March 1974.

TV Week Logie Awards: 50 years ago

British actor Jimmy Edwards was the special guest of honour at the 3rd annual TV Week Logie Awards presentation, held at Sydney’s Chevron-Hilton Hotel on 18 March 1961. 

The Gold Logie for Australia’s most popular television personality was won by Pick-A-Box host Bob Dyer.  “This is the most exciting night of my life,” he said as he received his award.

Sydney’s ATN7 won two Logies – one for variety show Curtain Call, the predecessor to variety series Revue ‘61 and which introduced English-born Digby Wolfe to Australian audiences, and one for the play Shadow Of A Pale Horse. 

National broadcaster ABC also won two Logies – Stormy Petrel, the story of the mutiny against Captain Bligh when he was Governor of New South Wales, was awarded Best Drama Series, while the broadcaster also won a Logie for its coverage of the Davis Cup tennis which was broadcast via a special link between Sydney and Melbourne.

National awards:
Gold Logie: Bob Dyer (pictured)
Best Variety Program: Curtain Call (ATN7)
Best Comedians: Buster Fiddess, Bobby Limb (both from The Mobil-Limb Show)
Best Singer: Elaine McKenna (In Melbourne Tonight/The Graham Kennedy Show)
Best Australian Drama: Shadow Of A Pale Horse (ATN7)
Best Drama Series: Stormy Petrel (ABC)
Best Sports Broadcast: Davis Cup (ABC)
Best Actor: Brian James (Stormy Petrel)

State-based awards (Most Popular Male Personality, Most Popular Female Personality, Most Popular Program):
NSW: Digby Wolfe (ATN7), Tanya Halesworth (ABN2), The Bobby Limb Show (TCN9)
VIC: Graham Kennedy (GTV9), Panda Lisner (GTV9), In Melbourne Tonight (GTV9)
QLD: Brian Tait (BTQ7), Nancy Knudsen (BTQ7), The Late Show (BTQ7)
SA: Ian Fairweather (NWS9), Maree Tomasetti (ADS7), Adelaide Tonight (NWS9)

The presentation was telecast live to Sydney viewers in a half-hour broadcast on ABN2, while ABC stations in other states presented a delayed broadcast the following week.

Pictured (left to right): Lionel Williams (Adelaide Tonight), Ian Fairweather, Maree Tomasetti, Elaine McKenna, Bernard Kerr (sports director, ABC), Bob Dyer, Graham Kennedy, Bobby Limb, Panda Lisner, Tanya Halesworth, Nancy Knudsen, Rod Kinnear (program manager, GTV9), Brian Tait, Wilson Irving (program manager, BTQ7)

Source: TV Week, 23 March 1961.  TV Week, 30 March 1961.

Remembering Seven’s Epping era

The Sunrise team earlier this week posted a picture via their Twitter feed showing the demolition (“using Gladiator props as wrecking balls?”) of the Seven Network’s former studios in Sydney.

The studios, in the suburb of Epping, were barely completed when the ribbon across the Studio B doors was cut on ATN7’s opening night – 2 December 1956.  And the opening night almost didn’t happen at all as a massive thunderstorm hit Sydney earlier that day, blacking out many suburbs – including Epping.  Power was restored just in time to allow the studio cameras the required 45 minutes to warm up before airtime.  VIPs arrived at the complex in torrential rain and had to make their way across mud tracks to get to the building.

In its early years the Epping complex hosted many Australian television firsts – the first ‘tonight’ show, Sydney Tonight with Keith Walshe, the first breakfast news show, Today with Ray Taylor, the first current affairs show, Seven On 7, and the first soap operas, Autumn Affair and The Story Of Peter Grey.  ATN7 was the first TV station in Australia to install videotape equipment in the late 1950s.  The station also partnered with Melbourne’s GTV9 to complete the first ever transmission between Sydney and Melbourne via a series of microwave links.

Other shows to have emanated from Epping include Revue ‘61, Startime, Sing Sing Sing (The Johnny O’Keefe Show), Beauty And The Beast, Captain Fortune, Pick-A-Box, The Mavis Bramston Show (pictured), My Name’s McGooley What’s Yours?, Great Temptation, Sydney Today, Eleven AM, The Naked Vicar Show, Kingswood Country, Romper Room, Sounds, Cartoon Connection, Saturday Morning Live, Sportsworld, Terry Willesee Tonight, Wheel Of Fortune, Hey Dad!, Real Life, Sunrise and The Main Event.

Some of TVs most famous names have also spent time at Epping.  Roger Climpson was ATN7’s principal newsreader for many years and also hosted This Is Your Life and Australia’s Most Wanted.  Mike Willesee, Graham Kennedy, Clive Robertson, Rex Mossop, Paul Hogan (pictured), Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald), Peter Luck, Bill Collins, Maggie Tabberer, Jana Wendt and Andrew Denton have also worked at the Epping studios.  And of course the many actors and actresses that passed through the various dramas to have come from Epping – series including Jonah, Motel, Catwalk, Class Of ‘74, Glenview High, A Country Practice, Sons And Daughters, Rafferty’s Rules, Home And Away, All Saints and Packed To The Rafters.

ATN7 has now moved to new facilities at the Australian Technology Park (pictured) in the Sydney suburb of Redfern – while news production facilities, including Sunrise, Seven News, Today Tonight and The Morning Show, are based at Martin Place in the Sydney CBD.

Source: Sunrise, Sydney Architecture, Forty Years Of Television: The Story Of ATN7.