Thread for Central GTS/BKN history, operating in regional SA, now owned by SCA.
In the attached video from YouTube shows a 1994 news update, why does the Australia outline behind the presenter have the entire Central Australia (including NT) shaded? I can only guess with the use of CTN (Central Television Network) that the news update was a shared resource with various stations in the group covered by that shaded area, with local stations doing their own tops and tails?
Central GTS/BKN 2003 ID.
Here’s a bulletin from 1997 - featuring a young Rosanna Mangiarelli.
One of our old idents from 1985. A YouTube channel called gtsbknarchive has a lot of old stuff from GTS/BKN - this one included.
Appears the “Central Television Network” branding in general was one of those joint regional sales initiatives, probably not dissimilar to the Great Eastland Television network of the 80s - although it seems that only GTS/BKN used the actual branding as their identity on TV.
TelevisionAU’s site has a sales poster featuring the logo (Happy 40th, GTS4! – Television.AU), which offered ad sales for GTS/BKN, as well as SES8 and RTS5a in the south-east, plus Imparja (which would explain why the NT was included in the logo).
From my vague memories as a child in the Flinders Ranges (Upper Spencer Gulf licence area) in the 90’s, GTS/BKN did away with the test pattern long before SES8 - I recall a trip to Mount Gambier in the motel which my uncle owned watching the Ch 8 test pattern at 5AM in 1998! Whereas GTS/BKN used to take a direct feed from Ch 7 Sydney in the early hours of the morning with ads for Parramatta and all!
Sounds about right in the case of SES 8 - there used to be a video somewhere (may not have been on YouTube, I can’t find it now) of a start-up not long after WIN took over the station, which jumped straight into the second half-hour of the National Nine Early News at the time, which suggested a 6am (Central) start-up even then.
Would be this one Win SA Start Up 1999 - YouTube
That’s the one! Thanks.
Like Roseanna, a lot of journalists and presenters started out at GTS/BKN in their careers - Nikki Dwyer, Katrina Stapleton (now Shute), Nicole Haack, Richard Davies, Will McDonald, Virginia Langeberg, Justine Northey, Selga Berzins, Gerda Jezuchowski and Phil Luke to name a few
GTS/BKN from 1992
With the remaining SCA stations (including the former GTS/BKN Spencer Gulf station) being sold to ADH and the possibility that TV Classifieds on SCA Spencer Gulf has reached its dead end, let’s take a trip down memory lane and remember TV Classifieds.
From GTS/BKN, 1994: Aussie TV Commercial Breaks (Central GTS/BKN, 12/8/94)
From GTS/BKN, 1997: Aussie TV Commercial Breaks (Central GTS/BKN, 25/12/1997)
From GTS/BKN, 1998: Aussie TV Commercial Breaks (Central GTS/BKN, 1998)
For the latest instalment, see the Sale of Southern Cross Television assets to Ten/ADH thread.
Just a quick note to let everyone know that the GTS BKN archive now has a new home at the Australian Television Archive
full press release here: The Australian Television Archive Acquires the GTS/BKN Archive, Preserving Over Four Decades of Regional TV History
YouTube: @austvarchive
From when GTS/BKN re-branded as Central Television Network.
Central Television Network was setup in the early 1990s as a sales network including GTS/BKN, SES8, RTS5A and Imparja, but only GTS-BKN really pursued branding as Central (or Central GTS/BKN)
Yes, this is what I was wondering about the “Central” name.
Sourhern Cross 10 switchover with GTS/BKN with a young familiar face
Quite an interesting concept that switchover.
My favorite bit of GTS/BKN history was when they raised the ire of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal in 1986/87 over BKN being treated as the poor cousin:
From the 1986/87 ABT Annual Report:
186. The Tribunal decided, on 22 December 1986, to renew the licences for these stations for a period to expire on 30 June 1988. In addition, because of concern the Tribunal had about the apparent bias in the local news program towards news items from Port Pirie, it imposed the following condition on the GTS licence:
The licensee shall provide to the Tribunal, within ten days of the end of each month, for the three months commencing on 1 March 1987 and ending on 31 May 1987, details of the location of each story telecast on the GTS regional news programs, where, the report was prepared and by whom and whether it was accompanied by video material. The first such return for the month of March 1987 shall be provided to the Tribunal on or before 10 april 1987.
187. The period of the licences was shortened to just over eighteen months because of the considerable concern with which the Tribunal viewed the demonstrated inability of the stations’ management to understand, interpret and comply with certain of the former Television Program Standards and the Interim Television Advertising Conditions, and because of a need to review as soon as possible the licensees’ ascertainment methods and news service (Report Nos.444/86 R(T) and 445/86 R(T))
Ouchy!
