Sydney, Wednesday 29 April 1970. It was the Bicentenary of Captain James Cook’s landing at Botany Bay. ATN7, TCN9 and TEN10 had afternoon coverage of the royal tour, TCN had a special program at 7:00pm, and TEN had the fireworks at 7:30pm. Oddly, ABN2 had no special programs that day but presumably it would have been covered in the news, (though there was live coverage and special programs on the ABC radio stations 2FC and 2BL).
The station originally known as RTS5A turned 40 years old on Saturday. (It is now WIN)
Here are some classic TV listings for RTS from TV-Radio Guide and its successor TV Radio Extra:
April 1977:
February 1979:
November 1986:
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Wow, not starting until 11am well into the 80s…
Even in the early 1980s they were still not starting up until 4.30 in the afternoon.
I suspect it was not until the station tied up with SES8 in the 1990s that programming hours started in the early morning.
I also wonder if there was a significant migrant population in the region as the channel carried both Variety Italian Style and Grecian Scene and in the 1986 listing broadcast Hello Australia which was actually an SBS production aimed at assisting migrants with their understanding of the English language and Australian culture.
I heard somewhere that RTS back in the early days built their own automation unit with about $1000.00 worth of parts from Dick Smith. Wouldn’t have surprised me given how tiny the station was.
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Interesting how there was no news service, let alone a relay from a capital city station? Did RTS back then have even short locally produced news breaks that were not listed on the schedule? RTS possibly had no outside link to the world back then when it started in the 70s? All but gone the old RTS. Does WIN still have a sales office in the area? Or does the SES Mt Gambier office look after all SES/RTS sales?
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My understanding is that they had a 5 minute local news bulletin ahead of the national news on relay but this didn’t start until 1980 or thereabouts.
Yes, 11am startups continued until about 1993 or 1994, when the Today show was introduced.
There is quite a large Greek and Sikh population, amongst other nationalities in the Riverland, so they would have been catering for the needs of the local community. As an aside, 1062 ABC Riverland (radio) broadcast a Greek language program once a week (replacing part of the 891 ABC Adelaide Evening Show) until at least 2008.
Yes, I’m pretty sure WIN still has a physical presence at their Loxton studios. It would be a fairly skeleton sales staff though.
WIN aren’t at Loxton anymore. They are now in Berri and I do believe it is a sales office only.
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Same like in Mt Gambier, it’s pretty much only a sales office these days.
Thanks for the update - looks like this only happened earlier this year. Probably makes sense for a sales office to be located in a town (not out of town next to the transmitter!).
Yes, that’s right. I think they have some people employed by AdMedia working in the building too, but otherwise I imagine it would be fairly empty.
Brisbane TV listing from 29 years ago, Friday 18 December 1987.
The night’s big event is the Lord Mayor’s Christmas Carols presented by QTQ9 and radio 4BH.
Earlier in the day is the final episode of TV0’s Early Birds Show for the year, although I imagine its days were soon numbered pending the conversion of TV0 to Channel 10.
Greg Evans’ game show Crossfire is the summer replacement for Sale Of The Century, and replacing Midday are reruns of the dud 1983 soap Waterloo Station followed by sitcom Private Benjamin (the latter I think was a Channel 10 title elsewhere?)
And it’s early days for two new soaps on TV0/Network Ten… Santa Barbara and The Bold And The Beautiful.
Source: The Sunday Mail, Brisbane.
EDIT: In the TV History thread I was unsure what became of Prisoner on TV0. Well, according to this listing, it appears TV0 was still doing first-run episodes of Prisoner in December 1987… like Adelaide it was twelve months behind Melbourne.
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Melbourne/Gippsland, Christmas Day 1990
from TV Week
ABC-ABV2/ABLV4
11.00 Christmas Worship
noon John Martin’s Christmas Pageant
1.00 The Princess & the Flying Shoemaker
2.30 George & the Star
3.00 Foxtales "A Winter Story"
3.24 Morris’ Disappearing Bag
3.30 Christmas Every Day
3.50 Clown of God
4.00 Babar & Father Christmas
4.25 Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends "Thomas’ Christmas Party"
4.30 The Angel & the Soldier Boy
5.00 A Crystal Christmas in Sweden (Crystal Gayle is joined by John Davidson, David Hasselhoff, and Michael Damien)
6.00 Countdown Revolution Christmas Special (features the Doug Anthony All Stars, Kate Cerebrano, Stephen Cummings, and Reg Mombassa)
7.00 ABC News/Weather
7.20 Queen’s Christmas Message
7.30 Miracle on Fort Street
8.00 The Home-Made Christmas Video “Alas Smith and Jones” (PGR)
8.30 Best of GP "Georgie"
9.30 Movie "The Barkleys of Broadway"
11.25 Queen’s Christmas Message
11.35 NFL Football
1.05 close
HSV7
5.35 The Tomorrow People
6.00 Pac-Man
6.30 Agro’s Cartoon Connection
9.00 Bewitched (bw)
9.30 Fat Cat & Friends
10.00 John Martin’s Christmas Pageant
11.00 Agro’s Christmas Story
noon Movie "Christmas Without Snow"
2.00 Disney’s Very Merry Christmas Parade
4.00 The Adventures of Candy Claus
4.30 Now You See It ©
5.00 ALF
5.30 Family Feud
6.00 Seven Nightly News
6.30 Wheel of Fortune
7.00 Hinch Summer Series
7.30 Movie “Oklahoma” (PGR)
10.15 Queen’s Christmas Message
10.30 World Vision: Some of My Children
11.25 Ivan’s Face to Face
11.30 NBC Today
1.30 World at War
2.30 Rituals (PGR)
2.55 Generations (PGR)
3.20 The Refuge (AO)
3.50 Sherlock Holmes (AO)
4.50 Holiday World
5.15 Ivan’s Face to Face
GTV9
6.00 Wowser
6.30 Three Stooges (bw)
7.00 ITN World News
7.30 Turn Round Australia Christmas Special
8.30 Carols of Christmas
9.00 Here’s Humphrey
9.30 KTV
10.00 Carols at Candlelight
noon Movie "A Christmas Story"
1.45 Movie "The Night They Saved Christmas"
3.30 The Other Wise Man
4.00 Facts of Life (finale)
4.30 C’mon Kids ©
5.00 Mr. Kreuger’s Christmas
5.30 Head of the Class
6.00 National Nine News
6.30 A Current Affair Summer Edition
7.00 Designing Women "Manhunt"
7.30 Living Dolls “The Not So Sweet Smell of Success” (Earth Quest at 7.45)
8.00 Growing Pains “Obscure Objects of Our Desire” (pt 2)
8.30 China Beach “Christmas China Beach” (AO)
9.30 Matlock “Santa Claus” (PGR)
10.30 Queen’s Christmas Message
10.40 Family & Friends
11.40 E! Entertainment (AO)
12.50 Movie “The Man Who Finally Died” (bw/PGR)
2.45 Movie “Yellowstone Kelly” (PGR)
4.30 Dukes of Hazzard (PGR)
5.30 Starting Out
ATV10
6.00 Ten Newswatch
7.00 Phantom Treehouse (pt 2/C)
7.30 Ewoks
8.00 Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin
8.30 Muppet Show
9.00 A Christmas World
10.00 Mulligrubs
10.30 A Christmas Celebration
11.00 Yeshua & the First Christmas
11.30 A Story We Share
noon Movie “Bush Christmas” (bw)
1.35 Movie "Miracle on 34th Street"
3.30 That Girl
4.00 Lassie
4.30 The Storyteller (premiere/C)
5.00 Donahue
6.00 Ten Evening News/Queen’s Christmas Message
6.30 Doogie Howser, MD "Doogie the Red Nosed Reindeer"
7.00 Wonder Years "Christmas"
7.30 Movie "White Christmas"
10.15 Movie “Larceny Inc.” (bw/PGR)
12.20 It Began at a Party
12.50 Ten Newswatch
SBS
1.05 Confidencen (Sweden)
1.50 Mytto & Christmas (Finland)
2.05 Movie “The Summer of the Falcon” (Germany)
3.45 Silent Night with Jose Carreras (UK)
4.20 La Boheme (Italy)
6.20 Queen’s Christmas Message
6.30 World News
7.00 Movie “My Father Lives in Rio” (Netherlands)
8.45 The Cutting Edge “Christmas at Starcross” (US)
9.35 Fanny & Alexander (pt 3/PGR)
10.35 Movie “My Sweet Little Village” (PGR/Czechoslovakia, in Czech)
SCN-GLV8
6.55 Thought for the Day
7.00 News
7.30 Turn Round Australia Christmas Special
8.30 The Other Wise Man
9.00 Fat Cat & Friends
9.30 Carol’s Christmas
10.00 Movie "White Christmas"
noon Carols by Candlelight
2.00 Movie "A Very Brady Christmas"
4.00 Mr. Krueger’s Christmas
4.30 Double Dare ©
5.00 Movie "Robin Hood"
6.30 National Nine News
7.00 Bishop of Sandhurst’s Christmas Message
7.05 Movie "Finian’s Rainbow"
9.50 Movie “The Importance of Being Ernest” (bw)
11.40 Movie "Father Dear Father"
1.20 Thought for the Day
1.25 close
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In 1990 GLV/Southern Cross Network would have still been taking National Nine News from Melbourne. During 1991 Southern Cross Network changed its news relay to Ten in the lead up to aggregation.
Here’s another classic listing, from the TV guide in the Sunday Observer newspaper. Tuesday 21 December 1976. Note that all three commercial channels are running mid-evening news bulletins over the summer.
Also Ivan Hutchinson’s Christmas/Summer movie guide continued as an annual special well into the 1980s.
p.s. It would appear that the aquarium shop advertised is still going! It has moved down the road to larger premises (now at 232-236 Bell Street). The telephone number 35 5843 is now 9354 5843.
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Some definite oddities in that schedule…
5:00pm Donahue on Ten
6:30pm WoF on Seven
Not to mention all the networks bar SBS airing the Queens Christmas Message - wouldn’t get that these days!
So many testcards, even 20 years after TV began! Unbelievable.
6.30 was Home And Away’s timeslot then so I guess Wheel Of Fortune was just a summer replacement. It was probably repeats of that, too.
Ten having Donahue at 5.00 was particularly weird though, given it was never on in that timeslot normally. Maybe it was a Christmas themed special?
During school holidays ABC was essentially just test pattern after the end of Play School at 10am right through to the afternoon. Even in the early 1980s it was still much the same. During school holidays ABC didn’t really bother with daytime programming much until the mid to late 1980s, with the exception being test cricket coverage on ABC regionals over summer.
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It was quite often a test pattern between 12-2 when either Parliament Question Time or something like Let’s Learn Japanese came on in the late 80’s.
Listing has been corrected…thought SCN carried Seven news at one point??
All Victorian regionals (and SES8 Mt Gambier) carried Seven National News from Melbourne during the 1980s until Seven changed to a one-hour bulletin in 1987. They all then changed over to National Nine News although Prime (AMV4) later reverted back to Seven as it had formed ties with Seven in anticipation for aggregation.
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