A 1974(?) station ID from Channel 7. Courtesy of RecordCouncil.
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I watched “House Of Bond” last night and it was stated during the show when Alan Bond bought Nine Syd/Melb from Kerry Packer to form the “national” Nine Network, whilst Bond already owned Bris and Perth, but there was no mention of who owned Adelaide at the time (late 1987 by the looks of it) and if/how it was ever owned by Bond.
Was Adelaide owned by the Lamb family at the time, did it ever come under network ownership prior to Nine buying it from WIN a few years ago?
Edit: doesn’t look like Bond ever owned Adelaide, so he never had a truly national network
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Bond (or Packer) never owned NWS9. I think during the 1980s it was owned by the Lamb family, who I think also had interests in radio 2UE. Later owners of NWS9 included Southern Cross Broadcasting and WIN.
You’re right, NWS9 had never been a Nine O&O until Nine bought it from WIN a few years back.
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Yep. The Lambs took a risk and acquired 2UE cheaply in the mid 1950s as television was starting. They sold it to Kerry Packer in the 1980s who notoriously attempted to network every shift, except breakfast, with 3AK. Remember CBC? Alan Bond acquired 2UE in 1987 when the deal was done to buy Nine from Packer. The Lamb’s re-acquired the station when Bond was having his financial problems and retained it until just after the cash for comment scandal, selling to Southern Cross in 2001. I always hoped the Lamb’s would take a third bite of the cherry and restore 2UE to it’s former glory. RIP 2UE.
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Oh yes I remember CBC. “The Biggest Sound In Australia” except that in Melbourne it barely rated higher than a 2 per cent share.
The story goes that after Bond bought the Nines in Sydney and Melbourne he was given a tour around the Bendigo Street studios in Richmond. He was taken past what was the reception area for 3AK in the same building. Apparently he asked his people “what’s that?”. They said it was 3AK, the radio station. “Who owns it?”, “You do, Mr Bond”.
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Yeah. CBC crashed and burned in Sydney too. It lead to an era of success for 2GB with Mike Carlton on Breakfast and Laws on Mornings.
Hadn’t heard that story about Bond and 3AK.
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I’m also pretty sure the 60% reach limit at the time permitted an operator to buy four capital cities’ stations but not five - same reason why Ten’s ownership in the late 80s/early 90s was split between Northern Star and Charles Currans (with the latter owning Ten Perth on top of Capital), and I remember reading something about Skase being limited in what he could buy of Seven (on top of his QLD regional interests) - probably could buy the three east coast stations from Fairfax and HWT, but not the Perth/Adelaide group without busting the cap.
Wouldn’t have been until the reach rule was bumped up to 75% in 1992 that a truly five-city network could come under one owner - just that for whatever reason, either the Packers were reluctant to buy Nine Adelaide, and/or the Lambs (and Southern Cross afterward) were reluctant to sell, so the anomaly that was NWS continued on.
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A very intersting article from 2013 about Charles Currans and his media investments after selling his TV stations in 1996.
Did anyone remember which programs Jana Wendt fronted in her career? All I can remember was she used to present Ten Eyewitness News with David Johnston in 1980 and that service was the top news service in Melbourne for the next 7 years IIRC.
Just a few small shows you may not have heard of. ACA, Witness, 60 Minutes, Sunday, Dateline…
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Not so much Sunday, but obviously every man and his dog here knows ACA and 60mins.
Obviously.
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The last ever Still the One video shoot. Sadly most of the presenters are no longer with Nine or have retired
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…or in the case of Richie Benaud and Richard Carleton, sadly no longer with us at all! 
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Few presenters are currently with Nine from that video
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While many have left Nine since 2006, there’s still a dozen or so presenters in that clip who are still there today and a few who were still on our screens until relatively recently.
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Networks definitely don’t make promos now like they used to, this still looks great now even 11 years ago.
Quite funny seeing people like Fergo, Rowe, Ghidella etc in this considering their respective positions now
- made me think that it feels like it’s been quite a while since any major presenters have jumped ship.
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Michael Usher was quite a big surprise.
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What I find perhaps even more interesting than how many presenters have left Nine since 2006, is this earlier version of that “Still The One” promo we never got to see on air:
Presumably produced in late 2005 before Jessica Rowe moved over to Nine, since there’s scenes of Karl Stefanovic & Tracy Grimshaw dancing together. David Reyne and Hellen Dalley who both left Nine by Early 2006 also make appearances in that clip! Judging by the lack of a logo at the end, I wonder if that early version was also produced even before Nine decided which style of logo they’d be using in 2006?
Mind you, that’s not the only example online of TV branding elements we never got to see on-screen:
In this Vimeo showreel from zSpace for Nine’s “We Heart TV” relaunch branding of 2008, promotional footage of Toni Perrin (who of course left Nine by the time the new branding launched on screen, with Shelly Craft taking her spot as host of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos) and some slightly different looking graphics to what was seen on screen.
Things like this make me wonder what other elements for new branding packages (or even entire On-Air Presentation packages) the networks have commissioned over the years, only not to make it to air in the end.
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