Didn’t BTV/GMV have News Centre Six as well?
They did
Overnight occasionally in the late 90s and early 2000s, STW used to take the dirty feed of Nine Sydney complete with the same PRGs as Sydney at the time but no watermark! Only Seven in Perth was the only station that never took a dirty feed overnight.
Before 24 hour broadcasts started, how did various stations start the day? I’ve seen numerous videos of the ABC clock for example and some regional stations. In Brisbane BTQ and QTQ had recorded messages about the commencement of transmission with Seven at one point using the Moira Sisters song Good Morning (How Are You) as part of the opening 
. TVQ just used a station ID before going straight to program.
From what I remember seeing online in years gone by (most if not all of which are sadly no longer online due to YouTube accounts being closed or suspended), I think that Channel Ten in Sydney and Melbourne started the broadcast day with an instrumental version of their current 1 Minute Ident…at least in the later years prior to 24/7 broadcasting. But don’t quote me on that!
In the 1980s ABV2 used to crank up the test pattern at about 7.50am before playing Advance Australia Fair just before 8.00. Then there’d a slide picture with a voiceover announcing the channel frequencies for Victoria. Then it was off to Sesame Street.
Channel 0/28 would fade out from test pattern to a flat blue backdrop with a list of upcoming programs in white text. Then they’d go into the intro sequence featuring the theme tune from the 1980 Olympic Games, of which the title I don’t recall. At the start of this intro a voiceover would announce “This is Channel 0/28 multicultural television, Sydney and Melbourne. A station of the Special Broadcasting Service…” before going on to read out the broadcast details of its VHF and UHF channels.
In its early days 0/28 would then cut to a continuity presenter who would appear at various times during the evening to introduce the night’s programs. These presenters were usually female and were soon phased out from channel presentation but did make a comeback when 0/28 became SBSTV in 1985.
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From memory, in the 1980s Southern Cross TV8 would go from a test pattern to Advance Australia Fair before a voice over read out its channel frequencies.
Then for many years they would go to Thought For The Day, a 3-minute religious monologue. They went on to close each night’s transmission with Thought For Tomorrow.
GMV6 in its closedown sequence used to include a plug for sister radio station 3SR before going to Advance Australia Fair.
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I Found this on YouTube, It’s the Opener for NEN 9 Tamworth from the 80’s
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In the late '90s, GWN would play music under the test pattern for a period before commencing transmission, probably half an hour prior. They opened with an extended signpost/lineup for the entire day, followed by a long version of whatever ident was being used at the time. Early 2000s saw TVSN simulcast overnight which brought an end to the station closing.
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Yes - that was one of my uploads!!
Here’s one for CTC 7 (with verbal copyright notice)
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Similar to TVW in the late 90s - they’d play music over a test pattern for about 30 minutes, and then aired a local Perth ident after that before cutting over to Sunrise.
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illegal to record LOL
WIN South Australia 1999
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that’s really weird, skipping the first 30 mins of early news just to show nothing.
Is it possible that WIN SA used to air the 2nd half of National Nine Early News live at 6am local time with Today starting at 6.30am?
Correct - transmission started at 6 am and they took the Early News and Today live until becoming a sole Nine affiliate and taking the Ballarat / Wollongong feed in December 2003. I think at some point between 1999 and 2003, they started opening half an hour earlier at 5:30 and taking the entirety of the Early News.
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From memory that early morning bulletin from Nine was structured as 2 half-hour bulletins together, so there was probably nothing in the first half that wasn’t also covered or repeated in the second half. Like with news coverage on shows like Today and Sunrise, where they really just recycle the same news stories every half an hour because very few people would watch the full show from start to finish.
But here’s a station opener from way back:
YouTube: Todd’s Retro TV World
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The ever popular MacArthur Park theme!
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