Possibly taped from the analogue channel?
If the Nine archives are anything to go by, most of their news and programming will be Betamax through to 2007 and potentially beyond. I did a week’s work experience at the archives in 2007, and they were still using Betamax for quality purposes. Considering the digitisation options which were available at the time, I don’t think that was necessarily a bad idea.
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Over the weekend I visited the TV History Exhibition at Wollongong Art Gallery, The Box in The Corner.
It was very good, lots of historic items. Here is a photo album: https://imgur.com/a/iYmwigD
Highly recommended, continues until 17th March.
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And that digital storage (cost per GB) would have been very expensive at the time.
As the one who uploaded that video and recorded it onto videotape as it went to air originally, yes it was definitely off the old analogue service.
I can confirm that Nine Sydney have been producing in widescreen since January 2001. I can remember seeing digital TV being demonstrated in a retail shop in Sydney a few days after digital TV started showing the morning news bulletin. The studio shots and graphics were in widescreen, though most of the stories weren’t.
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The National Film and Sound Archive were using digital Betacam up until about 2017 when they switched to XDCAM.
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That would be correct for QTQ as well as I’ve seen a few bits and pieces over the years in widescreen from 2001/2002. The news opener was upgraded to widescreen in August 2000 for TCN & QTQ and no doubt the cameras were also upgraded at that same time to widescreen.
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Here is a very interesting find. Searching the NFSA archives for 16:9 Nine News content from 2001 I found this:
This is incredibly promising. 42GB for 1 hour of footage is unbelievable. This either implies that the footage is native HD or is SD but the bitrate is much higher than that of DVB-T.
Having said that, there is no way that one can request access to items of the archive for personal reasons. Certainly not to obtain and upload to YouTube, lol.
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Today, 1985, marked the re-branding of Network 0-28 to SBS, broadcasting in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. The network was anticipating future expansion to other cities and regional areas and would not necessarily be using the 0 or 28 channels in those regions. The change to SBS also marked the commencement of daytime programming which initially appeared between 11am and 2pm weekdays, and World News moving to the new timeslot of 7.00pm.
But here is a sample of some Network 0-28 program promos from 1984:
YouTube: Oz TV VHS Nostalgia (note: low audio in this clip)
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Did he record this inside a helicopter?
Sky News Australia launched at 5pm on this day in 1996. Who would’ve thought Australia’s first 24 hour news and current affairs channel would eventually ditch news in prime time in favour of the right wing commentary that would see viewership numbers soar?
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As the very first presenter to introduce a Sky News Australia bulletin/program, one wonders what Juanita Phillips would think of the service as it is now. Extremely thankful that she’s at the ABC, I suspect.
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Wasn’t the ABC also looking at launching a news channel in the mid 90s?
Yes - I believe it was a JV between it, Fairfax and Cox Communications called Australian Information Media. They (pay TV providers at the time) went with Sky News as the cost was too high.
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…and because it was a joint venture between Murdoch & Packer, who at the time had significant interests in Foxtel & Optus Vision respectively.
Correct, although the dominant TV partner in the JV was the ABC it was based at their Gore Hill studios and was to have been called TNC The News Channel.
The involvement of the ABC (along with Fairfax) also explains the determination of Murdoch and Packer to keep the channel off the air.
The JV played into their opponents hands by just assuming the channel would be a “must carry” for the new pay TV operators. They never bothered to secure carriage agreements before going into development. Oops.
Anyway, whilst all the corporate machinations were going on TNC was in rehearsal, amongst its launch presenters who never made it to air were Katrina Lee and Michael Holmes
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When did Sky stop showing the ABC/CBS evening newscasts in the morning?
“Industrial Action”, a common occurrence at the ABC.
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I’m guessing about three or four years ago now (maybe a bit longer)… they were initially moved to A-PAC or the Sky News Election channel and then dropped altogether after Sky relinquished the CBS rights.
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