I remember through the 90’s there was just under 24 hours of GF coverage on Seven (well Southern Cross here in Tassie) with coverage starting straight after the news on Friday night, even bumping Today Tonight and running all night with previews, marathons and compilations before the North Melbourne GF Breakfast, then the TAC Cup GF, the VFL GF and then the AFL GF finally coverage finishing at 6 with the news dedicating half the bulletin to it all. Still seems strange with it all so low key these days after growing up with that level of coverage.
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First test colour programs in Melbourne included NSW Open golf (ABC), cricket from Perth and the Saturday night trots in Penthouse Club on Seven, the Bong Bong races from Sydney on Nine, and indoor tennis on 0. But because of the stringent time limits in place it meant that only portions of the telecasts could be broadcast in colour.
According to TV listings for Sydney at the time, it appears that ABN2 got a bit cheeky and, just to be first, put on some snooker at exactly 12.00am on Saturday 19 October 1974 - the first day of the tests. If the commercial stations or ABC in other states did a similar thing it wasn’t captured in TV listings at the time.
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At the time, I recorded with a cassette deck the audio of the early colour broadcasts (hence I knew the info regarding the GPS event on Seven). In Brisbane the ABC coverage started with “This is ABC National Television beginning colour test programming with this first live colour telecast from Sydney and we welcome all east coast stations to this transmission.” With the Channel O tennis coverage Billy J Smith refers to tuning in again at 3pm “when we’ll be back in colour” 
Where is the ‘Long distance television/DX’ing’ thread in this new version of the forum? I can’t seem to find it.
Thanks in advance.
It is being discussed in
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Since we don’t have a general Australian Television thread, I decided to post this story here.
Australia’s audiovisual trade deficit
Australia’s audiovisual trade deficit drops for the first time in five years with exports growing by 41 per cent to $199 million
This is a strong sign of acceptance of Australia television content around the world. Cleverman, Upper Middle Bogan and Secrets and Lies can be added to the likes of Dance Academy, Go Back to Where You Came From, Wentworth and Bondi Rescue as some of the most notable and enduring examples of tape and format sales to come out of our market in recent years.
Inside Film and Television
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Thanks for your reply. I would like to see a standalone topic returned to the forum.
See new topic. I moved the relevant posts into there that I could identify. Let me know if there are any others.
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Some old behind the scenes footage of CTC7 has been uploaded to YouTube.
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A friend of mine has just started going through old ABT annual reports dating back to 1949.
He said that the 1955-56 reports had TV frequency allocations listed, & while VHF Channel 3 was in the FM radio broadcast band, (as it was till analogue switch off), VHF channels 4 & 5 were allocated 130-140MHz (where VHF channel 5A ended up).
There was an experimental FM radio station in Sydney during 1949, operating on 92.1MHz at 2kW, so FM radio was obviously planned early on, & they wanted to keep the FM band clear, but later scrapped the idea, & moved VHF TV channels 4 & 5 down into the FM band.
He also said, one of the late 1950’s reports had channel allocations for proposed regional TV stations.
Newcastle was allocated VHF Ch. 6 & 8, Canberra was allocated VHF Ch. 7 & 10, & channel 4 was allocated for a 100kW Blue Mountains TV station.
As it turned out, Newcastle got VHF Ch. 3 & 5 (later to be 3 & 5A), Canberra stayed with VHF Ch. 7 & 10, the Blue Mountains got shafted & the Illawarra got VHF Ch.4.
He’s keeping me updated on interesting things he finds, so I’ll post updates here to, for all to share.
I remember listening to NBN Television on the radio in the car. Oh those were the good old days. 
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that Geelong was to be reserved Channels 1 and 5 for a potential ABC and commercial service. Neither came to fruition.
On the wall of someone’s office at TVQ are some interesting historical images. I wonder what the whole set looks like. Taken from Eleven’s Toasted TV that often contains segments recorded in the offices at Mt Coot-tha. One image is a test pattern and the others look like the construction of the tower and studios.
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[quote=“TelevisionAU, post:158, topic:137, full:true”]
I also remember reading years ago that BTV-6 Ballarat was planning to extend its service area to cover Geelong and the Surf Coast and set up a newsroom/sales office there to allow Geelong businesses to advertise on that station, but that also never eventuated. Although some places such as hotels used to receive BTV-6 (and later Prime7 and Southern Cross Ten) via Lookout Hill transmitter from Geelong so that they can watch all-day cricket from the MCG, and AFL matches not shown on HSV-7.
Some NBL sports coverage from 1999 - including example of the first permanent watermark used in metro areas.
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Those graphics are ABC Sport graphics from the era and the commentator sounds like Glenn Mitchell. Makes sense for a Wildcats game in Perth, but why on 7 Brisbane?
I remember being down at Ulladulla in 2007 and the bins had advertisements for “Prime Local News”.
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didn’t know Seven had NBL in 1999, I knew ABC had it in the late 90s after Ten pulled out. It must have been just on BTQ-7. By the new decade after the ABC’s deal expired all NBL was on Fox Sports, apart from a couple of seasons on Nine in the mid to late 00s hosted by Stephanie Brantz, in which they replayed the Wednesday night Fox Sports game delayed by a few days (Nine aired it on Sunday mornings).
Also Seven had a watermark since 1997, but used only for sports telecasts. In 1999 they started using their watermark for normal programming.
I seem to recall the Brisbane Bullets had some connection to Seven in those days (possibly Seven was a sponsor?), so there may have been an agreement for their matches to be shown locally on Seven.
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