Apologies if this has been shared already but I thought it might be of interest.
Some behind-the-scenes home movie footage taken around GTV9, early 1970s. Looks like it includes a closing final total of one of the annual Yooralla Telethons, plus infomercials with Hal Todd, and Bruce Mansfield and Pete Smith with a studio audience.
YouTube: CINEPIX
Was the 8.30 bulletin an update or a full 30 minute bulletin?
it was a full 30-minute bulletin, launched in November 1976, to supplement the existing 6.30 bulletin. Something that the three commercial channels in Melbourne all tried at various times in the 1970s particularly over the summer months when viewers might be switching on their sets later in the evening.
Interesting.
Yes, I thought it may have been more of a summer fill-in bulletin.
@TVHead has always pushed for 9.30pm local bulletin to be implemented in the present day.
Also for some context, in 1976 National Nine News in Melbourne was struggling as it tried to shake off the failure of the Sydney-Melbourne News Centre Nine format. They’d got Eric Pearce out of retirement but that wasn’t working. They moved the main bulletin from 6.30pm to 6.00pm, but that didn’t work either, so Nine moved it back to 6.30. So by the end of the year, Nine was looking for an advantage against Seven which was dominating the 6.30 timeslot, so Nine sprung up this bulletin at 8.30 to claim the timeslot for the summer before 7 or 0 got around to doing it. I guess in the hope that it might eventually lead to people switching to the earlier Nine bulletin after summer. (I don’t think there was any lofty ambition to keep these mid-evening bulletins far past January as regular programming would start to resume)
Channel 0 did also end up launching at 9pm bulletin on 6 December. HSV7 appeared to have a 9pm bulletin planned, with it appearing in magazine guides published in advance, but more up to date newspaper guides indicate that this bulletin may not have eventuated.
Would this clip be from 1976 or 1977?
Great read. Thank you.
