pretty much mirroring exactly the same thing done about 5 years earlier when they signed up Mike Willesee, former presenter and producer of A Current Affair, to be head of news and current affairs for the 0-10 network. Likewise with Schildberger years later, it didn’t end well. The only change to last longer than Willesee’s tenure was Bruce Mansfield reading the news.
2 Likes
I think that 8 December 1985 saw the final The National broadcast
This is the end of the Queensland edition
The bold experiment of replacing the 7pm news with a one hour bulletin starting at 6.30pm didn’t last long. This was the opener to the first from 4 March.
3 Likes
I think from 9 December the bulletin became known as Summer National and state-based editions restored where they had been taken away (e.g. NSW, VIC, TAS). A revamped ABC News and the new 7.30 Report began in January 1986.
9 December 1961: GLV10 Gippsland opens as Australia’s first non metropolitan TV station. It is now part of Southern Cross Austereo (Nine)
2 Likes
I’m guessing if there wasn’t a GLV-10, then there wouldn’t have been a Channel 0 in Melbourne.
Without GLV10’s interference, ATV Melbourne would’ve been free to broadcast on channel 10.
1 Like
New look for SBS on (or around) 9 December 2011
1 Like
Ditto TVQ with DDQ
1 Like
I think sometimes that TVQ0 could have renamed themselves on air as TEN between 1980 and 1988 whilst keeping the 0 frequency. 8 years is a long time. It would have made themselves a stronger station rather than the black sheep of the network for all those years. The Gold Coast after all was on UHF from 1983 and by the latter part of the 80’s, push button TV sets were becoming more common where you could set the the frequency to 0 and the channel to 10 on the TV. Yes, confusing from the start maybe but most would have been used to it after a while.
After all, NTD8 successfully did it from 2003 when their analogue frequency was 8 but on air as 9 and this was before digital TV even arrived into Darwin.
1 Like
I think the bigger issue for the 0 channels was reception more than the branding. Although there was some negative connotations about the channel number “0” but I think it was more significant that a growing share of the market could not pick up the channel particularly in high-rise and hilly areas.
Changing the frequency to 10 was a way to conveniently address both issues. And at least TVQ tried to address the branding component by changing to “TVO” to draw some attention away from the number “0”. I’m not sure that changing branding from 0 to “Ten” while keeping the channel number the same would have achieved all that much, and during the 1980s rotary dials were still on very much a large chunk of TV sets in use.
I agree by the time NTD8 changed to “Nine” in 2003 that the environment had changed in the way people tuned into channels and changing the brand from 8 to Nine was far less jarring. Plus, Darwin is a minuscule market of 120,000.
3 Likes
And after ATV moved to 10, it freed up the 0 frequency so it could be used by SBS in 1980.
1 Like
That was a useful benefit even if just intended to be temporary, but it was still problematic especially in Sydney where antennas were not accustomed to it. And the reception problems that were increasingly plaguing ATV0 were no different with SBS0.
Problem was, too, that there was very little space other than 0 for SBS to use on the VHF band, particularly if they wanted to have Melbourne and Sydney use the same channel number.
2 Likes
Hence why people had to adjust their antenna if they wanted to pick up SBS on the UHF Band.
we didn’t need to. We just assumed that we would need to upgrade to get UHF but after Channel 0 went off air we gave it a try and found that our ancient rooftop antenna worked just fine with Channel 28, even with the old ribbon cables.
3 Likes
10 December 2013 - Melbourne analog tv switched off
HSV-7 mark the occasion with a six-minute retrospective.
2 Likes
Last analog signal switched off in Australia.
1 Like
ON that day in 2013, this marked the end of an era for analog TV in Australia. Melbourne and Central and Remote Australia said farewell to analog TV after 57 years. Goodbye Analogue TV, Hello to Digital Television.
1 Like
10 December 1980: The US version of the former Aussie soap Number 96 debuts on NBC. I can’t be certain but it was possibly the first time an Australian format had been adapted for the US market. Problem was, it was a big dud. Nowhere near as successful as its Aussie original. Lasted about 6 weeks.
2 Likes
NBC would have another crack at it in 2008 with their version of Kath and Kim. Sadly, it too would be a failure, ending after 17 episodes.