while the Libs are copping a lot of criticism (and rightly so IMO) for their lack of support of community TV, it is easy to forget that Labor wasn’t much better when it was in government.
you’re right … the actual Convergence Review recommended “Spectrum on the ‘sixth channel’ should be allocated to new services and to maintain the distribution of community television services” while Conroy himself watered that down with references to “potential uses of the ‘sixth channel’ as broadcasting and online technologies evolve” and only confirmed that the community stations could use it until 31st December 2014 … of course by that time Turnbull was in charge of the communications portfolio and told them they had to move to online and it’s been on for young and old since then …
and even then they had be dragged to give CTV a entrance into digital in 2009, while ABC, SBS and the commercials had been handed out free digital spectrum and been broadcasting in digital for 8 years, while CTV was stuck on analogue.
… I may as well go out there and give you my prediction for the digital channel from 1 July this year … the Libs will award it to Sky News to air the same additional service that WIN currently does in the regions so that “Metropolitan viewers can have the same choice” … and just in time for the next election …
I seem to recall the situation being so bad by 2009 that TVS were literally airing spots with Joy Hruby (RIP) and other channel personalities begging for the government to give them a digital licence.
Think it was at/around the same time (going by what I remember of posts from the old version of Media Spy) that C31 Melbourne were running similar promos and their “Fair Go Kev” watermark.
LOL are there really viewers in metropolitan Australia complaining that they don’t have access to Sky News on WIN?! Surely most interested in that content would just get Foxtel or if you were really desperate, point a UHF antenna at the nearest regional area?!
Mind you I’m actually surprised that News Corp haven’t already got a SNoW-like channel up and running in metro markets via one of the commercial multiplexes.
9 February 1975 (Sunday): Nine’s new soapie, The Unisexers, from the producers of Number 96, makes its Melbourne debut in a one-hour episode before settling into a regular weekday 6.00pm timeslot. In Sydney, the one-hour debut aired two nights earlier (Friday).
The series was a dud and didn’t even last to see out the month!
YouTube: TheMercadoTV
9 February 1981: Game show Catch Us If You Can debuts on Seven in Sydney and Melbourne. Featuring studio and on-location games and stunts, it lasted about ten weeks. Not sure if it aired anywhere outside those two cities.
9 February 1969: Melbourne produced sitcom Good Morning Mr. Doubleday begins on ATV0 at 7.30pm. It had premiered on TEN10 the day before having only commenced filming three weeks earlier at 0’s Nunawading studios and Kyneton High School. The show, about a vague young high school science teacher played by Sydney comedian Gerry Gallagher, is an early attempt by the 0-10 Network to boost local content in order to meet new requirements set out by the Broadcasting Control Board. Television writers in The Age and SMH give it positive reviews but it doesn’t survive beyond the first 26 half hour series order.
I just googled “Kyneton High School” to see how far away it was from Nunawading and was shocked to see it’s an hour and a half away. It was intended to have been set in a country high school but you’d think there would’ve been plenty of high schools surrounded by bushland closer to Melbourne in those days.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen any clips from the show. Surprised that it survived considering 0-10 was known to dump a lot of their early stuff. Perhaps the production company, Fremantle International, held the masters.
That tagline in the ad, “One of Australia’s Great Television Stations”, ended up being a bit embarrassing for them. I remember reading about a promo with it having been played out only to be followed by “technical difficulties” which saw the station off air for several minutes.