General question about the history of ABC radio news.
In Victoria now, most news is broadcast from 774 3LO onto RN and the regionals. (I assume it’s the same in the other states: the capital city local station reads news for RN and the regionals except for some breakfast bulletins).
But back before RN (pre-1986), when it was Radio 2 with callsign 3AR and some local programming, what was the go with news bulletins each hour?
Did 3LO and 3AR share bulletins but each of the regionals have their own news reads? Was it just the same as now? Was there ever a time when all local ABC stations just broadcast their own news bulletins?
It’s always struck me as odd that someone in Mildura or Bairnesdale would see any relevance in hearing detailed weather for Melbourne (“it’s currently 16 degrees in the city") whilst the regional weather is so brief. It’d be worse in the bigger states.
This is what I remember from the 70’s and 80’s, mostly in Melbourne and Victoria unless stated otherwise. It was similar in other capital cities and states with some differences:
Radio 1 and Radio 2 had mostly 15 minute news bulletins at different times of the day, not necessarily on the hour or half hour, e.g. on at quarter past or quarter to the hour. These times were different from each other most of the time, but at some points they would be the same. Radio 3 stations had a news schedule which was a blend of the two. The early morning (e.g. 6:00 am) and late evening (after 10 or 11 PM) bulletins would be only 10 minutes.
These bulletins consisted of 10 minutes of a national bulletin coming from Sydney (5 minutes for 10 minute bulletins), followed by a tone similar to the US time pip but not sure if the same frequency, followed by 5 minutes of state/territory based news starting with “And new, here’s the (nae of state or territory) news with (name of announcer). For NSW, the same announcer just continued after the tone with state based news.
Additionally, Radio 1 (not sure about Radio 3 stations) had on the hour 5-minute news bulletins called news-in-brief, at certain times of the day (e.g. after 9am to before drive, not sure about drive, and 8 PM onwards). Can’t remember if they were national or state based, or one followed by the other.
Don’t know if regional stations had local news bulletins.
ABC FM just carried the 10 minute national part of the news bulletin a small number of times per dah (e.g. 6:00 PM). It may have only been once per day at 6PM, can’t remember.
Some regional commercial stations also carried the 10 minute national part of the news bulletins, e.g. 3CS Colac in the mid 70’s.
There were some differences between states, e.g. in the mid 70’s, various ABC stations in NSW (Radio 1 or Radio 3 or both, can’t remember) had a 15 minute bulletin at 9PM, but radio 1 in Melbourne didn’t. Theirs was at 10 PM. In South Australia, that bulletin was at 9:30 PM (same time as Victoria given the different timezones) on Radio 1. Meanwhile, in the morning, Radio 1 and Radio 2 Adelaide had bulletins at the same local times as their respective Melbourne stations.
NOTE:
Radio 1 is now ABC Local (e.g. 3LO Melbourne, 2BL Sydney, AN Adelaide)
Radio 2 is now Radio National (e.g. 3AR Melbourne, 2FC Sydney, 5CL Adelaide)
Radio 3 was the ABC station in all the regional places that didn’t have separate Radio 1 & Radio 2 stations.
Kinda think they should have stuck with that actually - having a combined Local/RN in regional areas as a R3 network. They could have then put something with broader appeal on FM in regional areas - e.g. ABC Country, Double J or the like.
The ABC has entire state/territory based news bulletins for much of the day. Outside those hours, they are national bulletins. The exact hours when they have the state/territory based bulletins vary between different states and territories, and in some of those, less hours on weekends. ABC News Radio only has the national bulletins. Triple J has its own news bulletins.
I find the local news bulletins on Radio National bizarre and jarring to be honest. I’m listening to Radio “National” and then they go to a news break and the headline is a house fire in Mt Gravatt, it’s just weird. If I’m on RN, I want a national and international news focus.
ABC South East South Australia celebrated it 70th anniversary yesterday morning at the Mount Gambier Library with listeners, old friends and new, gathering to share memories and cake.
Part of the morning featured ABC South East SA broadcast legends Stan Thomson, Alan Richardson and Lucy Richards reminiscing with plenty of laughter and emotion.
This dropbox link contains 9 tracks from 2UE’s RadioActive days - 7 are jingles, and there are 2 standalone FX tracks. Taken from a CD dub of 88 versions.
..and from a “third remake” disc are these cuts from the “Everything that radio should be” jingle package (both male and female versions). The last two are the news themes before Ken Sparkes’s voiceover was added - marred by a sort of bad CD rip which I’ll have to go back and fix.
Mt Gambier radio station 5MG began broadcasting on 26 September 1955. It shows how slow the roll-out of regional radio was…Adelaide’s 5AN commenced back on 15 October 1937.
Historic photos show 5MG co-located with a station called 5PA.
Wikipedia says: “In 1956, a second, better transmitter (5PA) was built 50 kilometres north of the town of Penola”. So it sounds like a retransmission rather than a separate station. The allocation of a new callsign, therefore, seems odd. I wonder if the 5PA name was ever put to air?
5MG was only low powered, seems like a town infill for the 5PA service at Naracoorte, which was higher powered. I imagine they would have always carried the same programmes.
In Victoria, major cities like Ballarat and Bendigo didn’t get local ABC until the 1990s or thereabouts. I wonder if it was because these centres were possibly deemed to receive reasonable reception of ABC (AM) radio from Melbourne or places like Wimmera (3WV)
Growing up I’m pretty sure 5MG was on 1584 before moving to the current 1476 AM frequency. 1161 5PA pretty much covers most of the upper and lower south east of SA, 1476 is strong in Mt Gambier but slowly fades past Tarpeena which is about 25km north of Mt Gambier, that’s where 1161 takes over.