A few other logos from WBQ from 1966 to 1976. They seemed to go through a few of them!!
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And in print
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Funnily enough, we only had a 12 inch AWA B&W portable in our place until 1981 to watch BCV-8 and ABEV-1.
Grandparents and Uncle&Aunty had Thorn 20 inch colour sets soon after 1975 which we watched the good stuff on (Olympics, Grand finals etc). Very good TV sets those.
But heaps of programs on BCV were still B&W source material- especially live telecines of old Westerns and comedies right into the 1980s.
Don’t they mean the only one in colour in their specific license area, fortuitous receoption not withstanding?
Very Crazy how it took until 1975 for Australia to adopt colour, especially with the Kiwis beating us to it. If I was in charge of the transition to colour, it would had been a gradual transition similar to the UK and Canada beginning around 1971 in Sydney and Melbourne and working my way up so that the majority of stations nationwide would had been converted by the start of 1975
Australia’s delay with colour was also impacted by our involvement in the Vietnam War.
In the 1960s, Australia was involved in the Vietnam War which, by the early 1970s, had placed a heavy burden on the Australian economy. According to Bruce Gyngell, then head of the Seven Network, Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War also delayed the arrival of colour television in Australia.
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It was said at the time it was good for Australia to wait so it could pick the best colour system to use (PAL) as opposed to places that went early with NTSC.
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The UK was using PAL from 1967. Australia was dragging the chain tbh.
A couple of things - NZ had just the one channel then so less infrastructure required to ‘switch’ and also there was a push to get the 1974 Commonwealth Games available to the country in colour. That is still the event many associate in NZ with their first colour TV experience.
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Australia choosing the 625-line black and white probably locked us out of NTSC anyway, it would probably would have been a pretty bespoke solution to try and adapt NTSC style colour to our black and white systems.
My understanding was that PAL existed or was known about when Australia finalised the choice of black and white systems?
Similarly, I’m pretty sure I remember reading that TEN-10/ATV-0 built out their studios/production systems as colour ready when they launched, because of how close it was and how obvious the final decision of PAL was going to be?
Waiting to see which system was the most suitable for our situation probably was a good idea if you think about it. Even the Yanks didn’t get it right the first time.
Also, NFSA uploaded these tests from GTV 9 at the Royal Melbourne Show
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And here is HSV7’s Colour TV Demonstration as seen at the 1968 Royal Melbourne Show.
YouTube: aussiebeachut0
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BTQ 7 carried out something similar at the RNA and AFAIK because of that, their slogan in Brisbane saw them claim to be “First in Colour”.
BTW the first live program to originate in Queensland was on BTQ and was a GPS School sports carnival.
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BTQ7’s Color Preview (taken from their 50th anniversary special).
YouTube: Gary86
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Have heard that the Vietnam War had a lot to do with it.
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Very much so it seems
Colour TV in Australia, Part 1 | National Film and Sound Archive of Australia