Random TV History

And to coincide with this momentous day I’ve spent the day cutting down the first video ready for release which is all TasTV 1994 presentation and old TV ads.

A few familiar faces in there too who have gone onto other things or remained in the same roles!

Enjoy - I’ll hopefully have a couple of short ones I’ve found ready in the next couple of days too including a story from 1992 I believe from Southern Cross Network News (or Nightly News, can’t remember which) and some promos for ABC Budget Night…1990.

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Great stuff!

Going by the News Update and promos for the John Farnham Rwanda concert, I’d probably say that recording was most likely from late Saturday August 6 and early Sunday August 7 of 1994.

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Cool, that would match with some of the dates, it was certainly around winter time with a temp of 8 for Hobart the next day but bushfires cutting power in Sydney meant it would be still reasonably warm in other places!

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Great memories from Tasmanian television shared so far!

Also to coincide with the 60th anniversary, I thought I’d share this gem I found recently on YT. This is the Tas TV Hobart 6.30 News bulletin from Hobart Cup day, Wednesday 6th February 1985. Tom Payne is the newsreader, the late Darren Tyquin presents sport, and Sue Hickey (Sue Lawless as she was then) with the weather.

This was broadcast just two days after TVT6 and TNT9 changed their on-air identities to that of Tas TV. Many familiar names reporting the stories who have either gone on to bigger things or were already well-known names at the time of this bulletin.

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Ok, managed to get the other 2. Here’s some ABC promos for Budget 1990, 4 Corners, 7:30 Report Tasmania and a news update with John Remess.

The second video is the launch of the Safety House program at Nixon Street Primary School in Devonport - a lot of familiar faces for me there! I think that would have been around 1992.

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Came across this on FB… A full page ad in Rockhampton’s Morning Bulletin for Twin Peaks on QTV from 1991. So weird seeing a QTV logo again.

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Couple of observations:

Looks like Tas TV had adopted a similar look to Seven National News in Melbourne at the time.

So was it Tom Payne reading from Hobart and Tim Lester from Launceston? Northern viewers would not have liked seeing their news coming from Hobart I imagine. From what I recall there was something of a north/south rivalry in those days.

Despite Tas TV having a news affiliation with Seven it looks like they were running news stories from Nine, with one story by Peter Harvey and one voiced by Brian Naylor

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Anyone on Twitter has seen the memes… this came to mind earlier…

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Just had a chance to sit down and watch - what an awesome find! I only found out from Brett Costello’s reports that Sue Hickey was a weather girl I didn’t know that. For those not from Tasmania Sue Hickey has been more famous (or infamous) the past few years for becoming Hobart Lord Mayor for a few years with some interesting decisions (a fortune spent on upgrading public toilets for instance) and then later became a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly for the Liberals but did a deal with Labor and the Greens to be installed as the Speaker which was against her party wishes where they’d done an internal deal for one of their senior members to have the role. She’s also come under fire quite a bit over time for disagreeing with her party and not being involved in Cabinet - as she’s not a Cabinet member. I did chuckle thought that the sponsor for the weather was read by Peter Murphy who must surely have become Tasmania’s longest serving weather presenter. I did also note there was no forecast for the North West Coast, only Hobart and Launnie mentioned with the cities forecast and other regions mentioned but they must have put us in the West Coast side (which is quite different).

It appears that the Tim Lester story must have been presented from the TNT9 studios in Launceston as that was a northern story, would technology have allowed (or afforded) live type crosses back then or would those stories have needed to be pre-taped and somehow rushed to Hobart for broadcast?

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That’s a good point. Aussat was still a year away so only m icrowave link would have been in place. However, looking at the TV guiides od 1985 & 1986, it appears most programems were the same but the occasional different show or the same show, different episode. I’m guessing that playout was still conducted tfrom both markets locally? How did the microwave link work exactly?

Also, how did TAS TV receive live programmes such as Willesee, Midday Show and othe live sports from the commercial networks? Looking at the distance from Melbourne, it looks to be too far for a microwave link over Bass Strait or is this technically possible?

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yes they had a microwave bearer link to the mainland. It’s mentioned in the newspaper supplement that was published for TNT9’s 25th anniversary in 1987.

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I had a teacher at TAFE who had done some work with the broadcasting there and there were a couple of hops for the microwave link, I think it went via Flinders Island. I had forgotten about the microwave links though.

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Even today, Microwave is still an important part of delivering content around the country

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This was from the 25th anniversary newspaper supplement from The Examiner for TNT9’s 25th anniversary

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Brilliant, thanks. I presume Perth had a similar arrangement in the 80’s before Aussat.

Here’s an article from 11th September 1984 in Rockhampton’s Morning Bulletin regarding RTQ7 acquiring a supplementary license and their plans for it. Obviously this never happened but interesting. Who was Kevin Parry though?

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Perth was linked to the east coast via microwave link from 1970

He was a businessman and a former owner of NBN

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Ah thanks @TelevisionAU, I knew that name was familiar but couldn’t think why!

Replying to a post @WAtvVideos made in the now-closed “General TV History” thread in November 2017:

Could this be the video you’re referring to?

Also on that same YouTube channel, what appears to be a low quality, but clean & widescreen Ten Movie Opener from 2000:

…and a C7 Sports Ident:

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Google helped :wink:

But I think a lot of regional channels were looking at acquiring a secondary licence - this was before aggregation was on the horizon although the prospect of aggregation just made them want secondary channels even more.

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