HSV7 says goodbye to analogue

ericpearce_0001This morning’s switch off the analogue signal for HSV7 was marked with a five-minute tribute to 57 years of the station.

Opening with an introduction by Eric Pearce (pictured) from an early test transmissions in 1956, the tribute included snapshots of many HSV programs and personalities, including Ian Turpie, Brian Naylor, Olivia Newton John, Bert Newton, Ivan Hutchinson, Mike Walsh, John Farnham, Bill Collins, John Burgess, Graeme ‘Shirley’ Strachan, Video Village, Sunnyside Up, The Happy Show, Coles $6000 Question, Music For The People, The Penthouse Club, Homicide, Cash And Company, Ryan, Bluey, Cop Shop, Skyways, Big Girls Blouse (featuring the original Kath and Kim skit), Fast Forward and Deal Or No Deal.

Surprisingly there was a mention of Neighbours… the show that Seven launched in 1985 before axing it and having to see it go onto international success after Ten picked it up in 1986.

The clip ended with a vintage news bulletin announcing the channel shutting down due to a power dispute (apparently a very common occurrence in Melbourne in the ’70s).

HSV7’s montage follows similar tributes by ATN7 Sydney and BTQ7 Brisbane when their analogue signals were switched off.

ABC1 (ABV2) and SBS One (SBS28) were the last two Melbourne analogue channels to be switched off. Apart from HSV7 no other Melbourne channels signalled the end of the 57-year analogue era, although GTV9 newsreader Peter Hitchener, who has been at GTV since 1974, had the honour of switching off Nine’s analogue transmitter:

With all analogue signals now off the air SBS has commenced broadcasting its digital signal on the channel 7 frequency and will continue to simulcast on both channels 7 and 29 until Melbourne’s retune date in March 2014.

Australian television is now digital-only.

YouTube: TelevisionAU

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2013/12/hsv7-says-goodbye-to-analogue.html

6 comments

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  1. ‘shutting down due to a power dispute (apparently a very common occurrence in Melbourne in the ’70s).’ I don’t remember that at all. I recall occasional disputes when there were threats of electricity cuts, but no brown or black outs.

    I am pleased that Channel 7 made an effort, in other states too. Seems no one else has. I’ll watch the clip tomorrow.

  2. Hi Andrew H

    I might need to clarify. While actual outages I’m assuming were non-existent, the threat of any outage (which is what I was referring to) was enough to force TV stations to have to reduce their broadcast hours to discourage people using TV sets to save on power. In the context of today, where such a thing is unheard of, it would have seemed to be not uncommon.

    But my use of the word “apparently” was also because I’m somewhat guided by anecdotal evidence from others who would recall that a certain toddler/pre-schooler (i.e. me) would be upset that I couldn’t see Adventure Island because TV stations weren’t allowed on the air that afternoon due to industrial action/disputes, and that it happened enough for them to remember it many years later.

    Cheers,
    Andrew B

  3. Well, there it is in black and white. I just don’t remember it. The YT clip was great.

    • Paul on 9 October 2014 at 1:06 PM
    • Reply

    You’ll notice that they have a lot of clips in the montage from the 60s and 80s but very little from the 70s.

    That’s a legacy of a major stuff-up by HSV in the 1980s when they were transferred a lot of their old “Quad” videotapes to more modern formats. It was done with speed and not much care.., and the Quads were destroyed afterwards.

    The result has been that, more than once, a tape has been called up from the library and discovered to be blank or have severe recorded-in Quad faults.

    1. Hi Paul. I hadn’t noticed the lack of ’70s material but having watched it again you’re right.

        • Paul on 9 October 2014 at 4:54 PM
        • Reply

        Thank you Andrew. It’s hard to get a good idea of what survives of old Australian tv and in what form. There was a Bert Newton retrospective on Nine a couple of years ago where many of the clips looked like they were sourced from VHS or some other domestic format..

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