abc_1956Television.AU wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

For this New Year’s Day the Classic TV Guides section welcomes some new additions — because it has been a long time since the last update to that section.

Being the first day of the year the common theme for the listings added today are all ‘first day’ listings for various channels around Australia.

  • 5 November 1956 — Sydney Opening Night for ABN2, the first television station to launch from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). The event is hosted by Michael Charlton and includes speeches by Prime Minister Robert Menzies, ABC Chairman Sir Richard Boyer and Postmaster-General Mr CW Davidson.
  • 5 September 1959 — Adelaide First day for Adelaide’s first TV station NWS9. The first TV station to be owned by budding media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, NWS is linked to Murdoch’s Adelaide newspaper The News — hence the call-sign ‘NWS’.
  • 16 October 1959 — Perth Perth’s first TV station, TVW7. A venture of West Australian Newspapers (WAN), TVW7 held a commercial TV monopoly in Perth for six years, giving it a dominance in the marketplace that continues to this day.
  • 11 March 1960 — Adelaide Adelaide’s ABC station ABS2 is opened.

ABS2_opening_0001

And here are some other ‘first’ listings already existing in the Classic TV Guides archive:

glv10_first

tvq_opening_sm

There are now more than 300 listings online now at Classic TV Guides.

2 thoughts on “January 1: A day for firsts

  1. We were fortunate in West Gippsland because we had a 40 foot tall antenna and could get Melbourne stations and not rely on the boring ABC, much as I love it now, or GLV 10, although we watched it for local news.

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