When transport tycoon Reg Ansett secured the licence to operate ATV0, Melbourne’s third commercial television station in 1963, he purchased a 17.5 acre block of paddocks in Nunawading which was then in the eastern fringe of the Melbourne suburbia. Ansett had a vision – ‘Austarama Village’ – a state-of-the-art television facility with adjoining hotel, restaurant, swimming pool and a heliport to welcome guests arriving from Melbourne’s Essendon Airport or the city. The proposed complex would set the millionaire magnate back a mere £1,400,000.

The building for the new channel was the first purpose-built television studio in Melbourne – as rival channel HSV7 was housed in a converted newspaper warehouse in South Melbourne, and the GTV9 building in Richmond had previously been a piano factory and later a soup factory before becoming ‘Television City’ in 1956. It was probably no coincidence that at roughly the same time as ATV0’s studios were being constructed that GTV9 expanded its own premises to include a new super-sized ‘Studio 9’, custom-built specifically for Graham Kennedy‘s In Melbourne Tonight.

While it seems Reg Ansett’s initial plans for a multi-function oasis might have been a bit ambitious, the building that eventuated was completed well before ATV0’s planned launch date of 1 August 1964, and went on to win the title of Building of the Year from the Architects’ Institute of Victoria.

The studios of ATV0 (which became ATV10 in 1980) went on to host many fondly remembered programs including Go!, Uptight, The Magic Circle Club, Fredd Bear’s Breakfast A Go-Go, Matlock Police, Young Talent Time, The Box, Good Morning Melbourne, Perfect Match, Eyewitness News, The Comedy Company, The Early Bird Show and Let The Blood Run Free. The building was also where unknowns such as Jana Wendt, Jennifer Keyte and Eddie McGuire got their first break in television, and where teenagers Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue became soap opera icons.