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Australian television turns 60 - thank you Bruce, Bob, Bert, and Barry



Australian television turns 60 – sixty years of broadcasting commenced with the words from Bruce Gyngell on 16 September 1956: ‘Good evening and welcome to television.’ It wasn’t actually the first words – they were the first words accompanied by a face. The first words belonged to announcer John Godson who introduced Gyngell – and there were about a hundred faces on test programs before the ‘go-live’ date.

Four Bs – Bruce, Bob, Bert, and Barry – were the original faces of Australian television in different formats: along with Bruce Gyngell (TV chief and later the creator of British breakfast television) was Bob Dyer (game show host of Pick-a-Box to 1971 with his wife Dolly), Bert Newton (host of The Late Show), and Barry Humphries. Dyer died in 1984, and Gyngell died in 2000. Bert Newton is still seen on television.





Barry Humphries is still going – he is known for his alter ego Edna Everage (Hello, Possums !). On the first day of television broadcasting Mrs Norm Everage was interviewed on a program – in 1956 she was a drab Melbourne housewife. Today she is Dame Edna Everage and a megastar, who retired in 2012 and came out of retirement in 2013.




By the end of 1956 – three months after broadcasting began – only 1% of Sydney residents and 5% of Melbourne residents owned a television. It was a luxury item that costs 6-10 times the average weekly wage.

Two programs from the 1960s are still running – Four Corners (1961-present), a current affairs program, and Play School (1966-present), a children’s program based on the British concept of children’s programming.

Australian television transitioned to colour on 15 June 1967 with live coverage of horse racing. Full-time colour transmission occured from 1 March 1975.

In the 70s my highly democratic parents put a vote to the family – a plebiscite: to buy a colour television or not. Mother, father, and six children. One person, one vote (regardless of age, gender, or status). No proxies. No gerrymanders. Simple majority. Open ballot (secret ballots were used for other elections). Colour television wasn’t an initial family priority, but eventually it was voted in after subsequent plebiscites. 





http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/m17cover-20160901-gr6tag.html

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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