Tim Richards
I don't know that I'm that nostalgic for a common mass culture as is Waleed Aly. I was always interested in minority stuff, particularly science fiction, so I was rarely marching in time with the zeitgeist as a kid or as an adult.
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Who do Barbie, Taylor Swift and the Matildas have in common? Us
#Culture https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/who-do-barbie-taylor-swift-and-the-matildas-have-in-common-us-20230810-p5dvdo.html
AJ Sadauskas
@timrichards It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a while ago. She was nostalgic for the days when everyone woke up to the same news each morning in the Sydney Morning Herald, and watched the news on ABC each evening.
Except that's not how it was. If you're in the city, there were just the four main channels, with four radio stations for folks over 40 and four for everyone under 40.
In the country, it was often worse. The one commercial broadcaster and the ABC. The one FM station, the AM station, and Radio National.
Most people watched Kerry Packer's TV news and read Murdoch's tabloids.
Movies came out in cinemas six months after the US.
Beyond that? Better hope your local video shop has a copy and no-one else has rented it. Better hope your local record shop has a copy (which wasn't always guaranteed, even for the older albums of popular artists).
As Aly points out, we still can have large mass culture events now if enough people are genuinely interested in a thing. Barbie and the Matildas show it loud and clear.
But it's by choice when it happens, because lots of people like the same thing, rather than because it's the only choice on offer.
Tim Richards
@ajsadauskas Yep, I grew up in country WA and at first we only had the ABC on TV, then a commercial channel at evenings from 1970. There are lots of "mass culture" shows I never saw as a kid, eg the original Star Trek.
Si Fuller
@timrichards @ajsadauskas Funny story, when I was a kid in rural Qld, a friend of my father's was also a friend of the guy who programmed the local commercial TV. Said friend was a giant Trekkie, and talked the guy into getting the original Star Trek series on the air. I think it was the only place in Australia showing Star Trek at the time.
Daniel Bowen
@si_fuller @timrichards @ajsadauskas I've heard a similar story from another rural area. A friend had a friend who worked at a TV station, and programmed stuff late at night for him, basically on request.
Si Fuller
@danielbowen @timrichards @ajsadauskas Might be the same guy, if it was FNQ in the late 80s.
Daniel Bowen
@si_fuller @timrichards @ajsadauskas I think this was NT in the 90s.
AJ Sadauskas
@timrichards @skribe @Ex_spurt @danielbowen @si_fuller You'd be surprised what shows up on YouTube...
I noticed the station idents from the SA Riverland's own 5a have shown up there. On 5a, nothin' but the best: https://youtu.be/N1L7g-rQjGg
Also a song they commissioned/dragged their relos to sing to celebrate 21 years of commercial TV in Renmark: https://youtu.be/H8cWwqw_SDg
Apparently back in 1986, they used to close the station down for the evening with a message from the local parish priest: https://youtu.be/k16lhLT5fPk
#SA #television #SouthAustralia #Riverlands #Loxton #Renmark #Berri
Tim Richards
@skribe @ajsadauskas @Ex_spurt No idea, it's all lost in the mists of time
Tim Richards
@skribe @Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas I've just remembered I was in a school team on the WA TV quiz show, It's Academic. We did pretty well, got into the finals. :)
skribe 🇺🇦 :verified_mustard:
@timrichards @ajsadauskas @Ex_spurt Jeff was the host?
Edit: misppelt his name
skribe 🇺🇦 :verified_mustard:
@Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas @timrichards but we had local productions, unlike now. I was just checking out some of the stuff I was involved in. A friend of mine has created a WA TV History channel on YT.
Tim Richards
@skribe @ajsadauskas Did we? I do remember both of those being on TV. Mind you by the time Blackadder came on, I was living in Perth.
Kim
@timrichards @skribe @ajsadauskas And Perth only had 2 commercial networks to begin with and missed out on a lot. We often got TV shows 6 months or so behind everyone else, including the Australian productions. It was just a big country town
skribe 🇺🇦 :verified_mustard:
@timrichards @ajsadauskas but...but...but... you got Not The Nine O'Clock News and Blackadder years before we did in Perth.
Kim
@ajsadauskas @timrichards @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller I was always fascinated by the 5A on the old TV channel selectors. Wondered where that came from!
Colin Fry
@Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas @timrichards @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller The original allocation of frequencies for TV in Australia provided 10 channels, called, umm, 1 to 10.
When they realised in the early 1960s more regional broadcasters would start to create difficulty allocating them to frequencies that wouldn’t cause interference with existing stations within range (on a good night, I could watch TAS TV in VIC), they needed some more channels.
So three new channels were added: 0 and 11, below and above the existing frequencies, and 5A, between channels 5 and 6.
Colin Fry
@timrichards @Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller Speculation here, but I think TV Channels 3, 4 & 5 were assigned primarily in regional areas as they were in the allocated, but still then unused, FM radio band, which I guess they figured would be used first in metro locations when FM radio appeared.
Tim Richards
@colinfry666 @Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller Hence you could turn your TV up to 11. :) From memory our channels in southwest WA were Channel 5 (ABC) and Channel 3 (commercial).
lucie digitální
@colinfry666 @timrichards @Ex_spurt @ajsadauskas @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller yep. ABC in Canberra was channel 3, and you could pick up the audio on an FM radio, about 92Mhz, from memory
AJ Sadauskas
@luciedigitalni @colinfry666 @timrichards @Ex_spurt @skribe @danielbowen @si_fuller I vaguely remember also being able to pick up the audio from ABC TV on an FM radio in Western Victoria somewhere.
The added bonus of having TV stations in the FM band in rural areas is that even if the picture quality was too degraded, you could still at least 'listen' to TV shows.
Here's some more background info I found on channel 5a. Apparently, rural South Australia wasn't the only place it was used:
"The extra channel, likewise channels 0 and 11, were added to Australian TV dials from 1961 as it was apparent that the previous 10-channel spectrum was not going to be enough to sustain a growing television industry.
"Usage of the channel 5A frequency was restricted to country areas — mostly used by ABC, such as in Newcastle and Wollongong, but also for some low-powered translator stations for commercial broadcasters.
"There was one commercial station that was allocated 5A for its main signal — Riverland Television Pty Ltd in South Australia — hence the call-sign RTS5A.
"The company was informed by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board (ABCB) in August 1975 that it had been granted a licence to operate a commercial television service in the Riverland district, including towns Renmark, Loxton, Berri, Bermera and Waikerie. The station’s coverage was estimated to reach around 29,000 people — making it one of the smallest TV markets in Australia.
"The region was already covered by national broadcaster ABC, which had launched ABRS3 in the area in 1971, and enthusiastic viewers may have attempted long distance reception from Adelaide or from STV8 in north west Victoria. Ironically, STV8’s parent company Sunraysia Television Ltd was an unsuccessful applicant for the Riverland-based service, with the government instead opting to elect the company with 80 per cent ownership from within the Riverland district."
https://televisionau.com/2016/11/remembering-channel-5a.html
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