It’s ridiculous I know, but it is now the space year 2026! Not sure how that happened. This year will see the 50th anniversary of the opening of the rural South Australian television channel, RTS 5A. The launch of that channel in November 1976 meant that, for the first time, the fruit growing and farming town of Loxton on the Murray River had two television channels! It is aging me quite badly to say I remember that day. The first broadcasts were a couple of movies – Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965) and The Guns of Navarone (1961)[i]. Later that channel brought shows like Star Trek, Starsky and Hutch, and the terrifying The Night Stalker to my attention.
Prior to that auspicious day, however, there was only the Government run ABC TV station ABRS3. The rotary dial on our old Astor Royal television may have had stops for 13 channels, numbered 0 to 11 with 5A between channels 5 and 6, but all of them had nothing but snow except that golden number 3.
So, what was television like for those years before the arrival of commercial telly in rural South Australia? Let’s jump back 10 years prior to 5A’s launch to November 1st 1966 and see.
Broadcasts begin at 9.45am with 15 minutes of the Test Pattern before Playschool. This was the brand-new Australian ABC produced Playschool which had begun to air only 4 months earlier in July 1966[ii], and was a television starting point for me and many successive generations of Aussie kids. The next few hours jumped between the test pattern and made for school programs with a bit of pro-dentist propaganda and a read along of the Little Golden Book ‘Scuffy the Tugboat’ for the little ones. Junior high school scientists got to learn about Sea-weed and Pond Slime before another hour of test pattern and music from 12 until 1pm.
After a half hour of Adventure[iii], a documentary series hosted by various explorers and adventurers describing their expeditions around the globe, a little more Test Pattern and music filled in the 45 minutes until the nation stopped for 1966 The Melbourne Cup!
Galilee took out the most famous Australian horse race and was followed up by more schools programming with The Art of Music.
The first of the day’s dramas hit the screen at 3.30pm with an episode of the already aging British court room drama, Boyd QC. This particular episode, A Case of Teddy Bears, had been broadcast in Sydney as early as August 1959[iv] and dealt with the theft of 350 teddy bears.
Children’s programming followed with a mix of US and Australian fare. The Magic Boomerang, an Aussie kids show about a magic boomerang that could stop time, was followed by puppeteer and ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her adorable friend Lambchop on the Shari Lewis Show. Lassie the amazing Collie dog saved the day again at 4.55 before physicist Julius Sumner Miller terrified the science out of millions of kids with Why Is It So?
The Australian made variety show ‘Be Our Guest’ followed. This unusual construction was set in a fictitious motel where music acts of the day came to stay and perform for their hosts Lorraine Bailey, Sean Scully and a young Jacki Weaver[v]. Then, after the wonderful Mr Ed, came the show that started this whole Archive TV obsession for me, Doctor Who! This exciting episode, The Planet of Decision, saw the Doctor’s first human companions, Ian and Barbara, choose to return to London 1965 in the final episode of the six part adventure, The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
7pm saw the news, the weather and a repeat of the Melbourne Cup before Granada Television’s The Man in Room 17. I’d never heard of this series before my dive into old ABC TV programming brought it to my attention. Happily, this series seems to have fared much better than many of its contemporaries and a number of episodes are available to watch on YouTube. The show follows investigations made by a pair of clandestine law enforcement agents, Oldenshaw and Dimmock, who solve baffling crimes without ever leaving Room 17. This week’s episode, Lady Luck’s No Gentleman, sees the pair investigating excessive gambling winnings and concurrent large donations to various charities. Fun stuff.
A brief animated musical interlude with Tales of Hoffnung at 8.25pm was followed by a documentary on the life of the outback Jackaroos – Australia’s version of roving cowboys – and the evening wrapped up with sport, The Met Set looking at facts about the weather, and finished with the next day’s forecast before station close at 10.35.
This particular day and evening’s viewing is from long before I was introduced to the wonders of television, but looking back at this wide selection of programming I wonder if Just the One Channel was perhaps plenty.
[i] Remembering Channel 5A – Television.AU
[ii] Play School: the early years – ABC listen
[iii] Adventure (TV Series 1961–1965) – IMDb
[iv] p6 – 19 Aug 1959 – The Biz (Fairfield, NSW : 1928 – 1972) – Trove
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