24 October 1959        Television

The Governor, Sir Robert George, officially opened Adelaide’s second television station, ADS 7, on the night of Saturday 24 October 1959. One hundred and fifty guests in the main studio saw a ‘Variety Spectacular’ featuring many South Australian artists including Bobby Limb. The programme was received well in the city and some country areas. NWS 9, the first television station to go on air in Adelaide, commenced transmission on Saturday 5 September that year without ceremony except for a short speech by the Premier, Tom Playford at 7 pm. The evening’s feature programme was ‘An evening with Fred Astaire’. In the early days of television daily programmes ran from early afternoon to about 10 pm, by 1963 the two commercial channels were transmitting more than seventy-seven hour per week and in the 1980s this increased to a full twenty-four hour service from two channels. The national station ABS 2 began in March 1960 and SAS 10 in July 1965. Colour television was officially introduced in SA on 1 March 1975. Broadcast listeners’ and television viewers’ licences were abolished from 17 September 1974.

Advertiser, 5 September and 24-26 October 1959.
South Australian Yearbook, 1975, pp. 254-55.