Dedicated to the victims of Black Saturday, including former GTV-9 newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife Moiree...
Prolougue...
Television changed sport in Australia. It turned sport from a mainly spectator medium, to a national obsession. Radio did some work, same with newsreels, but it wasn't until television arrived in 1956 that people saw sport in a new light. Melbourne's Olympic Games that year was the first major event broadcast on Australian television, with all three Melbourne stations providing coverage, with film replays (the Sydney-Melbourne coaxial cable bearer not being built until the early 1960's) being screened in Sydney the next day. By the time the Brisbane stations launched in 1959, sport became a staple of any new television station's schedule.
The changes in technology, that brought television sport forward.
In 1962 Perth hosted the Commonwealth Games, while in 1964 Japan hosted the Olympics. These two telecasts still used the old fashioned film, with delays in events getting to air, even though they were on timezones friendly to Australians, but a major change was about to happen... Satellite broadcasting was developed, but was a expensive matter, with a number of commercial broadcasters, covering the Olympics due to the expense of satellite links for packages from the Olympics, it was not until 1980 in Moscow, that a Australian network went solo with satellite coverage of events. The ABC settled into a position with the Commonwealth Games that commercial broadcasters respected, until the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games, when the first solo commercial broadcast was undertaken by the Nine Network. But Nine's Commonwealth Games involvement wasn't new...
Broadcasting the Games...
Nine and the ABC as a partnership, broadcast the Games to a nation, with Nine and the ABC providing coverage in the capitals, while the ABC used their vast regional network to make sure most Australians could see Brisbane's great spectacle. This partnership also bid for the rights to the 1984 Olympics, only to be pipped by Rupert Murdoch at Ten (whose Brisbane affiliate was on channel 0 still). It wasn't just the official broadcasters getting in the spirit of the Games...
Brisbane united: The rising wave of localism.
Brisbane's other commercial broadcasters became voices that defined a era. Channel 0, launched their "Hello Brisbane" (not the Frank Gari campaign the 7's in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth as well as TasTV used in the mid 80's) campaign to bring in viewers, a tactic that worked, and Channel 7 launched their remarkable "Love You Brisbane" campaign which worked even more, which led to the start of Seven Brisbane's "second peak" which lasted until 1987.
Videos:
The Opening Ceremony part 1 and 2 from pugsley2005
Hello Brisbane, Hello Channel 0, from omni99- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykIBRFfxrXw
Seven News Flashback on 1982 Commonwealth Games from August 2008 from aussiebeachut-
A footnote:
After the success of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, Brisbane went for the 1992 Olympics. It lost to Barcelona, but proved if done right, a Australian bid could get close to winning, which eventually we did in 1993, when Sydney won the bid for the 2000 Olympics, which showed the changes in TV technology that we had since 1982, which were many, this time at the dawn of a new century, and a new digital age. The next Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 will show this even more. Even though they are outside Australia, it will be a first, as Network Ten, using their soon to be launched digital multichannel ONE and pay TV operator Foxtel will screen the Games, in high definition. But Brisbane may not wait long for a second Commonwealth Games. A QLD government backed bid, will probably bid for a Gold Coast Commonwealth Games for 2018, as was announced mid 2008. Imagine the wonder of the new Queensland showing off... with the best in technology in ten years time. I can hardly wait...
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