ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) is a non-political, not-for-profit volunteer-based organisation that aims to defend and promote the ABC because of its vital role as a pillar of Australia's democracy.
NSoS is a branch of ABC Friends NSW & ACT and represents over 700 northern Sydney residents who are passionate about the importance of Australia having a strong, well funded and independent national broadcaster.
NSoS covers the Federal electorates of Bennelong, Berowra, Bradfield, Mackellar, Mitchell, North Sydney, and Warringah located north of the Sydney Harbour including the suburbs of North Sydney, Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Mosman, Manly, Pittwater, Frenchs Forest, Wakehurst, Belrose, Davidson, Willoughby, Chatswood, Lindfield, Wahroonga, Hornsby, Ryde, Beecroft, Epping, Ryde and Castle Hill.
Meeting Dates: 2nd Thursday of each month (February-December)
Time: 11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm followed by light refreshments
Venue: Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville (30 metres walk from Roseville Station - on the eastern side)
Watch us at work HERE
Janine Kitson, Convenor, Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS*)
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0428 860 623
Postal Address: PO Box 1391, North Sydney, NSW, 2059
Join and become a Member of ABC Friends
Membership Enquiries: [email protected]
Keep up to date with ABC Friends
Donate: ABC Friends NSW & ACT Commonwealth Bank BSB 062217 Account #: 00905221
ABN 54 530 872 593
General Enquiries: [email protected]
Facebook: @abcfriendsnsw
ABC Friends NSW & ACT Committee 18 local/regional branches
Janine Kitson is the author and editor of this NSoS Webpage. Please contact her to correct any errors.
Hornsby Railway Station:
2024 NSoS Committee
Corin Fairbun Bass, Committee
Jenny Forster, Committee
John Inshaw, Committee
Beverley Inshaw, Committee
Janine Kitson, Convenor
Wendy Siriani, Committee (Treasurer)
Peter Vail, Committee
Upcoming Events:
World Press Freedom Talk with ABC's Max Chalmers
Thursday 9 May, 2024
Followed by light lunch ($10)
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
30 metres from Roseville Station
Book HERE
Celebrating United Nations World Press Freedom Day (3 May)
On World Press Freedom Day all Australian media workers need to make a stand for a free press and quality and ethical journalism.
https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/august-2022/press-freedom-and-national-security
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/why-freedom-of-the-press-matters/
https://jeraa.org.au/attacks-on-journalism-education-are-an-attack-on-press-freedom/
https://jeraa.org.au/world-press-freedom-day-2022/
https://ipi.media/strengthening-press-freedom-at-home-and-abroad-10-recommendations-for-the-worlds-democracies/
International Press Institute’s 10 recommendations for the world’s democracies
World Environment Day is celebrated 5 June & World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is celebrated on 17 May
University of the Third Age, Sydney North Curl Curl
The ABC - Achievements & Challenges
Thursday 16 May, 2024
10.30am- 12.30pm
The ABC - its Achievements and Broadcasting Challenges: Learn about the ABC, Australia’s national independent public broadcaster and the challenges it faces - both historically and currently in a rapidly changing media landscape.
u3a North Curl Curl Community Centre
Cnr Griffin and Abbott Roads, North Curl Curl
Wheelchair access, parking onsite
Venue Coordinator Runa Schmidt-Muller [email protected]
Isolde Martyn - author
Thursday 13 June, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light lunch ($10)
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
EAST SIDE OF RAILWAY LINE, very short walk from Roseville Station
Isolde Martyn is an English-Australian author of historical novels and a non-fiction history picture book for children. She is best known for her novels set during the Wars of the Roses which focus on some of the leading historical people of the era.
Isolde Martyn's recent children's book, 'Country Town', co-authored with Robyn Ridgeway and illustrated by Louise Hogan (who will be joining Isolde at our ABC Friends meeting), is shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Eve Pownall Award!
'Country Town' is an Australian history picture book for children based on both fiction and non-fiction. It tells the story of an imaginary town and its 'truth telling' past.
The School Spectacular and its connections to the ABC
with Luke Wallace
Luke Wallace is the Relieving Arts Coordination Officer, The Arts Unit, NSW Department of Education
11 July, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light lunch ($10)
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
30 metre walk from Roseville Station
Dr Howe on Dr Who
Guest Speaker: Dr Antony Howe, founding President of the Australasia Dr Who Fan Club (1976-84)
8 August, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light lunch ($10)
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
30 metre walk from Roseville Station
How did a group of science fiction enthusiasts persuade ABC management to reconsider their decision to stop purchasing new episodes of the British science fiction television program Dr Who in 1976?
Note the Dalek in the background
Antony Howe taking a pause during the filming of "Daleks Invasion Sydney" 1977
Tom Baker arrives at Sydney Airport for the start of a PR tour run by ABC Publicity, January 1979
References:
ABC statement on Doctor Who | About the ABC
Paul Verhoeven, 'Dr Who has left the ABC after nearly 60 years - and Russell T Davies knows some fans aren't happy', The Guardian , 26 November, 2023
Sir Henry Armand (Harry) Bland (1909-1997), Obituaries Australia
University of the Third Age, Sydney City
Everything about ABC Books
Tuesday 13 August, 2024
1.30-3.30pm
Guest contributor Janine Kitson, Convenor of ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney will talk about her work as a book reviewer and books about the ABC
Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts
u3a Office, Suite 502, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
Train station, bus stop, light rail stop nearby
Bookings: Chloë Mason [email protected] (max 30)
University of the Third Age, Sydney Berowra
The ABC - Achievements & Challenges
Monday 26 August, 2024
10.30am- 12.30pm
The ABC - Achievements & Challenges: Learn about the ABC, Australia’s national independent public broadcaster and the challenges it faces - both historically and currently in a rapidly changing media landscape.
u3a Berowra Library
Gully Rd (Behind Berowra Oval)
Train station nearby, parking onsite
Bookings: Jackie Wilson 041590 676
Venue Coordinator: Anne Rayment [email protected]
Jan Preston
Thursday 12 September, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light lunch ($10)
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
Jan Preston was born in Greymouth on New Zealand's remote South Island. Despite growing up with few opportunities, she was privileged to grow up at a time when communities gathered around the piano to joyously sing together.
Jan was one of only four students, from the entire New Zealand, to win a prestigious scholarship to study a classical piano degree at Auckland University. This love of classical music led her to experiment with different styles of music and eventually led her to her love of Boogie.
In 1980 her rock band, Coup D’Etat's song “Doctor I Like Your Medicine” was a No. 1 hit. Following this success, Jan moved to Sydney, playing in bands and piano bars as well as composing music for films.
Jan is also a renowned composer who composed the theme music to ABC TV's Australian Story (2000 to 2006).
She composed the theme music for ABC TV's Australian Story (2000 to 2006). She has also appeared on ABC TV's Spicks and Specks.
Her composition Trout Blues is currently played as the theme music to BBC Radio London "Evenings" program with Jo Good, on 94.9 FM (London).
Jan has also written and performed live scores for silent movies and won the Best Music in A Documentary by the Australian Guild of Screen Composers and other awards.
Enjoy listening to ABC Listen - 'A Brief history of boogie-woogie with musician Jan Preston' HERE
Interview with Jan Preston - watch HERE
In September ABC Friends remembers:
International Day of Democracy (15 September)
ABC Radio National Boyer Lectures: These four lectures are named after former ABC Chairman Sir Richard Boyer (1945-1961). A prominent Australian is invited to speak on a major social, cultural, scientific or political issue.
In October ABC Friends remembers:
Andrew Olle - one of Australia’s most admired broadcasters. He was respected by colleagues, opponents and the public for his fairness, quiet scepticism, calmness, gentle humour and lack of hubris.
The ABC hold an Media Lecture in his honour. It was reestablished in 1996 by the presenters and staff at 702 ABC Sydney (formerly 2BL) to honour the memory of ABC Radio and television broadcaster Andrew Olle, who died in 1995 of a brain tumour. It focuses on the role and future of the media.
Jonathan Holmes
Celebrating Northern Sydney of Sydney Branch 5th Anniversary
10 October 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm followed by light refreshments
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
30 metres from Roseville Station
Thank you to the 100 members who voted to start an ABC Friends Branch
at the Doughty Centre, Chatswood on Sunday 6 October, 2019
In October ABC Friends remembers:
Global Media and Information Literacy Week from 24-31 October
See ABC Education/ Media Literacy Resources
Guest Speaker (TBC)
14 November, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light refreshments
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
University of the Third Age, Sydney Leichhardt
The ABC - Achievements & Challenges
Friday 15 November, 2024
10.30am- 12.30pm
Learn about the ABC, Australia’s national independent public broadcaster and the challenges it faces - both historically and currently in a rapidly changing media landscape.
u3a Leichhardt Library
23 Norton Street Forum Piazza Level, Leichardt
Bookings: Dianne Bierhuizen [email protected] 0412 010 326
Guest Speaker (TBC)
&
ABC Friends - Northern Suburbs Annual Meeting
12 December, 2024
11.30am for 11.45am start. Finish at 1pm
Followed by light refreshments
Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
2025 Guest Speaker Program
2nd Thursday of month from 11.45-1pm
Venue: Roseville Uniting Church, 7A Lord Avenue, Roseville
NSoS is aware that in 2025 it needs to shift its public guest speaker program to holding Candidate Forums on the ABC that cover the six Federal seats with the approaching Federal election.
Thursday 13 February, 2025
Thursday 13 March, 2025
Thursday 10 April, 2025
Thursday 8 May, 2025
FEDERAL ELECTION on a Saturday before 17 May 2025
Commonwealth elections — Next election dates:
Last election |
Earliest date |
Latest date |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Simultaneous half-Senate and House of Representatives |
21 May 2022 |
3 August 2024 |
17 May 2025 |
House of Representatives |
27 September 2025 |
||
Half-Senate |
3 August 2024 |
17 May 2025 |
|
Double dissolution |
N/A |
29 March 2025 |
Source: Parliamentary Library
NSoS Candidates Forums TBC
With a Federal Election possible to occur any time between the 3 August 2024 to the 17 May 2025, NSoS will ask what the candidates for the seats of North Sydney, Bradfield, Berowra, Bennelong, Mackellar, Warringah will give to the ABC, as Australia's primary independent broadcaster?
Draft Questions:
Could you please tell us about your commitment to the national broadcaster?
If you were elected or re-elected:
- What would you do to ensure adequate, secure public funding and bi-partisan government support for the ABC?
- How would you address the devastating cumulative impact on the ABC's operational funding which is currently 10 per cent lower compared to 2013-2014?
- How will you ensure that if your political leader promises "no cuts to the ABC or SBS" they are held to account?
- What commitment will you make to ensuring formal protections from political interference?
- How will you ensure a non-partisan and transparent appointment process to the ABC Board of Directors
- How will you support the Parliamentary Friends of the ABC?
- How will you educated your constituents about the value of the ABC
- How will you highlight the vital role the ABC play as an emergency broadcaster, particularly for the northern suburbs/ northern beaches area that is fire prone and faces emergencies?
- If you are a member of the Liberal Party will you move a motion to rescind the motion to privatise the ABC?
- Do you support the establishment of a Royal Commission into the Murdoch media empire?
Or Draft Survey on Candidates attitudes towards the ABC
Candidate’s name __________________ Candidate’s signature _______ Date _____
Please indicate your responses to the following statements (X).
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I support measures that will: |
I agree with this |
I disagree with most or all elements of this statement. |
I’m not sure of my views about this statement. |
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1. Guarantee that ABC services will remain independent of government, free-to-air and free-to-access, and publicly funded from consolidated revenue. |
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2. Improve funding certainty and the ABC’s ability to plan ahead, by introducing five- year funding agreements, indexed annually to compensate for inflation. |
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3. Enable the ABC to fulfil its charter obligations, including the provision of comprehensive rural and regional services, by progressively restoring the ABC’s operational budget to the level of funding it received before the budget cuts imposed in 2014. |
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4. Ensure that all ABC Board appointments are made from a short-list selected on merit by an independent non-partisan nominations panel, as laid down in the ABC Act. |
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5. Restore and enhance funding for ABC International, so it can resume its vital role as Australia’s trusted voice in the Asia- Pacific. |
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6. Ensure that good quality ABC radio and television broadcasts can be received throughout rural and regional Australia. |
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Personal views, actions and commitments
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7. What, if any, actions have you taken in the past to show your support for the ABC?? |
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8. What actions will you commit to undertake in the future to support an independent and properly funded ABC, whether or not you are elected? |
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Do you wish to add anything to your previous answers, or have any other comments about the ABC or this questionnaire? |
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Please return your completed questionnaire to XXXXX by 5.00pm on XXXX. Thank you.
Questionnaire based on: https://www.abcfriends.net.au/candidates_in_the_federal_election_the_abc
ABC Budget Background
Between 2014 and 2022 the ABC’s funding was cut, heavily. More than $520 million was stripped from its operating budget. Add to this the closure of the Australia Network and the total comes to more than $780 million. More than 1,000 jobs were lost.
All of this happened at a time at a time of rising costs and when the ABC had to ensure its relevance to all Australian audiences by developing new content on streaming, mobile and online platforms and podcasts, as well as servicing a growing number of radio and television services.
Only a small share of the cuts has been restored.
In 2022 and 2023 the government made some modest but welcome improvements to the ABC’s budget, giving the ABC greater certainty and ability to plan. ABC Friends welcomed the introduction of five-year funding, the restoration of indexation and the incorporation of some terminating programs (notably the
enhanced news gathering program) into the ABC’s operating grant, along with additional funding for services in the Pacific.
But after years of brutal cuts, it wasn’t enough. It is essential that the government do more to repair the harm that was done to the ABC over almost 10 years and prevent a further slide in the quality and quantity of the ABC’s offerings.
The ABC needs almost $90 million in ongoing new funding annually just to get back to the equivalent of its funding in 2013, and that does not take into account the need for additional funding for growth and new initiatives.
The effects of funding cuts
Since 2014, we have seen:
• The end of state-based television current affairs
• A heavy reduction in the hours of original drama content
• A heavy reduction in TV science and natural history program-making
• The outsourcing of most program-making, so the ABC does not own copyright and cannot profit from overseas or library sales.
• Cuts to specialist radio programming and live music recording
• Cuts to sports coverage
• The closure of some international bureaus, a reduced international presence and a decline in the ABC’s capacity to provide comprehensive international coverage and analysis.
Additionally, an increase in the number and intensity of extreme climate events has obliged the ABC to expand its emergency broadcasting, an essential service for all Australians. But because that service is funded through the ABC’s operating grant, it has been funded at the expense of other programs and
services.
A bleak future
If there is no change to the ABC’s funding its revenue will go backwards.
The indexation formula that has been applied to the ABC’s budget falls well short of the actual cost of inflation because the ‘weighted cost index’ used by the Department of Finance to calculate the appropriate rate of indexation is far less than the actual CPI. To make matters worse, the CPI itself is less than the actual cost of doing business in the highly competitive and inflationary media industry within which the ABC operates. Thus, the indexation formula applied to the ABC will go nowhere near to covering the rising costs of production, which are fuelled by increasing competition from the giant streaming companies.
The ABC also faces a drop in revenue of $21 million in 2026, the final year of the five year funding cycle.
In its first budget the Albanese government restored $84m to the ABC ($21m a year over four years). The funding will cease in 2026 leaving a big hole in the budget.
The modest increases in 2022 and 2023 were not sufficient to prevent further damage to the ABC. In May 2023 there was another restructure and more cuts to programs and jobs, with 120 staff made redundant. Without additional funding there will be more cuts to programs, staff and quality over the coming five years.
Recommendations
1. Increased operational funding
The federal government should progressively increase operational funding to the ABC in the order of $80 million a year to restore the ABC’s budget and help offset increased costs. This increase would provide no real growth in the ABC budget, but it would help undo the damage of the last decade.
It is essential to the independence and integrity of the ABC that the increase in funding be provided without condition or direction. The ABC ‘s charter gives it the autonomy to determine content and programming decisions without government interference or direction. However, the ABC’s own funding submissions, and the losses forced on it by past cuts, make it clear that there are obvious areas where new funding could be applied.
These include:
• More and better coverage of state and territory politics, including the restoration of Stateline
• An increase in original Australian drama, comedy and documentary content
• More quality science and arts programming
• Maintenance of emergency broadcasting
If climate emergencies intensify there may be a need for an additional funding allocation to expand and modernise the ABC’s emergency broadcast services.
• Improvements to radio content, especially on Radio National. Too much RN content relies on repeats and its presence as a nationally important provider of intellectual stimulation for regional and remote has declined.
• News, current affairs and fact checking
The ABC’s investigative journalism is second to none. But there is much less of it than there used to be: there is less international reporting, programs like Four Corners and Foreign Correspondent have been cut back and others, like Lateline, have been scrapped. The ABC must also be funded to counter fake information in political campaigns. 2025 will be the first election held under an AI influenced media.
2. Indexation formula
To ensure that the ABC’s funding does not continue to deteriorate in real terms the indexation formula should be adjusted to meet the full costs of the CPI and reflect the rising costs of producing original Australian content.
3. Funding for infrastructure and the digital transition
A special funding allocation should be made to cover the costs of new infrastructure and fund the digital transition to ensure that the ABC is able to reach all Australians.
The ABC’s Digital-First strategy will significantly alter the ways in which the ABC creates, produces and distributes content. The plan states:
“By 2028 the ABC will be an integrated digital operation and most of the audience engagement with the ABC will be through our digital products.”
Of fundamental importance is the need to guarantee access to the ABC for all Australians, regardless of where they live. At present there are large swathes of this vast land where the ABC isn’t available. That problem must be rectified
References relating to the Budget
Time for a budget boost for the ABC by Michael Henry, March 12, 2024
https://www.abcfriendsvic.org.au/time_for_a_budget_boost_for_the_abc
https://www.abcfriends.net.au/candidates_in_the_federal_election_the_abc
2024 Budget: a bleak future for the ABC
2024-2025 Federal Budget, Funding for the ABC, Submission by ABC Friends
ABC Friends 2022 Budget Submission
To be effective, Australia’s public broadcaster must have the trust of the Australian people. It must have the capacity to offer quality news and entertainment. And it must be accessible to all Australians.
In our Budget submission, ABC Friends addresses the issues that require urgent attention by the federal government in its first budget. While the government has made some positive commitments, there is much more to be done.
Our recommendations include:
- Put in place measures to ensure that ABC funding is protected from future cuts
- Strengthen Board appointment processes and review the efficacy of the current board
- Further enhance the ABC’s broadcasting capacity in the Pacific
- Develop a plan to address the shortcomings in transmission and guarantee that all Australians have access to the ABC, especially in emergencies
View PAST Guest Speakers & events HERE
Take Action
Contact your local Federal MP
Alex Hawke
Liberal Party
Mr Alex Hawke MP
Federal Member for Mitchell
Suite 8, 23 Terminus Street Castle Hill NSW 2154
Postal Address: PO Box 1173 Castle Hill NSW 1765
(02) 9899 7211
[email protected]
Map of Mitchell suburbs include Baulkham Hills, Beaumont Hills, Bella Vista, Box Hill, Castle Hill, Kellyville, Nelson, Northmead, North Rocks, Rouse Hill, Winston Hills and West Pennant Hills.
Letters:
Letter to Mr Alex Hawke MP for Mitchell requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Paul Fletcher
Liberal Party
Mr Paul Fletcher MP
Federal Member for Bradfield
Level 2, 280 Pacific Highway Lindfield NSW 2070
(02) 9465 3950
[email protected]
Map of Bradfield. suburbs include North Turramurra, St Ives Chase, St Ives, East Killara, East Lindfield and Roseville Chase. West Lindfield, West Pymble, South Turramurra, Normanhurst (part), Waitara, Hornsby (part) and Asquith.
Letters:
Letter to Mr Paul Fletcher MP for Bradfield requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Thank you Mr Fletcher for putting up ABC Friends NSoS posters in your Lindfield electorate office:
Jerome Laxale
Australian Labor Party
Mr Jerome Laxale MP
Federal Member for Bennelong
32 Beecroft Road, Epping, NSW 2121
(02) 9869 4288
[email protected]
Map of Bennelong suburbs include Denistone, Epping, Gladesville (part), Macquarie Park, Meadowbank, Melrose Park, Putney, North Ryde, Ryde and parts of Carlingford.
Letters:
Letter to Mr Jerome Laxale MP for Bennelong requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Julian Lesser
Liberal Party
Mr Julian Lesser MP
Federal Member for Berowra
Level 11, 423 Pennant Hills Road, Pennant Hills NSW 2110
Postal Address: PO Box 743, Pennant Hills NSW 1715
Pennant Hills office: (02) 9980 1822
Parliament House office: (02) 6277 4826
[email protected]
Map of Berowra suburbs include Annangrove, Arcadia, Berowra, Brooklyn, Cattai, Cherrybrook, Cowan, Dangar Island, Galston, Glenorie, Hornsby (part), Maroota, Middle Dural, Mount Colah (part), Mount Kuring-gai, Pennant Hills, Westleigh, West Pennant Hills and Wisemans Ferry.
Letters:
Letter to Mr Julian Lesser MP for Berowra requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Sophie Scamps
Independent
Dr Sophie Scamps MP
Federal Member for Mackellar
Shops 1&2 1238-1246 Pittwater Road, Narrabeen 2101
(02) 9912 9566
[email protected]
Map of Mackellar suburbs include Avalon, Bayview, Beacon Hill, Belrose, Bilgola Plateau, Church Point, Clareville, Collaroy, Cottage Point, Cromer, Davidson, Dee Why, Duffys Forest, Frenchs Forest (part), Forestville (part), Ingleside, Ku-Ring-Gai Chase, Mona Vale, Morning Bay, Narrabeen, Narraweena, Newport, Palm Beach, Scotland Island, Terrey Hills and Warriewood.
Letters:
Letter to Dr Sophie Scamps MP for Mackellar requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Thank you Dr Scamps for putting up ABC Friends NSoS posters in your electorate office:
Zali Steggall
Independent
Ms Zali Steggall OAM MP
Federal Member for Warringah
Level 2, 17-19 Sydney Rd, Manly NSW 2095
02 9977 6411
[email protected]
Map of Warringah suburbs include Allambie Heights, Balgowlah, Brookvale, Cremorne Point, Curl Curl, Fairlight, Forestville (part), Frenchs Forest (part), Killarney Heights, Manly, Manly Vale, Mosman, Neutral Bay, Queenscliff and Seaforth.
Letters:
Letter to Ms Zali Steggall OAM MP requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Thank you Zali Steggall for putting up ABC Friends NSoS posters in your Manly electorate office:
Kylea Tink
Independent
Ms Kylea Tink MP
Federal Member for North Sydney
Level 10, 2 Elizabeth Plaza. North Sydney NSW 2060
(02) 9929 9822
[email protected]
Map of North Sydney suburbs include Artarmon, Castlecrag, Cremorne, Crows Nest, Greenwich, Henley, Hunters Hill, Kirribilli, Lane Cove, McMahons Point, Middle Cove, Naremburn, Northbridge, North Sydney, Riverview, Waverton, Willoughby and Woolwich.
Letter to Ms Kylea Tink MP for North Sydney requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024
Kylea Tink's Reply 3.4.24 to ABCF NSoS letter 15.3.24
Hon Michelle Rowland MP
Minister for Communications
PARLIAMENTARY FRIENDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (ABC)
The aim of the Group is to provide a forum for raising awareness and support for the vital services the ABC provides to the Australian community. It will also facilitate initiatives and events to promote and enhance the ABC.
Contact Persons:
Mr Andrew Wilkie MP
Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP
(Co-Chairs)
This section is still a work in progress
State MPs
Rory Amon
Liberal
Rory Amon
State Member for Pittwater
Email: [email protected]
Pittwater Electoral Office: . . .
Telephone: (02) 9999 3599
Map of Pittwater suburbs include . .
Matt Cross
Liberal Party
Mr Matt Cross
NSW MP for Davidson
[email protected]
Davidson Electoral Office: . . .
Telephone: (02) 9880 7400
Map of Davidson suburbs include . .
James Griffith
Liberal
Mr James Griffith
NSW MP for Manly
Email: [email protected]
Manly Electoral Office: . . .
Telephone: (02) 9976 2773
Map of Manly suburbs include . .
Alister Henskens SC MP
Liberal
Mr Alister Henskens
NSW MP for Wahroonga
Email: [email protected]
Wahroonga Electoral Office: 27 Redleaf Avenue, Wahroonga NSW 2076
Telephone: (02) 9487 8588
Map of Wahroonga suburbs include . .
W www.alisterhenskens.com.au
Mark Hodges
Liberal
Mr Mark Hodges, NSW MP for Castle Hill
Email: [email protected]
Castle Hill Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9686 3110
Map of Castle Hill suburbs include . .
Tim James
Liberal
Mr Tim James
NSW MP for Willoughby
[email protected]
Willoughby Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9439 4199
Map of Willoughby suburbs include . .
Matt Kean
Liberal
Mr Matt Kean
NSW MP for Hornsby
Email: [email protected]
Hornsby Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9476 3411
Map of Hornsby suburbs include . .
Thank you Matt Kean for putting up ABC Friends NSoS posters in your Hornsby electorate office:
Jordan Lane
Liberal
Mr Jordan Lane, NSW MP for Ryde
[email protected]
Ryde Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9808 3288
Map of Ryde suburbs include . .
Dominic Perrottet
Liberal
NSW Member for Epping
Email: [email protected]
Epping Electoral Office: Telephone: (02) 9877 0266
Map of Epping suburbs include . .
Michael Regan
Independent
MSW MP for Wakehurst
Email: [email protected]
Wakehurst Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9981 1111
Map of Wakehurst suburbs include . .
Anthony Roberts
State Member for Lane Cove, Liberal
Email: [email protected]
Lane Cove Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9817 4757
Map of Lane Cove suburbs include . .
Felicity Wilson
Liberal
Ms Felicity Wilson
NSW MP for North Shore
[email protected]
North Shore Electoral Office:
Telephone: (02) 9909 2594
Map of North Shore suburbs include . .
Letters Sent
Read letter sent to NSoS' Seven Federal MPs requesting more funding for the ABC following NSoS' World Poetry Day Celebration 14 March 2024 HERE or individual letters to NSoS MPs below:
- Mr Paul Fletcher MP for Bradfield
- Mr Alex Hawke MP for Mitchell
- Mr Jerome Laxale MP for Bennelong
- Mr Julian Lesser MP for Berowra
- Dr Sophie Scamps MP for Mackellar
- Ms Zali Steggall OAM MP
- Ms Kylea Tink MP for North Sydney
LETTER to Ms Ita Buttrose AC OBE thanking her for being Chair of the
LETTERS: Requesting NSW State MPs display NSoS Poster to promote Gavin Fang's talk on 9 Nov 2023
LETTER: Requesting Federal NSoS MPs display NSoS Poster to promote Gavin Fang's talk on 9 Nov 2023
LETTER: Thank you letter to Teachers Health Centre, Surry Hills for making the ABC the preferred viewing channel in their waiting room, 5 June, 2023
REQUEST FORM: To Attorney General requesting that ABC be the preferred viewing channel in NSW Community & Justice Waiting Rooms, 15 May, 2023
Letters to Media:
The Australian Email: [email protected] Mail: GPO Box 4162 Sydney NSW 2001 Letters online (add your comments): theaustralian.com.au/lettersSydney Morning Herald Email: [email protected] Mail: GPO Box 3771 Sydney NSW 2001
Letters Received
- Kylea Tink's Reply 3.4.24 to ABCF NSoS letter 15.3.24
- David Anderson, ABC Managing Director, 18 October 2022
- Michelle Rowland, Minister for Communications, 6 October, 2022
- David Anderson, ABC Managing Director, 16 September, 202
NSoS Statements and Submissions
- Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) Pre-Budget Submission 21.1.24
- 2023 NSoS Annual Report
- Independence into ABC's Governance and Certainty of Funding, 31.08.03
- NSoS's submission to the Department of Communications’ Review of Options to Support the National Broadcasters’ Independence has is on the Department’s website, together with some 30 others (scroll to the bottom of the page).
- 2022 NSoS Annual Report.
- Pre-Budget Submission for 2020-2021
Published Media
Michael Lester, Northern Beaches radio interview with Dr Phil Kafcaloudes. January 2024
Michael Lester, Northern Beaches Radio with Gavin Fang, November 2023
Michael Lester from Northern Beaches Radio Interview with Paddy Manning, October, 2023
Ku-ring-gai Council, What's On: ABC Friends Talk about Lachlan Murdoch, Thursday 12 October, 2023
The Senior, ABC Friends welcomes Mal Hewitt, 2 Sept, 2023
Michael Lester from Northern Beaches Radio Interview with ABCF NSoS Convenor, Janine Kitson, 28 August, 2023
Jenny Forster letter to the editor, 9 November 2022
Media Releases
Gavin Fang talks about how COVID Changed Journalism
Author Paddy Manning talks about Lachlan Murdoch
Why the Update Newsletter is the ABC's Best Friend
Why ABC Friends Matter, 26 July, 2023
ABC Friends Talk: How to Protect Our ABC, 20 June, 2023
NSoS Celebrates World Environment Day 8 June 2023
Electrifying Talk, 21 April, 2023
Why the ABC is so necessary for climate action, 4 April, 2023
ABC Friends celebrate democracy, 15 September 2022
ABC Friends updated about ABC, 15 September 2022
ABC Friends National President Cassandra Parkinson Talks, 15 September 2022
Rachel Collis Wired & Awake concert, 15 September 2022
ABC Friends Statements & Submissions
- ABC Friends submission on the government’s review of options to support the independence of the ABC and SBS
- ABC Friends visit ABC Managing Director, 23 June, 2023
- ABC Friends visit ABC Managing Director, ABC Friends letter to ABC following staff changes as a result of structural changes, 16 June, 2023
- ABC Friends NSW & ACT motion of support for Stan Grant, 24.5.23
- Evidence received during the 44th Parliament related to the importance of the ABC in rural and regional areas, 2017
NS0S E-News
- NSoS E-News 2 April 2024: Next ABC Friends meeting with Lynne Malcolm Thursday 11 April, 11.30am
- NSoS E-News 9 March 2024: ABC Friends Celebrating World Poetry Day, Thursday 14 March 11.30 for 11.45
- NSoS E-News 5 February 2024: Reminder: Dr Phil Kafcaloudes THIS Thursday 8 February 11.45am (sharp) at Roseville UNITING CHURCH
- NSoS E-News Monday 22 January, 2022: Next ABC Friends meeting with Dr Phil Kafcaloudes Thursday 8 February, 2024 11.45am
- NSoS E-News Tuesday 12 December, 2023: Reminder Geraldine Doogue THIS Thursday 14 December 11.30 for 11.45am start
- NSoS E-News Thursday 16 November, 2023: Next ABC Friends meeting with Geraldine Doogue, Thurs 14 DEC, 11.45am-1pm
- NSoS E-News Wednesday 18 October, 2023: Next ABC Friends meeting with Gavin Fang, ABC News Deputy Director, Thursday 9 NOV, 11.45am-1pm
- NSoS E-News Friday 6 October, 2023: Reminder: Journalist Paddy Manning talks about Lachlan Murdoch Thurs 12 Oct0ber, 2023
- NS0S E-News 19 September, 2023: Next ABC Friends meeting with journalist Paddy Manning_Thursday 12 October, 2023 at 11.45am
- NSoS E-News, 6 September, 2023: Reminder Mal Hewitt OAM talk on 'Why Update Newsletter is the ABC's Best Friend' on Thursday 14 September, 2023
- NS0S E-News, 30 August, 2023: ABC Friends Fundraising Concert at Humph Hall, Allambie Heights on 2 September, 2023
- NS0S E-News, 22 August, 2023: Next ABC Friends meeting with Mal Hewett on Thursday14 September, 2023
- NS0S E-News, 7 August, 2023: Reminder: ABC Friends Angela Williamson's talk on 10 August, 2023
- NS0S E-News, 27 July, 2023: Next ABCF NSoS meeting with Angela Williamson on 10 August, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 6 July, 2023: ABC Friends Guest Speaker, Ross McGowan on 'How to Protect Our ABC on 13 July, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 19 June, 2023: Please join us n 'How to Protect Our ABC' on 13 July, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 3 June, 2023: Reminder: Jan Latta, Wildlife Photographer celebrating World Environment Day on 8 June, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 27 May, 2023: Please join us with Jan Latta, Wildlife Photographer on 8 June, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 4 May, 2023: Please join us for our next ABC meeting with Dr David Smith on 11 May, 2023
- NSoS e-News, 3 April, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 9 March, 2023: Reminder about Talk by former ABC journalist Helen Grasswill on 9 March, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 26 February, 2023: Join Talk by former ABC journalist Helen Grasswill on 9 March, 2023
- NSoS E-News, 31 January, 2023: Join NSoS ABC Friends to celebrate World Radio Day on 9 February 2023
ABC Friends' ABC Songs and Poems
Loosely Woven's 'It's our ABC Too'
Lyrics by Alan Clarke, Music - Wellerman Audio - Full Score 2023 (Please visit Poets Corner at 29 Tristram Rd, Beacon Hill)
'It Doesn't Come for Free - It's Our ABC' video, 2022
'It Doesn't Come for Free' song lyrics and score: Jonathan Biggins (Tune: Flash Jack from Gundagai)
NSoS singing 'Where would we be without the ABC' outside Parliament House, May 2020
https://www.facebook.com/ABC-Friends-Northern-Sydney-114948746962921/videos/679086539692766
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Where would we be without our ABC, sung by Angela Williamson (abridged version)
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Where would we be without the ABC, sung by Angela Williamson (full version)
- Where would we be without our ABC? By Tim Solly
Aunty's Anthem - This is our ABC
Poems
- Poem 'Our ABC' by John Clair, a Northern Beaches friend of the ABC, Update, August 2021, Vol 29, No 2, page 9
- Poem 'Our ABC' - performed by John Clair, an ABC Friends member who wrote this poem in defence of our ABC in 2021. John remains concerned about the ABC’s diminishing budget when it has so much to do.
- Poem 'ABC - An Acrostic Poem' by Penny Love-Lipinski, an ABC friend, Update, September 2020, Vol 28, No 3, page 5
- You may like to watch Mitch Benn, a BBC Radio 4 musical stalwart sing I'm Proud of the BBC (2010) that lists many of the BBC's achievements and how the British people are standing up for their public broadcaster. There is also a BBC version of the video.
- ABC Friends Catherine O’Brien, singing her song about the ABC YouTube video.
YouTube: ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney Delegation to Parliament House, Canberra 5-7 October, 2020
NSoS uses UN International Days to assist choice of guest speakers:
13 Feb: World Radio Day
21 Apr: World Creativity and Innovation Day
3 May: World Press Freedom Day
17 May: Word Telecommunication and Information Society Day
18 Day: International Day for Countering Hate Speech
23 June: UN Public Service Day
15 Sept: International Day of Democracy
28 Sept: International Day for Universal Access to Information
24 Oct: Global Media and Information Literacy Week 24-31 Oct
2 Nov: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
21 Nov: World Television Day
9 Dec: International Anti-Corruption Day
Other Organisations that Value the ABC
Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission
Centre for Media History, Macquarie University
International public broadcasters
Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
How to Get Involved
Check out ABC Friends to view the issues currently under discussion by visiting:
ABC Friends website
ABC Friends Facebook
ABC Friends NSW & ACT Facebook
1. Write, phone or visit your Federal MP and let them know you:
- support the independence of the ABC
- demand its funding to be fully restored to enable it to fulfil its functions under The ABC Charter to:
- provide innovative and comprehensive broadcasting programs of a high standard
- provide broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community
- broadcasting programs of an educational nature - transmit to counties outside Australia broadcasting programs of news, current affairs, entertainment and cultural enrichment
- encourage awareness of Australia and an international understanding of Australian attitudes on world affairs - enable Australia citizens living or travelling outside Australia to obtain information about Australian affairs and Australian attitudes on world affairs - encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia
- provide a balance between broadcasting programs of wide appeal and specialised broadcasting programs
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take account of the multicultural character of the Australian community
How to Get More Involved - Volunteering for ABC Friends
- Get your family, friends and neighbours to JOIN ABC FRIENDS (perhaps with a Gift Membership) Let's get to 1000 members in Northern Sydney by December 2023
- Volunteer your time, expertise and talents to help NSoS be a good friend to the ABC
- Display NSoS poster in your neighbourhood, in your MPs Office, library, community noticeboard, cafe, shop window
- Assist at NSoS meetings and events
- Set up and pack up our ABCF merchandise table at NSoS meetings
- Assist as a timekeeper at our meetings to get us to lunch by 1pm
- Assist with photography at NSoS meeting and events
- Transcribe guests contact details onto an excel spreadsheet
- Donate or sponsor a NSoS Raffle Prize
- Assist organise a fundraising event for NSoS
- Assist organise a forum on media issues eg misinformation that may invite five panellists to speak for 10 minutes each; involve a facilitator; and may be held at a local pub, bowling/RSL club
- Assist with organising a dinner eg at the Ryde TAFE with dinner catered by Ryde TAFE hospitality students
- Assist with an ABC Kids event
- Assist with the preparation for 2025 Federal Election Forum asking candidates to rate their attitudes towards six statements concerning the value of public broadcasting
- Write letters of support for the ABC to newspapers
- Write letters to local newspapers and politicians about issues raised in the latest Update concerning the ABC
- Assist with letter writing & morning coffee session using ABCF Update Newsletter as basis for letters (or a zoom meeting)
- Assist preparing pre 2024 Budget submissions advocacy letters to pre-Budget submissions
- Assist with media and social media
- Letterdrop ABCF NSoS flyers
- Recommend a NSoS Guest Speaker
- Host an interstate guest speaker at your home
- Assist with administration eg transcribe sign-on-sheet information onto an excel document
- Creative woodworking - make an ABC BATON (see the History of ABC Logos on page 16 of Update - for your design)
- Creative quilting - make an ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) QUILT (see the History of ABC Friends Logos on page 17 of Update - for your design)
- Make a new ABC NSoS Banner
- Assist with an ABC Friends talk to the University of Third Age
- Assist with an ABC Friends stall at your local market with petition and merchandise
- Assist with media releases or recommend a young journalist student to assist
- Recommend musicians to attend our meeting to perform It's Our ABC song
- Assist ways to promote ABC's International services and news that connect Australia’s CALD communities
- Establish community email lists eg university, media and communications students
- Assist us to partner with other likeminded organisations eg ABC Alumni, Teachers Federation, Probus Clubs Rotary Clubs, U3A
- Assist us to work with other ABC Friends branches including Southern Sydney, Western Suburbs of Sydney, Eastern Suburbs of Sydney eg a social event in Sydney or Parramatta CBD eg School Spectacular Concert, State Library Press Awards
- Assist with working with Parliamentary Friends groups
- Offer your own idea on how to be a good friend to the ABC
More About ABC Friends
'Friends of the ABC' was established in 1976 in response to funding cuts to the ABC made by the then federal government.
ABC Friends represent community interests in defending and promoting the vital role of the ABC as an independent national public media organisation that is essential for a healthy democracy. ABC Friends is not aligned with any political party. ABC Friends has more than 73,000 members and supporters in every state and territory.
Since then, ABC Friends NSW & ACT (Inc) and other state based groups have been formed to defend the ABC against threats from both Labor and Coalition governments to compromise its independence and reduce its funding.
ABC Friends NSW & ACT Vision Statement and Constitution
The ABCF NSW/ACT constitution states the following objectives:
The objects of the association shall be:
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To defend and promote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in its vital role as Australia's independent, national broadcaster.
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To vigorously oppose all efforts to censor the ABC.
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To vigorously oppose any attempt to introduce advertising or corporate sponsorship into the ABC.
- To continually remind all political parties and the Australian people of the need for adequate government funding to be provided to the ABC.
The NSW/ACT Vision Statement provides a fuller and more nuanced expression of the organisation’s purpose which aligns closely with the National Vision Statement. This emphasises defending and promoting the role of the ABC as a national public media organisation which:
- Is essential for a healthy democracy.
- Is independent of government influence, commercial sponsorship and advertising.
- Offers distinctive, high-quality programs and services.
- Promotes Australian culture in all its diversity.
- Is accessible and relevant to all Australians.
NSoS Governance
ABC Friends has a National Committee, State Committees including NSW & ACT Committee and Branch Committees including 18 local/regional branches across NSW, including NSoS.
Branches do not require a constitution. This is covered by the Friends of the ABC (NSW & ACT) Incorporated Constitution sections 15 and 16 that allows Branches to establish their own roles and objectives.
ABC Friends NSW & ACT Contacts:
General Enquiries: [email protected]
Membership Enquiries: [email protected]
Postal Address: PO Box 1391 North Sydney NSW 2059
Facebook: @abcfriendsnsw
ABC Friends NSW & ACT 2024 Committee
President: Tess Howes [email protected]
Vice President: Cassandra Parkinson
Secretary: Jan Febey
Treasurer: Sharon Ooi
Public Officer: William Howes
Committee Members
- Robert Gubbins
- Jim Harding (Branches Coordinator)
- Ross McGowan
- Gia Metherell
- Tim Mulroy
- Paul Reid
- Bruce Stevenson
- Susan Tregeagle
In May 2017 ABC Friends National was formed by ABC Friends states and territories groups.
Cassandra Parkinson is the National President, ABC Friends, [email protected] PH: 0403 105 901
ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) Branch History
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Raids of ABC Ultimo Offices, 6 June, 2019
Northern Suburbs Community Protest about AFP Raids, 11 June, 2019
Northern suburbs of Sydney locals protested against attacks on press freedom by the Australian Federal Police's raid on the ABC Ultimo Headquarters Harris Street, Sydney and at a journalist’s home. A rally was held outside Federal Communications Minister and Federal MP for Bradfield Mr Paul Fletcher’s Lindfield Office on 11 June, 2019.
Over 60 NSOS of Sydney locals expressed their concern with speeches, placards and petitions. Following the protest a formal letter was delivered to MP Paul Fletcher’s office condemning the attack on media freedom, so essential for a strong democracy.
ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) formed, 6 October, 2019
NSoS formed out of necessity.
This then prompted an ABC Friends branch covering northern suburbs of Sydney, from Mosman to Hunters Hill to Asquith to Pittwater, to be formed.
On the October 2019 long weekend up to 100 members of ABC Friends NSW & ACT met at the Dougherty Centre, Chatswood to form a Northern Suburbs of Sydney (NSoS) Branch where "the buzz in the room was palpable. Everyone there was committed to being part of a really active ABC Friends Branch" (See article, 'Launch of a new ABC Friends Branch by Angela Williamson, ABC Friends National Update Newsletter, December 2019, Vol27, No.3, page 5)
Guest speaker, former ABC Media Watch & former 4 Corners Producer Jonathan Holmes spoke about the ABC/AFP Raids and the importance of media freedom. Emeritus Professor Ed Davis, NSW President & National Vice President, ABC Friends, spoke on why Australians need to defend & maintain strong, independent public broadcasting.
At that stage a Northern Suburbs ABC Friends Branch was more important than ever. Why? Because it was the electorate of Mr Paul Fletcher, the then Minister for Communications (2019-2022) as well as Member for Bradfield. During his time as Communications Minister he made hostile and dismissive comments about and towards the ABC and even denied that there had been any 'cuts' to its budget. NSoS set about to establish awareness as to why a strong, independent and well funded ABC was needed at local market stalls, morning letter writing coffee meetings, and even travelling to Parliament House, Canberra.
Walter Bass (1931-2017)
ABC budget cuts began in 1976 leading the ABC NSW Staff Association going out on strike in 1978 over the budget cuts and political interference. Sydney ABC went off air for four days. Despite a packed free concert held in support of the ABC at the Regent Theatre compered by Bob Hudson with performers Fred Dagg and Robyn Archer, Tom Molomby, president of the NSW Branch of the ABC Staff Association would later go on to say that "The effects of the budget reductions had been so badly handled that the organisation was to remain seriously crippled for years."
Community outrage followed. Walter Bass (1931-2017) and his wife Corin Fairburn Bass called a meeting in their lounge room. Neighbours gathered including Hans and Faith Bandler. This Turramurra meeting led to the founding of the Friends of the ABC (NSW) Inc.
Walter Bass, as the Friends of the ABC's founding president continued as its president or spokesman for the next twenty years.
Walter Bass was born in Vienna, Austria in 1931 and with his parents fled Nazi Germany to live in Sydney in 1939. Following schooling at North Sydney Boys’ High, Walter trained as a Registered Surveyor and spent six years working in regional NSW. Following this he worked for the Sydney Water Board, retiring in 1986. His wife, Corin Fairburn Bass was an ABC writer and broadcaster and is currently on the ABC Friends NSoS Committee.
Walter Bass was a renowned letter writer to Sydney newspapers and earnt the title as the North Shore Times “most contentious correspondent”.
ABC Friends might be described as "ABC aficionados", loyal ABC viewers and listeners, or as David Anderson describes in his opening of the booklet Now More than ever: Australia's ABC - "I am never far from someone who reminds me how much they care about the ABC".
References
ABC Friends Update Newsletter, December 2018, page 11-12
https://walterbass.wordpress.com/about/
Northern Suburbs Media History
Wahroonga - the first direct wireless message received from England, 1918
The Northern Suburbs of Sydney have significant media history. Wahroonga has historical significance with its 'wireless monument' that commemorates the first direct wireless message from England to Australia. This wireless memorial is located on the corner of Stuart and Cleveland Streets, Wahroonga. It was here that Guglielmo Marconi, who developed the first system of radio communication from his wireless station in Carnarvon, Wales sent the first radio message to Australia. It was received by Ernest Fisk, best known in Australia as managing director of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) at his experimental wireless station attached to his home 'Lucania', Stuart and Cleveland Streets, Wahroonga on 22 September 1918.
The message was sent to William Morris “Billy” Hughes, who was Prime Minister at the time. He succeeded in calling for direct wireless communication between the 'Empire' and Australia at the Empire Conference after much opposition.
This achievement marked both the culmination of a long period of research and the foundation of long distance wireless telegraph, telephone and broadcasting services which today link Australia with the rest of the world. It led to radio broadcasts for the public and the formation of the ABC in 1932.
In 1935 a monument commemorating the first direct wireless message was unveiled
A monument in commemoration of the first direct wireless message to be sent from England to Australia was unveiled on Saturday last at Wahroonga by Mr. E. T. Fisk, whose research and experimental work in the year 1918 led to a wireless message, sent by the Marconi station at Carnarvon, Wales, being received in Sydney. The memorial has been erected in front of the actual house in which the message was received, and in which Mr. Fisk then lived at Wahroonga, and a full description, together with a photograph, of it appeared in the last issue of the "Sydney Mail." The Right Hon. W. M. Hughes, then Prime Minister of Australia, was the sender of that historic message, and it was only right, therefore, that he should be present on Saturday and address the gathering at the memorial. Mr. E. T. Fisk, in unveiling the memorial, described in interesting fashion the early experiments, which in the end had brought wireless to a practical result in Australia, and a speech by the Marchese Marconi, delivered in Paris, was also broadcast. It may be noted, as an interesting addendum, that that first message to Australia, in which Mr. Hughes referred to the valorous deeds of the Australians at Amiens, has been engraved upon the memorial.
Sydney Mail (NSW), 18 December 1935.
References:
https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/technology/industry/display/23624-fisk-memorial
https://makinghistoryatmacquarie.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/the-historical-significance-of-the-wireless-monument-in-wahroonga/
https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/fisk_memorial
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/160501532
https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/people_places/north/professionals/fisk/index.html
ABC Radio 2FC at Castlecrag - 1923
The first site of Australia's first licensed radio broadcasting station, 2FC (for its owners Farmer & Company) was located on part of the Sunnyside Estate on the north of the Castlecrag peninsula. At the time 2FC claimed to have the most powerful public radio transmitter in the world. It commenced transmission on 5 December 1923. The transmitter was dismantled in 1929. 2FC was later nationalised to become ABC Radio National.
Reference:
https://abc17603.wordpress.com/history/workplaces/entertainment/radio-tv/
Killara Music Club petitions the ABC to establish its
Symphony Orchestras - 1933
The Killara Music Club was established in 1932, the same year that the ABC was established. It aimed to build a tradition of bringing quality music to the the northern suburbs of Sydney.
Mrs Irene Hope-Gibson, as the musical director of the Killara Music Club was pivotal in calling for the ABC (Commission) to establish a Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
In 1932 the ABC Studio Orchestra consisted of 34 permanent players with an increase to 50 for Town Hall concerts. In July 1933, the small Foundation Committee of which Irene was a member, met in the old ABC Concert Department in Market Street, Sydney, to urge the formation of a Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The women visited schools, held musicales and tea parties in their own homes, and urged their guests to become subscribers to the cause. A committee of 50 subscribers was formed, each member pledging to return to the next meeting with ten new subscribers.
At first the ABC was reluctant to concede for the need of a Symphony Orchestra. Irene was told - "You'd never fill the Town Hal". However the Town Hall was filled - with the help of international artists Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin - and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was born under the administration of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
https://www.nla.gov.au/collections/guide-selected-collections/symphony-australia-collection
A northern suburbs family listen to ABC in 1935
Photo*: Family listens-in and broadcasts to the Empire, 1935
Welsh emigrants James Jenkins and his wife (left), their son Idwal (tuning the receiver) and his wife take part in an Empire Christmas broadcast arranged by the BBC. A family from Wales sends greetings to New South Wales. The Jenkins will return greetings from their home at Gordon, on Sydney's North Shore. They are up late as the program was scheduled for 10.30a.m. on Boxing Day in England, it begins at 12.30 a.m. in Sydney.
* from K.S. Inglis, This is the ABC, The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, MUP, Melbourne, 1983. Written in celebration of the ABC's 50th Anniversary.
Northern Sydney's Australia Radio Transmitters at Pennant Hills, 1930
In 1939 Prime Minister Robert Menzies directed the ABC to start broadcasting to overseas listeners - to become known as 'Radio Australia'. Australia was at war. Radio was no longer just about entertainment, it was now about vital communication against Hitler's propaganda. Australia's shortwave radio was directed towards Europe. Two 10kw transmitters were built in Pennant Hills and run by Ernest Fisk's AWA. The stations were called VLQ and VLQ2 and according to George Ivan Smith who ran the first broadcasts they stood for 'Victory, Liberty and Quality'.
References:
Phil Kafcaloudes, Australia Calling, The ABC Radio Australia Story, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2022. Written in celebration of the ABC Radio Australia's 90th Anniversary.
The History of Shortwave Radio in Australia, 1930 - AWA Radio Centre at Pennant Hills
Hornsby's receiver for signal to Moon, 1948
Radio Australia sends message in code into space at 188,000 miles per second. The message echoed back 2.5 seconds later to a receiver site in Hornsby. This was the beginning of the research that led to the Moon landing in 1969.
References:
Phil Kafcaloudes, Australia Calling, The ABC Radio Australia Story, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2022. Written in celebration of the ABC Radio Australia's 90th Anniversary.
CSIRO, Shame about Shain! Early Australian radio astronomy at Hornsby Valley
Northern Sydney's Gore Hill ABC Studios 1956-2002
"End of an Era" - ABN Channel 2 Sydney leaves Gore Hill circa 2002
Watch this documentary that was produced in accordance with Australian Heritage Commission recommendations to document the ABC’s presence on the Gore Hill site since 1955 – the people, the place and the personal experiences. There were 38 present and former program makers interviewed and the videotape will be preserved in the ABC Archives as a historical record. Highlights of these interviews reflect the spirit and passion of ABC program makers at Gore Hill. Watch documentary HERE
ABC TV at Gore Hill in the Fifties
ABC Sign
https://web.archive.org.au/awa/20190302003808mp_/http://abctvgorehill.com.au/assets/press/smh29Jan58/smh_p11-w.jpg
View to South
View to West
Gore Hill site, January 2009
The ABC for over 40 years has a very strong connection to northern suburbs of Sydney as the location of its television studio from 1956-2002.
The ABC then relocated to its purpose built combined TV-radio studio in Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney. 2002 marks an end of an era for the ABC TV studios.
The Gore Hill site was chosen in 1956 because of its high elevation making it ideal for ABC’s main transmission tower. The land was also the Commonwealth owned land as a former PMG depot. Original TV broadcasts were made from a temporary antenna tower nicknamed "Little Toot". When the Large TV tower was completed Little Toot was used as a link tower for OBs. The Gore Hill site was opened by the then prime minister Robert Menzies. It hosted the country’s first television broadcast when Michael Charlton and James Dibble read the news bulletin. It was the second television station in Sydney and NSW. Gore Hill was also where the ABC first broadcast in colour in 1975.
When the ABC shifted its Sydney headquarters to inner-city Ultimo in 2003, usage of the Gore Hill site began to shrink, culminating in the decision to sell its remaining landholding. The broadcasters 2022 Annual Report noted that it had entered into a contract of sale in February 2021 for its property at Artarmon. The ABC continued to make use of the Gore Hill site until the end of 2022.
Remaining studios were put up for sale in October 2021, the 1.4ha site at 14 Campbell Street and 2-8 Lanceley Place, Gore Hill. These were the last remaining parcels of the historic Gore Hill precinct where ABC began televised broadcasts in 1956.
The policy of the Australian Government on the closing of the Gore Hill Site required a detailed Heritage Report to record the history of the site as well as make recommendations on conservation. This Conservation Management Plan ABC Gore Hill site was commissioned and published in 2002.
References:
https://mirrorsydney.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/the-artarmon-triangle/
http://www.abctvgorehill.com.au/abchtm/photos_studios.htm
Click to access Conservation%20Management%20Plan.pdf
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/02/1054406123779.html
"End of an Era" - ABN Channel 2 Sydney leaves Gore Hill circa 2002
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190302004449/http://abctvgorehill.com.au/abchtm/photos_gorehillsite.htm
Arcadia Picture Theatre, 476 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood - rehearsal and recording hall for the ABC orchestra 1961-1983
Built by Edmund Arthur Crispe, a local baker, the theatre opened in 1915. It was the grandest cinema in Willoughby. The staff dressed in formal wear. In 1921 it was remodelled in a Classical Roman style and in 1936 in the Art Deco style. Initially, entertainment before and between films was provided by a piano, then an orchestra, and in 1925 a Wurlitzer Organ. The organ was donated to Willoughby Council in 1961 when the theatre closed. The building was then used as a rehearsal and recording hall for the ABC orchestra. It was sold for commercial development in 1988. It was demolished in 1989.
References:
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/35299
https://www.hkpost.com.au/community/the-picture-palaces#2
https://www.nla.gov.au/collections/guide-selected-collections/symphony-australia-collection
ABC Studios (former), Artransa Park Studios (former), French's Forest, 1958
The ABC's Gore Hill's Arcon studio was too small for the bigger productions so the ABC made use of the Artransa Studio building at Frenchs Forest. Here the OB van would set up and televise shows which were relayed direct to air via a link back to the Gore Hill transmitter.
The filming location for Wildside – Series 1 Episode 1.
Jurgen Schmidt at Artransa 1956
Barry Lambert on Boom at Artransa
Artransa Studios 1956
Sid Bowers and Sam Leon with Graphic Roller, Artransa Studio
Checking the script at Artransa
Barry Lambert and Pru Bavin
References:
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190304202537/http://abctvgorehill.com.au/abchtm/photos_oblinks2.htm
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190302004531/http://abctvgorehill.com.au/abchtm/photos_oblinks.htm
https://aso.gov.au/titles/locations/place/
ABC -TV Outside Broadcasting (OB) Van at Neutral Bay
Australian Commonwealth Film Unit (CFU), Lindfield
The Commonwealth Film Unit operated from 1940 until June 1973. The Unit was also known as the Film Division. Until 1950 it was part of the Department of Information and from 1950 until 1973 it was part of the Australian News and Information Bureau. In 1973 the Film Unit was superseded by Film Australia.
The Commonwealth Film Unit was the successor of the Cinema and Photographic Branch located in Melbourne. It was created in 1940 to coordinate government and commercial film activity and to mobilise the production of film for the war effort. While the Melbourne branch continued processing non-theatrical film, by the late 1940s the Sydney branch was the focus of all film production. In 1954 the Melbourne branch closed. The Unit's records are held in the Sydney Office of the National Archives.
In 1972 the CFU had a graduate training program. Frank Bagnall a former Australian Army cameraman of the Second World War became a producer at the CFU and promoted the documentary tradition upon which the CFU was founded.
Screen Australia sold its Film Australia studio and office facilities, located in Eton Road, Lindfield. The CFU site was a purpose-built film and television facility used by Film Australia, as well as many independent production and film service companies, for over 30 years. Many Australian filmmakers started or advanced their careers at the Lindfield site, resulting in thousands of films that provided audiences with a snapshot of life in Australia.
The CFU during the 1970s was the main producer of documentaries in Australia. It was modelled on the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the government film-making body set up by English documentarist, John Grierson in 1939. He had established the General Post Office Film Unit77 in London (1933) and developed the idea of
documentary as a separate and unique genre. One of the students was Llewellyn “Will” Davies whose PhD theses 'Look' and Look Back' explores the documentary focus of the ABC.
https://tvtonight.com.au/2015/05/screen-australia-to-sell-lindfield-studios.html
NSoS Timeline
1918: First direct wireless message sent from UK to Australia at wireless station at Wahroonga.
1932: ABC established.
1954: ABC Studios built in Gore Hill. The site was chosen mostly because its position provided perfect elevation for a transmission tower.
1955: Commonwealth land grants land to the ABC in late 1955.
1956 November 5: First television broadcast from a studio in Kings Cross but shifted after 45 minutes to Gore Hill, where James Dibble presented the first news bulletin, bringing viewers up to date on the Russian invasion of Hungary. The 15-minute bulletin was followed by a live drama, The Twelve Pound Look, by Wind in the Willows author J.M. Barrie. Both were shot in the Arcon studio, a tin shed beside the Pacific Highway. The ABC soon outgrew its Arcon studio that had a corrugated roof and when it rained drowned out the actors voices. It could only shoot one program a night which was inadequate for continuous live broadcasting.
1958: New studios built called Studio 21 and 22 that became engines for 'decades of creativity'. As television grew, more buildings were built on the Gore Hill site.
1976: ABC Friends movement begins with a meeting called by Walter Bass at his Turramurra home.
1980s: Land belonging to the Samuel Taylor chemical company next door to the Gore Hill ABC studios were annexed.
2019: Northern Suburbs of Sydney Branch formed.
Northern Suburbs of Sydney ABC People
Learn about some of the Northern Suburbs of Sydney's women and men who worked and lived for the ABC. If you know more please let us know.
Allan Ashbolt
1921-2005
Allan Ashbolt (1921-2005) journalist, producer, broadcaster, actor and theatre critic, lived in Turramurra
In 1959 Allan Ashbolt was appointed as the ABC's first North America ABC correspondent.
During 1963 he served as a correspondent and executive producer of "Four Corners", which has become Australia's longest-running investigative affairs television program.
Allan Ashbolt is well known for his belief that the ABC should promote free speech and controversial political content.
ABC broadcaster Phillip Adams, a friend and colleague of Ashbolt, described him "as a symbol of the courageous independent, slightly left-wing broadcaster" and that "for many of us he was a great hero". He has also been described as the "ABC's conscience-in-residence".
In Allan Ashbolt's book An Australian Experience: Words from the Vietnam Years (1974) he describes how he leapt onto the stage and head locked the leader of the Australian Nazi party who had disrupted an anti-Vietnam war meeting at St Johns Church Hall, Gordon, in 1966.
For more information read 'Radical giant of Australian broadcasting' by David Bowman, Sydney Morning Herald June 15, 2005.
Julia Baird
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Corin Fairburn Bass
My Connection with the ABC by Corin Fairburn Bass: I was always as a freelance script writer, not as a staff member. I came from Auckland, New Zealand, to study music (piano), after an early start on radio when I gave my first broadcast as a 14 year old pianist on the Children's Session. Later, I came to Sydney and studied for 4 years with Alexander Sverjensky at the Conservatorium. Marriage to Walter Bass in 1957 interrupted my musical intentions, but during the next few years I really learned to appreciate the ABC, particularly radio.
Walter Bass
1931-2017
Charles Bean
1879-1968
Charles Bean was Australia’s first official war correspondent – elected by his peers – where he reported on the Australian Imperial Force at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. His meticulous newspaper reports created the Anzac legend that defined the new nation. He was also instrumental in establishing the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Charles Bean was chair of the ABC's Promotion Appeals Board from 1947-58. He was also the founder of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement of NSW that was supported the work of many Sydney conservationists.
Read more:
Media Legends of NSW - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
Charles Bean - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
Mike Carlton
Mike Carlton is one of Australia’s best-known media figures, growing up in Chatswood.
His father Jimmy, was a renowned Olympic athlete and later priest, who left the Catholic Church to marry a Protestant after a whirlwind wartime courtship. This scandal was hushed up at first, but eventually it made headlines. Six years later, Jimmy Carlton died in his wife’s arms, felled by asthma.
He experienced a tough childhood where every penny counted. Unable to afford a university education, he left school and began his career with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) as a cadet journalist in 1963, aged 17. His file reports as an ABC war correspondent in Vietnam earned him great admiration within the industry and a promotion to chief of the ABC's news bureau in Jakarta, Indonesia. Garnering further accolades on his return with the pioneering 1970s ABC-TV current affairs program This Day Tonight,
In his turbulent career of more than fifty years he has worked as a war correspondent, political reporter, a TV news and current affairs reporter, an award-winning radio presenter in both Sydney and London, an outspoken newspaper columnist and a biting satirist. In retirement he wrote three bestselling books of Australian naval history.
Michael James Carlton, AM (born 31 January 1946)[2] is an Australian former media commentator, radio host, television journalist, author and newspaper columnist. He formerly co-hosted the daily breakfast program on Sydney radio station 2UE with Peter FitzSimons and later Sandy Aloisi.
Carlton was known for his criticism of conservative public figures such as former Prime Minister John Howard, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer,[3] former radio announcer Alan Jones, and conservative governments, including the United States' Bush administration.[4]
William James Cleary
1885-1973
William James Cleary (1885-1973) lived at Mosman. In 1934 he succeeded (Sir) Charles Lloyd Jones as chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Cleary valued the ABC to educate as well as entertain the public. He supported the establishment of the ABC's symphony orchestras in each State by 1936, encouraged the holding of composers' competitions, and arranged for celebrity artists from overseas to give public concerts. He also promoted talk and commentary sessions and radio plays. After W. T. Conder was dismissed in 1935, Cleary acted as general manager until Charles Moses to take over the position. Reference:https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cleary-william-james-5677
Nick Collis-George
Nick Collis-George began his career at the ABC as a Human Resources Clerk from 1973-1978. He was the State Secretary and National Secretary of the ABC Staff Association Jun 1978 - Jun 1985 and represented ABC staff during turbulent and challenging times, when in 1978 the ABC went off air for over five days due to a strike. From 1985-1990 he was Head of ABC Television Policy and Projects; From 1990-1996 he was Head of Children's and Education Television, a time when Banas in Pajamas was created. Referenceshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-collis-george-633846105/?originalSubdomain=auhttps://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/flashback-in-1978-the-abc-went-off-the-air-for-over-five-days-20180928-p506op.html
Ruth Cracknell AM
1925-2002
Ruth Cracknell was educated at North Sydney Girls High School and after graduated worked at Ku-ring-gai Council as a clerk. In 1973 she performed in the award-winning ABC-TV dramatisation of Ethel Turner's Australian children's classic Seven Little Australians.Ruth Cracknell supported the ABC Friends rally when 10,000 supporters marched on Canberra House on 11 February, 2001. She spoke at the rally saying “The ABC holds up a mirror to the whole country. It is a unifying agent – the most important cultural institution in the country”. During this time the Howard government was in power. Richard Alston was Minister responsible for the ABC and frequently on the attack with accusations of bias, supported by Senators Santo Santoro and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. References:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Cracknell
Update Newsletter, ABC Friends, December 2023
John Davis
1944-2015
John Davis joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 1966 as an education television producer. Between 1966 and 1984, he made more than 100 short television programs, most of which were 20-minute pieces focusing of chemistry and physics for the ABC. He was also the former producer of the long running Behind the News for approximately two and a half years. He left ABC in 1984 to start an educational video company, Classroom Video, which he and his wife, Felicity, owned and operated until 2005.On 7 November 2015, John Davis, together with Richard and Carolyn Green, a husband and wife businessman and graphic artist respectively, were killed in a helicopter crash in Watagans National Park near Martinsville in the Hunter Valley filming the environmental damage surrounding the Whitehaven Coal mine at Werris Creek.Reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davis_(filmmaker)#:~:text=Davis%20joined%20the%20Australian%20Broadcasting,focusing%20of%20chemistry%20and%20physics.https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/three-killed-in-helicopter-crash-20151109-gkuq4u.htmlJames Dibble
1923-2009
Veteran ABC newsreader James Dibble passed away at an RSL retirement village in Narrabeen. He introduced the first ABC television news bulletin in 1956 and continued to do so for the next 27 years, until 1983. During these years he was 'the face and voice of the ABC'. During WWII James Dibble served as a wireless telegraphist in the Royal Australian Air Force, stationed in the Pacific. After the war, he joined the ABC first as an accounts department clerk and then became a newsreader and announcer for ABC radio. Later, he would become federal president of the ABC Staff Association. Until the mid-1970s ABC announcers were expected to cover everything, from parliament to cricket, from the news to quiz shows, from cooking classes to fine music programs. Dibble always wore a tie even when recording even in an unoccupied studio.
Geraldine Doogue AO
Geraldine Doogue AO is a renowned ABC journalist and television and radio broadcaster. She hosts Saturday Extra with ABC Radio National.Lindley Evans
1895–1982
Harry Lindley Evans by Larry SitskyAustralian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 17 , 2007
Jillian Fist
Jillian Fist worked as researcher with Four Corners and the Chequerboard series. She was also the assistant to the Head of Documentary Productions for many years.On leaving the ABC Jillian worked as an independent film makers for the company, Special Projects Films, Pty.Ltd. which made the pilot film “Origins of the Polynesians” for a proposed TV documentary series on the movement of various races around the globe.Stewart Fist
Stewart Fish worked for the ABC as a consultant to the Hot Chips series on computers and technology. He also regularly appeared on radio as an political and technology expert when working as the Crossroads columnist on the weekly Computers and Technology supplement of The Australian and editor of Fairfax magazines on science and technology. Stewart worked with Bob Raymond and Michael Charlton, the two founders of Four Corners, but not while they were at the ABC.With Jillian Fisk, his wife, Stewart became an independent film makers with our Special Projects Films, Pty.Ltd. which was the vehicle to make the pilot film “Origins of the Polynesians” for a proposed TV documentary series on the movement of various races around the globe. However it was financially unsuccessful.
published in Update NewsletterIrene Hope Gibson
1899-1989
Sir Eugene Goossens
1893-1962
In 1946 Goossens was invited by (Sir) Charles Moses, the ABC general manager to become the first permanent conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He was also offered to be the director of the NSW Conservatorium of Music. The combined salaries from these two positions gave him an income that was more than the prime minister received. Goossens was determined to make the S.S.O. 'one of the six best orchestras in the world'. His outstanding musicianship ensured the doubling of subscriptions. The ABC was able to attract renowned soloists and conductors to perform with the SSO. Goossens also championed local composition, giving many first performances, among them the world première (1946) of John Antill's Corroboree.Eugene Goossens with Charles Moses played a pinitol role in establishing the concept of the Sydney Opera House. It is understood that Sir Eugene Goossens had a holiday housed on on the Northern Beaches in Avalon.Referenceshttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goossens-sir-eugene-aynsley-10329https://www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/library/your-library/news/early-avalon-residentsMurray Gordon
This photo shows Bishop Robin greeting the Governor, Sir Willoughby Norrie, on the steps of St. Peter's Cathedral, with Murray Gordon (assistant cathedral organist), Very Rev G.H. Jose (Dean of Adelaide), and Wilfred Dennis (Server).Murray Gordon lived at Turramurra and worked at the ABC in its rural division. ABC Rural is the ABC's department that produced news, business, and entertainment programs targeted at audiences in regional Australia. Work on this biography is currently in progress
Wendy Harmer
Wendy Harmer is one of Australia’s most versatile and much-loved entertainers – broadcaster, author, journalist and stage performer.As a stand-up comedian she performed at the Melbourne, Edinburgh, Montreal and Glasgow Mayfest Comedy Festivals, on London’s comedy circuit, through the USA, and at the Sydney Theatre Company. As a broadcaster, Wendy enjoyed huge popularity leading Sydney radio station 2Day FM’s top-rating Breakfast Show for 11 years and was the co-host of ABC Radio Sydney’s morning/breakfast shows from 2016 -2021. She has hosted, written and appeared in a variety of TV shows including ABC’s The Big Gig.Tom Haydon
1938-1991
Tom Haydon, ABC television director and producer grew up on the northern suburbs and attended Manly Boys' High School. In 1960 he gained employment with the ABC as a specialist trainee with the education department. He began producing and directing children’s programs. In 1961 he worked on the national television series University of the Air with historian Ken Inglis. The progrm went to air but 'suffered from under-preparation and vagueness about intended audience' (Inglis, This is the ABC, pp. 209-210) and finished in 1966. His television production The Case for Conservation was ahead of his time on environmental issues. In 1968 he won the Golden Reel in the Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for his documentary The Talgai Skull, about the connections between prehistoric and modern humanity. Haydon was awarded a Silver award from the AFI in 1969 for his conservation documentary Dig a Million, Make a Million an examination of the Hamersley Iron mining company. The film that he is best known for is The Last Tasmanian about the near extermination of Tasmania’s Aboriginal population by British colonists in the nineteenth century. Behind the Dam (1986) was Haydon’s last major film that explored the conflict between environmentalists and miners, loggers, and hydro-workers in Tasmania.
Ken Inglis, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1983, pp.209-10
George Hobbs
1907-1992
George Hobbs, ABC Radio Technician, who travelled from Arcadia to the ABC Radio Studio in Forbes Street, Sydney each day
Our Father who worked for the ABC
by Beverley Inshaw (ABCF NS0S Committee Member) and James Hobbs (ABC Friends NSoS volunteer), February 2021
The ABC has played a significant role in our lives, We grew up listening to the Argonauts. Blue Hills was a must for the family.
For as long as we can remember our Dad's working life was spent as a radio technician with the ABC. We lived on the family farm in Arcadia and we clearly remember him setting off for work often before daylight and returning home at around 7pm. At that time it was nearly a two hour trip each way from Arcadia to his workplace at the ABC Studio in Forbes Street adjacent to William Street, Sydney. A car trip through the Galston Gorge to Hornsby, train to the City and then a bus to Forbes Street. As far as we recall he was ever punctual to arriving at work and seldom had time off because of illness.
Dad immigrated to Australia from the Isle of White following the First World War . The family was suffering acute financial stress because of the impact of his war experience on his health so at the age of 16, assisted by the Big Brother Movement, he landed in Tasmania and worked as a farm labourer on apple orchards in the Tamar Valley. He later moved to the mainland and experienced the hardship of unemployment because of the Depression. He carried his swag through the Riverina working on stations when he had the opportunity. Eventually he obtained full time work with a bus company in Melbourne when WW11 broke out.
He enlisted hoping to get the opportunity to return to England so he could see his mother but this didn’t eventuate. Instead he was posted to the signals core. This posting would affect the rest of his life in relation to his private life and his work opportunities. The closest he got to the UK was Greece. He participated in the disastrous withdrawal from Greece , Crete eventually got back to Adelaide for R&R leave. There his future wife Jessie was visiting her brother and she must have taken a fancy to him because they married soon after before he was sent to the war front in New Guinea. His daughter, Beverley, was born whilst he was serving in New Guinea. In New Guinea he worked his way up the Kokoda Track to Myola laying telephone cables under appalling conditions. Eventually he was evacuated back to the mainland for hospitalization relating to back injury.
After the war George worked for the GPO because of his signaling skills and ultimately for the ABC.
As children we remember Dad having to go all the way to Broken Hill to put in place the infrastructure to facilitate the 1954 Queens Visit broadcasts to the Nation. He was away for over two weeks performing that role. We also recall him taking us to the Forbes Street ABC studio so that we could observe the Royal Visit cavalcade up William Street. We felt quite privileged to have had that opportunity.
After the William Street ABC studios were closed he was transferred to Gore Hill where he worked until he retired. This was a time of dramatic change in broadcasting and we think these times might have been quite challenging for him. His loyalty to the ABC was never ending and we are proud that our Dad made a small but tangible contribution to the organization. This is one of the many reasons why we Love the ABC.
George was born on 24th January 1907, He died on 29th March 1992 aged 85 years.
George Hobbs working in ABC Radio studio.
In Hobbs family collection. Unknown ABC radio announcer.
Allan Humphries
TV Weather presenter Allan Humphries in 1974
Allen Humphries, ABC Rural announcer, was the first ABC presenter to use the “dump button” when a member of the public rang in asking how to keep marijuana plants hidden from "coppers".
Work on this biography is currently in progress
References
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-12-03/the-first-time-abc-hit-the-dump-button/11736042
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/sydney-mornings/allan-humphries/102483486
Allan Humphries interviewed by Rob Linn in the History of ABC rural broadcasting in Australia oral history project. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-220570255/listen
Caroline Jones
1938-2022
Caroline Jones AO (1938-2022), Australia's first woman reporter on current affairs program This Day Tonight in 1968. She lived in n Greenwich, n Sydney's Northern Suburbs. She was the host of Radio National’s popular The Search for Meaning from 1987-94. She joined the ABC in 1963 and went on to host Four Corners. She was the first presenter for the ABC’s profile series Australian Story (1996) until her retirement in 2016.
References
Caroline Jones - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
https://www.smh.com.au/national/broadcaster-caroline-jones-remembered-as-a-lover-of-words-and-genius-at-funeral-20220530-p5apiv.html
https://www.smh.com.au/national/trailblazing-journalist-caroline-jones-dead-at-84-20220520-p5an8o.html
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/28/caroline-jones-groundbreaking-australian-journalist-and-champion-of-women-in-media
'Vale Carolyn Jones, AO', compiled by Diana Wyndham, ABC Friends National Update, August 2022, Vol 30, No 2, page 8
https://abcalumni.net/2022/05/23/4293/
Tony Joyce
1946-1980
https://www.abc.net.au/corp/memorial/tonyjoyce.htm
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/joyce-anthony-walter-10649
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/tony-joyce-truth-the-casualty-in-the-unsolved-murder-of-australian-journalist-20150730-gio4sk.html
John Laurie
'The Turramurra Bottlers' by John Laurie on 6 October, 2023
The Turramurra Bottlers was a 12 member wine lovers club founded by two prominent members of the ABC in the mid 1960s – Murray Gordon and Graham White. These included Humphrey Fisher, a son of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, a BBC operative seconded to the ABC. Humphry’s wife Di (Bubbles) Fisher well known at the time in Sydney’s social scene. The ‘Bottlers” bottling session occurred at Murray Gordon’s residence, at Bobbin Head Road, Turramurra.
Messrs Gordon and White who were closely involved at the time with the ABC’s rural division were responsible for sourcing the wine – red and white (but not rose) from quality wineries from mainly the Barossa Valley in South Australia, where Murray Gordon’s family resided and where he grew up. One of Gordon’s then past activities involved being an organist at St Peters Cathedral, close to Australia’s finest first-class cricket oval, the Adelaide Oval.
Lasting friendships were made amongst members of this Group. All of us would have very happy memories of those convivial evening bottling sessions with the participants indeed fortunate, thanks to our ABC convenors, of being able to bottle and consume some wonderful Barossa Valley wines in our ten years or so of the Turramurra Bottlers existence in the 1960 / 1970s.
Arthur G. Lowndes CBE, M.Sc.
1911-1994
Arthur Lowndes Lowndes was appointed as a commissioner of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1956. He served until 1974 and was Vice-Chairman (1971-1974).
He was appointed CBE in 1966 for services to the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
He was elected as a Strathfield Council Alderman (1948-1956), Deputy Mayor (1951-53, 1955-56)
Lowndes received his education at Sydney University and Cambridge University and worked as an economist.
Lowndes was Chairman of the Australian Institute of Political Science (1952-1966), Member of the Sydney University Senate (1969-1976).
Lowndes was a Major in the 2nd AIF (1940-1945) during World War II, Australian Liaison officer of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) China (1945-1946) and consultant on land use in Northern Territory and other regions. He was a director of J C Ludowici & Son Ltd since 1956 and Consultant Manager of CSR Ltd Macadamia Orchards (1963-1976).
In 1956, Council renamed Hudson Park Oval in Arthur Street Strathfield as the Arthur G Lowndes Oval in recognition of his services to Strathfield Council.
Lowndes resided at ‘The Braes’ 71 Redmyre Road, Strathfield from the 1940s to 1960s. His son lived in Killara and Lindfield.
He was appointed CBE in 1966 for services to the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
In 1967 Geoffrey Bolton wrote a biography of Sir Richard Boyer, the ABC's chair from 1945 to 1961. A. G. Lowndes a review of Bolton's book in a journal article called 'Review: Dick Boyer: An Australian Humanist' by G. C. Bolton', Australian National Press, 1967, The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1967), pp. 116-118, Published By: Australian Institute of Policy and Science.
Alexander Francis "Lex" Marinos OAM
Deputy chairperson of Australia Council, actor, writer, director, host of Late Night Legends on ABC Digital 2
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Falconians
David Marr
David Marr is a Walkley Award journalist for his work on ABC TV program Four Corners (1985, 1990–91), as well as a presenter of Radio National's Arts Today program (1994–1996) and host of the ABC TV program Media Watch. (2002-2004). His account of the deaths of Aborigines in custody in Western Australia, Black Death, won a Walkley Award and a Human Rights Commission Award. During his term as presenter of Media Watch he played a key role in exposing the ongoing cash for comment affair, involving radio announcers Alan Jones and John Laws. In 2004 Media Watch exposed David Flint's conflict of interest as head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) when he wrote letters of support to Alan Jones whilst at the same time the ABA was investigated him.
In September 19, 2009 he wrote an article about overdevelopment in Ku-ring-gai 'Friendless and furious: Ku-ring-gai fights for life'
Recently he has written ‘My people had blood on their hands’: uncovering a shocking family secret
References
https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A9943
https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/9597722
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Ray Martin
Ray Martin worked with the ABC from1965-1978 in news and current affairs television and radio including 'Four Corners' and 'This Day Tonight'.
Reference
Mosman Daily's 100 year anniversary: A century of events and people that shaped a city and a nation
Maxine McKew
Former ABC journalist won the federal seat of Bennelong in the 2007 federal election deposing the then Prime Minister John Howard. John Howard election after holding it for 33 years.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Sir Charles Moses
1900-1988
Sir Charles Moses was the ABC's General Manager from 1935-1965. He died at Turramurra on 9 February 1988. He was deeply unhappy about the commissioned history of the ABC This Is the ABC (1983) by Ken Inglis and threatened legal action against the publication. Ken Inglis's view was that Charles Moses 'still thought of it as his ABC'.
Charles Moses was born in England. He served in the British military in post WW1 Germany and western Ireland as s part of the British attempt to curb the increasing political violence in rural areas. On 3 June 1922 a Dublin Catholic Church, Dublin, he married Kathleen (Kitty) O’Sullivan, and together they migrated to Australia to join his family, who had left England in 1919. He joined his family's tomato and citrus fruit enterprise near Bendigo, Victoria, but when the business failed he sold real estate and cars in Melbourne.
In the Depression he got a job in radio because of his appealing well-modulated, soft Southern English accented voice which avoided class-based extremes.
By July 1932, when the Australian Broadcasting Commission began operations, Moses had a growing reputation as a news and sports announcer. His knowledge of sport was prodigious as was his experience as a sportsman.
Moses’s rise in the ABC was meteoric. He became the sports editor (1933), federal controller of talks (1934), liaison officer (1935) and, in November 1935, General Manager. He established federal departments of talks, drama and music, run by specialists. He fostered Australian talent. He worked with ABC chairman W. J. Cleary to establish a comprehensive national broadcaster.
With the encouragement of (Sir) Bernard Heinze and W. G. James, Moses established the ABC's State orchestras and in 1936 the ABC held its first concert season. Despite resistance from the monopolistic theatrical entrepreneurs J. & N. Tait, the ABC brought international performers to Australia in 1937.
ABC director of publicity, Charles Buttrose, described Charles Moses as a 'showman at heart'. In 1945 he negotiated with the NSW government and the Sydney City Council to form a full-time, full-sized orchestra in Sydney. Within a few years the ABC had five permanent State orchestras and could offer Australia-wide tours to prominent overseas conductors and musicians.
Access to news, however, was a problem that could not be solved for many years. Twice Moses defied the press, who controlled the supply of news to the ABC and the length and times of bulletins, by deciding unilaterally to broadcast news before the times allowed—on his first day as general manager and on the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Although he tried on both occasions to obtain public and government approval, he failed.
In 1940 Moses enlisted in the war. He escaped from Singapore by commandeering a sampan and sailing to Sumatra, Netherlands East Indies. Recovering from that ordeal he was appointed as a temporary lieutenant colonel and placed in command of Moresby Base Sub-Area in 1942.
Prime Minister John Curtin requested he return to head the ABC to develop its own news service. Moses also introduced ‘first-class quality entertainment’ that promoted optimism.
His relationship with Cleary the ABC chairman became increasingly tense and Cleary resigned in March 1945.
The BBC invited Moses to observe its reporting of war in Europe where he narrowly escaped injury when German self-propelled guns shelled a factory building in which they were hiding.
After the war Moses renewed his efforts to build ABC audiences. Programs such as the ‘Country Hour’ built rural support The ABC's news service was established in 1947 with the Australian Broadcasting Act (1946) that allowed the ABC to gather its own news independently of the press. He recognised the importance of impartial and independent news, compared to the newspapers, which reflected the views of their proprietors.
In October 1957 the deputy-leader of the Federal Opposition, Arthur Calwell, verbally attacked Charles Moses in Parliament describing him as ‘sickening’ and ‘slimy’ because he had deliberately withheld information, until parliament was in recess, that the Englishman, Peter Homfray, an unsuccessful Liberal Party candidate for the Tasmanian parliament, had been appointed to the position of director of Radio Australia. Calwell alleged that Moses was preventing Australians from securing promotions within the ABC. Calwell listed other recent senior appointments of Englishmen and declared that, ‘I would facilitate his departure to the B.B.C., where he properly belongs’.
Charles Moses strongly supported the establishment of ‘Four Corners’ in 1961.
Moses often acted in secret, took his own initiatives, and bipassed the ABC chairman and the government on matters that he believed important.
Moses’ last years with the ABC were clouded with controversy. In 1958 there was considerable staff bitterness over his cross-examination of senior officers during the six-month pay claim, held before the assistant public service arbitrator.
in November 1964 to become Secretary-General of the Asian Broadcasting Union.
Moses became a member of the NSW Government's Sydney Opera House Committee after he and the conductor (Sir) Eugene Goossens urged Premier J. J. Cahill to build an opera house. Later he helped plan the international design competition. He was a foundation member (1961) of the Sydney Opera House Trust.
Moses was an enthusiastic woodchopper after being introduced to axemen at Pemberton, Western Australia, while on holiday in 1944.
A fiercely competitive man, with extraordinary energy and single-mindedness, Moses was thought by some of his colleagues to be a born leader with an innate generosity of spirit; others recognised that he demanded total control. He was known to employ subterfuge and trickery if the end seemed to justify the means.
Appointed CBE in 1954, he was knighted in 1961. Survived by his wife and their son, but predeceased by a daughter, Sir Charles died on 9 February 1988 at Turramurra and was cremated. In March 1989 the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stuart Challender, gave a concert in his honour in the Sydney Town Hall.
References:
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moses-sir-charles-joseph-15044
https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/charles-moses-1900
https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/charles-moses
https://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits/2003.138/sir-charles-moses
Glyn Davis, 'Public Interest and Private Passion, Ken Ingis on the ABC', Peter Browne and Seumas Spark (Eds), 'I Wonder', the Life and Work of Ken Inglis, Monash University Press, 2020, page 268 [Ku-ring-gai Library 297.0994/SAEE]
Oral history interview with Sir Moses tape recorded for the ABC, 230 page transcript, 1971.
A Biography of Sir Charles Moses, Global Media Journal, Australian Edition
Maurice Newman AC
Maurice Newman was a student of North Sydney Boys High School. He became the Chairman of ABC, Chairman of Australian Stock Exchange, Chairman of Deutsche Bank, Chancellor of Macquarie University.
Kerry O'Brien
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Andrew Ollie
1947-1996
Andrew Olle was born in Hornsby as the only child of Major John Durrant Olle, a radio telegraphist who had fought in World War II, and Marie Jose née Ifwersen, a New Zealand-born court reporter and stenographer with French and Danish heritage.
On 7 December 1995, Olle collapsed in his Greenwich home due to a brain haemorrhage associated with a previously undiagnosed brain tumour (glioblastoma multiforme) and he was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital, but died shortly after that.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Olle
Don Palmer
Don Palmer spent several years on the ABC’s NSW Advisory Board and as an academic training some of Australia’s most prominent media personalities and journalists. He is a Winston Churchill Fellow and holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication. As a documentary film maker he was winner of a United Nations Media Peace Prize and acts as a provider of media training to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the board of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. He’s known in Central Australia as Tjungurrayi and Wotama in recognition of his strong connection with Aboriginal people
Reference
https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-palmer-2a65b411a/?originalSubdomain=au
Juanita Phillips
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Gwen Plum AM
1912-2002
During a career that spanned six decades, Gwen Plumb featured in radio, television and stage productions. She played Emmie in the ABC radio serial Blue Hills and also was a radio presenter for Radio 2GB. She played Ada Simmonds in the television series The Young Doctors, and featured in Richmond Hill and Harp in the South.
During World War II, Plumb joined the Australian Women’s Land Army and worked in cherry-picking as part of the war effort when many men were called to service [2]. One of the founding members of the Belvoir Street Theatre (Sydney), she starred in the first Australian production of Steaming in 1983.
In 1993 Plumb announced her retirement at a reunion of the Independent Theatre. She passed away at her home at Kirribilli on 5 June 2002.
https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/plumb-gwendoline-jean-gwen/
Hans Pomeranz OAM
1938-2007
https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-force-in-australias-film-industry-20071115-gdrlm8.html
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190302010528/http://abctvgorehill.com.au/assets/contributions/hans-pomeranz-tribute.htm
https://www.screeneditors.com.au/hans-pomeranz-oam/
Morag Ramsay
Morag Ramsay is a multi-award winning investigative journalist and filmmaker. After joining ABC Radio in Sydney as a producer in 1996 she went on to work as a researcher at Lateline before joining Four Corners in 2000 as a field producer, working alongside some of the true greats of Australian journalism, including Chris Masters, Liz Jackson, Sally Neighbour and Sarah Ferguson.
Travelling around Australia and the world on assignment, her work has covered terrorism, national security crises and political intrigue and exposed corruption and regulatory failures, in the true tradition of holding power to account. Since becoming Four Corners Supervising Producer in 2015 she has driven the program’s digital transformation, allowing it to reach new audiences across multiple platforms. Ramsay has won three Walkley Awards and during her tenure as Supervising Producer Four Corners has won 17 Walkleys and three Logie Awards and prompted four royal commissions.
References
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/30/abc-appoints-new-executive-producers-to-helm-of-flagship-tv-news-programs
https://about.abc.net.au/press-releases/abc-announces-executive-producers-of-four-corners-7-30-and-foreign-correspondent/
Kate Reid
NSoS Committee meeting at Bella Blue Cafe, Lindfield, 2020
Left to Right: Kate Reid, Chris Haviland, Jenny Forster and Janine Kitson
Kate Reid had over 50 years of continuous employment with ‘Aunty’.
Kate's career began as an accomplished UK publicist. She applied for a job with the ABC following the appointment of her husband Peter to work in Australia. She worked in offices under the Congregational Church in Pitt Street, Sydney where her first boss was Charles Buttrose, father of Ita Buttrose, AC, the current Chair of the ABC Board. Charles Buttrose was Manager of Publicity and Concerts when the ABC ran all the symphony orchestras across the country.
The 1990s saw an expansion of ABC shops - to around 35-40 - around the country. The shops sold a wide range of program-related merchandise, including books, CDs, DVDs and soft toys. Kate liaised with ABC radio and television scheduling teams to promote this merchandise. They brought in $17 million, with net revenue of around $1 million to the ABC.
However with the establishment of ABC Online, customers drifted to buying on-line. The national network of ABC Shops closed in late 2015.
Kate's varied career within the ABC also saw her working in Corporate Affairs. There Kate would host literary lunches for visiting celebrities including Michael Palin, David Attenborough, Barry Humphries, the Two Fat Ladies (Clarissa Dickson Wright & Jennifer Anderson) and Jamie Oliver.
Kate's origins were County Down, Northern Ireland. However her parents were posted to Cyprus in the late ’50s. While a young school girl, living with her grandparents in Bangor, Co. Down, her mother sent for her to join them. Alone she took a train to Belfast, finding her way across the Irish Sea to Liverpool. From there she caught a train to London. At this point, she received the only assistance from an adult: an aunt took her to London’s Heathrow, to fly to Nicosia. Her folks weren’t there to meet her, so she resourcefully flagged down an Army Truck and asked for a lift to Famagusta. As she clambered aboard, about to set off, an open-top sports car arrived. On seeing her flushed and flustered folks in the car, Kate knew her adventure was complete and ran to them.
In retirement Kate volunteered to conduct tours of the ABC offices at Ultimo. Kate Reid has also been a former Lane Cove Councillor and Workers Educational Association of NSW (WEA) Councillor. She is a member of ABC Alumni. In 2019 she joined the inaugural Committee of ABC Friends NSoS Branch.
Peter Reid
d. 2016
Peter Reid (d. 2016) was the Four Corners longest-serving Executive Producer from 1973–1980 and a pioneer of Australian television journalism. Among his many contributions to Four Corners was ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’ (1969). In this program, Peter Reid reports on the case of Aboriginal woman Nancy Young, who is jailed for manslaughter after the death of her baby, supposedly of neglect.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Four Corners travelled to the outback town of Cunnamulla, Queensland, where reporter Peter Reid tackled a case of Aboriginal injustice. He reported on the case of Nancy Young who was jailed for manslaughter after the death of her baby, allegedly of neglect. The episode exposed the squalid living conditions of the Aboriginal community and the indifference felt towards Indigenous issues in the 1960s. Nancy Young was found guilty by an all-white, all-male jury, and after serving the majority of her three year sentence; she was released following fresh evidence which resulted in the conviction being quashed. It was later acknowledged that her daughter, Evelyn, had died from scurvy which she contracted in the insanitary conditions of the Cunnamulla reserve.
Another acclaimed Four Corners program by Peter Reid was ‘Duntroon: Marking Time' (1970) http://ab.co/2blWLO9
As a young man Peter worked as a merchant seaman, briefly living in Melbourne and working for the Argus. Returning to the UK he worked at ITN News. Channel 10 'head-hunted' him asking him to return to work in Australia. His wife Kate followed shortly afterwards and went to work for the ABC.).
Their son Michael Reid is an award-winning documentary maker. Michael has spent 30 years as a reporter/producer in Sydney, London and Parliament House Canberra. Career highlights include Walkley award winning coverage of the 2020 bushfires, Logie nominated coverage of the devastating 2008 China earthquake and live coverage of the 9/11 attacks. Since 2016 Michael has been Editor, ABC News 24 with the overall editorial responsibility for news and programs on ABC News.
Read more:
https://abcalumni.net/2021/08/10/the-70s-trail-blazing-on-a-shoestring/
Jim Revitt
1931-2009
Tony Robinson
My time with the ABC was 1974 to 2003. For the whole of this time I was what is best described as a Technical Operator but Management loved to tinker with names and we had several titles.
We underwent field training in those days under Geoff Moxham who had us working recorder, Pickups, News and Caff before setting us down in a more long term area. I ended up in the communications room for some years then went to News, then back out to general operations.
Eventually we were confronted with “outposting” where we had to select a department and stick with it. I chose Master Control, and stayed there through the final years in Forbes St and into Ultimo and on to my retirement.
Photo Tony Robinson at Avalon Baptist Peace Church raising funds for Amnesty International at a Loosely Woven concert, 26.11.23.
Joyce Rumble (nee Billings)
1913-1998
Joyce Rumble was a highly accomplished concert pianist, studying under Professor Arlom at the Sydney Conservatorium and as well as obtaining a Bachelor of Music Degree from Sydney University
In 1956 she married Milton Rumble and lived at Dorman Crescent West Lindfield where she was a dedicated teacher in both piano and cello. One of her students was the brilliant pianist Simon Tedeschi. She played cello with several chamber music groups, locally ad in country areas, and was a well known music critic with the North Shore Times for many years. She was accompanist for the ABC Singers for some years and was also one of the top sight readers in Australia and often called upon to perform at a concert when a pianist took ill.
Reference
Sue Catterall, 'Joyce Ruble, nee Billings [1913-1998], musician', Women of Ku-ring-gai, A Tribute, Edited by Helen Malcher, Ku-ring-gai Historical Society, Inc, 1999, page 184
Mark Scott AO
On 2011 Mark Scott was nominated as an Officer of the Order of Australia "For distinguished service to media and communications, and to the community through advisory and governance roles with a range of social justice and educational bodies".
He was the ABC Managing Director of the ABC from 2006-2016 and led its transformation into a public broadcaster in the digital era. During his time, the ABC created new services such as iView, News 24, ABC3 and digital radio; and expanded online and mobile services, such as podcasting and ABC News online.
Reference:
https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1144247
https://theconversation.com/mark-scott-appointed-chair-of-the-conversation-media-group-199768#:~:text=Professor%20Scott%20is%20Vice%2DChancellor,broadcaster%20in%20the%20digital%20era.
Mark Walter Scott AO (born 9 October 1962) is a public servant and university administrator who serves as the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney. He was the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 2006 to 2016.[1] Prior to commencing at the ABC, Scott had previously held a senior role at Fairfax Media, responsible for the editorial content of the group's major newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age.
In June 2016, Scott was appointed Secretary of the New South Wales Department of Education.[2] In March 2021, Scott was announced as being appointed the 27th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, commencing in July 2021.[3]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/mark-scott/28244
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-26/scott-in-defence-of-the-abc/6575408
Lindsay Somerville
Lindsay Somerville was the Production Manager at ABC Enterprises, the publishing arm of the ABC from 1983-2009. He was involved in producing over 50 ABC book titles per annum and the then ABC's most popular soft toys - Bananas in Pyjamas. They were so popular that they sold out in ABC shops leading up to Christmas in 1988.
In 1989 Lindsay visited Hong Kong, China and Singapore to investigate suppliers for film separations, printing, binding and the manufacture of soft toys. Lindsay found that many Chinese had difficulty understanding why a broadcaster would operate a chain of retail shops and published printed material, videos and records. Before visiting China Lindsay spoke to Radio Australia's John Crone who had been working there.
In retirement Lindsay served as a Convenor of ABC Friends NSoS Committee.
Lindsay lives in the northern Sydney suburb of Lindfield.
Lindsay's father was Jim Somerville who was a conservationists active in protecting Sydney's wilderness areas.
References
https://www.smh.com.au/national/jim-somerville-local-man-fought-to-protect-the-environment-for-future-generations-20140705-zsxk1.html
Leigh Spence
1938-2014
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/abcfriends/pages/751/attachments/original/1713221771/Photo_leigh-spence-w.jpg?1713221771
Douglas Stewart AO OBE
1912-1985
Douglas Stewart was a renowned Australian poet, short story writer, essayist and a longstanding literary editor of The Bulletin, and publishing editor with Angus & Robertson,
Born in New Zealand he moved to Australia in 1938 where he fell in love with the unique Australian bush. He and his wife, artist Margret Coen, lived in St Ives at a time when it was a rural area surrounded by Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
As well as writing poetry, Stewart made a significant contribution to writing radio drama. His verse play The Fire on the Snow, dramatised Scott's tragic Antarctic journey, was performed on ABC radio in 1941 to great success. It was also broadcast on the BBC.
Ned Kelly, another verse play won an open ABC radio competition in 1941. In 1942 he won another ABC radio drama competition with the romantic comedy The Golden Lover.
References
Douglas Stewart AO OBE (6 May 1913 – 14 February 1985) was a major twentieth century Australian poet, as well as short story writer, essayist and literary editor. He published 13 collections of poetry, 5 verse plays, including the well-known Fire on the Snow, many short stories and critical essays, and biographies of Norman Lindsay and Kenneth Slessor. He also edited several poetry anthologies.
His greatest contribution to Australian literature came from his 20 years as literary editor of The Bulletin, his 10 years as a publishing editor with Angus & Robertson, and his lifetime support of Australian writers.[1] Geoffrey Serle, literary critic, has described Stewart as "the greatest all-rounder of modern Australian literature".[citation needed]
Alan Sunderland
Alan Sunderland began his career in journalism at the ABC's Melbourne newsroom as a young cadet reporter, aged 20. He then went onto work as a general news reporter, a court reporter, an industrial reporter, police-rounds reporter and a political reporter. He has worked as the ABC's Editorial Director with the responsibility for setting and maintaining the editorial standards of the public broadcaster across news, radio, drama, comedy and documentaries. He retired in 2019.
Margaret Throsby
Work on this biography is currently in progress
References:
Margaret Ellen Throsby AM, (born 1941) is an Australian radio and television broadcaster. She is known for having interviewed thousands of notable people for Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programs.
Margaret Ellen Throsby[1] was born in 1941[2] in Neutral Bay, a lower north shore suburb of Sydney. Her father was Charles Throsby, an English barrister who died when she was 12, and her mother was Alison Battarbee, a cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She attended North Sydney Girls High School, then spent a year studying speech pathology after leaving school.[3]
Nathan Waks
Cellist in Sydney Symphony Orchestra, former director of Music at ABC, composer of score for My Brilliant Career.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Falconians
Graham White OBE
Graham White joined the ABC in 1952 and was involved in the launch of ABC TV in 1956. Graham was also one of just three MCG commentators at the Melbourne Olympic Games in that year.
During his fifty year career at the ABC he held senior roles, including Head of Rural Broadcasting (1953), Controller of TV Programs (1971) and General Manager of ABC Television (1973-1983).
During the 1970s Graham was involved in the production of popular TV programs including Countdown, A Big Country, the Magic of Music, Rush, Ben Hall and Power Without Glory. He also expanded ABC’s current affairs and sports programs.
In the late 1960s the ABC Rural Department produced a series of regular weekly programs directed at country Australia such as Landline, Countryman, The Modern Farmer and Countrywide. It also devised A Big Country under executive producer, John Sparkes, and two producers, Brian Todd and John Mabey. Mabey stated, “what we were doing was a mixture of documentary and current affairs with an agricultural leaning”. In the years following, ABC crews traversed the country, nurturing a legion of journalists, documentary producers and directors like Chris Masters, Bob Connolly, David Flatman, Bill Bennett, Ken Dwyer and Stewart McLennan. The contribution of these filmmakers was enormous, but the program had an unforeseen consequence, as noted by Graham White, the Director of Rural Programs in 1972: “A Big Country has become more than an Australian program. In a strange way, it appears to have succeeded in rekindling or keeping alive a nation’s interest in the rural way of life and in people who live close to the land”. Phillip Adams referred to the program as “the ABC’s quiet achiever” and thought that “the tripod of A Big Country has stood across Australia like a colossus”. A Big Country ran for almost three decades with the last episode going to air in August 1992. (https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdf)
Graham was committed to ensuring all regions across Australia could receive ABC television broadcasts. Initially in 1956, only Melbourne and Sydney had TV. Yet he was involved in oversighting the extension of TV to Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart and other regional centres including Darwin and Townsville etc. But there were still vast areas without TV service.
Graham was instrumental in lobbying government to ensure a satellite service was provided to ensure the whole of Australia, including remote areas received TV.
During the 1978 five-day strike at the ABC, Graham White was acting manger of the ABC and is reported as saying "I only want in say this. It is the most distasteful thing I have had to do in my career - to authorise and direct the stand-down today of ABC staff whom I regard as my colleagues."
As Director of Television, Graham established ABC Enterprises with the publication of ABC Books and opened the first ABC shop in Sydney in 1982. ABC shops in all states now generate millions of dollars in revenue.
While on secondment from the ABC, Graham worked for the United Nations in Asia, South America and the Pacific region with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. His role was organising and conducting broadcasting training courses.
References:
https://www.brightongrammar.vic.edu.au/member/graham-grant-white-obe-asm/
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/flashback-in-1978-the-abc-went-off-the-air-for-over-five-days-20180928-p506op.html
Andrew Wilkie
1928 – 2023
Andrew Willkie was first weatherman to ever appear on Australian television, Alan Wilkie, has died aged 94. He began his TV career at the ABC, before working at the Seven and Nine networks for more than 25 years
Wilkie started out his career at the Bureau of Meteorology, which encouraged him to join the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) as it launched its television division. He read the weather from the ABC's first week of television broadcasts in 1956 until he left the organisation in 1960.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
References:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-12/alan-wilkie-weatherman-dies-aged-84/102590782
Other ABC Branch Connections
Blue Mountains
Jill Kitson (1939-2013) was a former ABC Radio presenter who resided in the Blue Mountains, living at Wentworth Falls and was a board director of Varuna, The Writers' Home in Katoomba.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Kitson
Central Coast
Scott Levi presents Breakfast on ABC Central Coast. Scott has worked as programme director and breakfast presenter at 4LM Mt Isa, 2MC Port Macquarie, a short stint in the newsroom at 2WS Sydney, 6IX in Perth, 2WG in Wagga Wagga and most recently as a producer with ABC Riverina. Scott has also dabbled in television, presenting three bicycle-touring documentaries shown on Channel 7, Ten-Capital, Prime TV and The Lifestyle Channel.
Hunter Branch
Donald Horne, (1921-2005)
Worked in Muswellbrook in tiny ABC Radio Studio broadcasting Late Night Live from a tiny ABC studio atremble with the rumble of endless coal trains. He was arguably Muswellbrook’s most valuable and enduring export.
Mid-North Coast Branch
George Negus (born 1942)
Pioneer of Australian TV journalism, first appearing on the ABC’s groundbreaking This Day Tonight. Negus lived in Bellingen before he was moved into a Sydney nursing home in late 2021 after being diagnosed with dementia. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Negus
Elaine D. Cooke who worked for the ABC and grew up in Moonee, (12 km) north of Coffs Harbour
https://abcalumni.net/2022/09/15/from-relief-typist-to-the-abc-mds-personal-secretary/
ABC Timeline
2032: ABC's Centenary
2024, 6 March: Ita Buttrose ends her term as ABC Chair.
2023: Centenary of ABC Radio. Reference: https://radiotoday.com.au/high-profile-guests-reminisce-as-abc-radio-sydney-celebrates-100-years/
2023: Steve Ahern appointed Manager of ABC Radio Sydney.
2023: The decade of funding cuts under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morison Governments and the indexation pause continues to have a devastating cumulative effect on the ABC's operational funding which is currently ore than 10 per cent lower compared to 2013-2014
2023: A small number of ABC Committees' records – agendas, meeting papers, minutes and correspondence – have been listed in the National Archives of Australia’s Record Search database, of which few have been listed and declassified. Most have not yet been examined by ABC historians.
2023 Nov 21: SMH reports about Angela Stengel (ABC’s head of digital content and
innovation at the Innovation Lab, which is part of the ABC’s
strategy division) and announcement that Kishor Napier Raman and Noel Towell are described as “Aunty’s Influencers”. After years of commissioning shows from young up-and-comers such as Shaun Micallef and Annabel Crabb, and somehow failing to appeal to the under-60 market, the ABC is now targetting youth via TikTok. The ABC placed an advertisement for four six-month positions as part of its “creator program”, hoping to employ new social media stars into Aunty’s stable. Competitive candidates will have more than 10,000 followers on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, or have created a vertical video with more than 100,000 views. [The] salary range is between $93,000 and $114,000 pro rata for the
six-month period. Meanwhile, the young cadets earn $61,327. These new roles were created after massive redundancies across the whole of the broadcaster. They new digital employees will not be producing news, but will provide “entertainment, music and comedy”.
An ABC Friends question?
Is Aunty under the influence if she is turning to TikTok to attract younger audiences? If this removing its obligations to inform, educate and entertain a broader section of the Australian population?
2023 20 Oct: The ABC Annual Report 2022-23 is tabled in Parliament by the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland.
2023 18 Oct: The Albanese Government accepts the independent panel's recommendation for the appointment of Nicolette Maury and Louise McElvogue as non-executive Directors to the ABC Board for 5-year terms.
Nicolette Maury is the CEO of Avani Solutions. She has a strong background in business across real estate, banking and ecommerce, having spent more than 15 years working in digital organisations in Australia and overseas. Ms Maury’s previous roles have included Head of Europe Product Transformation Office for Grupo Santander, CEO at Asto Digital Ltd, Vice President and Managing Director of Intuit Australia, and various roles with eBay Australia. In 2013, Ms Maury won the Australian Financial Review BOSS Young Executive of the Year Award. Louise McElvogue has an extensive background in journalism, communications, marketing and board governance in Australia and internationally. She also has significant business experience leading digital projects for brands like McDonald’s and building the UK’s first video streaming services for the BBC and Channel 4. Ms McElvogue has considerable experience working across health, education, finance and technology. Ms McElvogue is currently concluding a year serving as interim CEO of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and is an Adjunct Professor in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney. She currently serves as a non-executive Director of online education provider, Cluey Ltd, and President of the Australian Institute of Company Directors NSW Council.
2023: ABC Friends petitions the ABC to reinstate its eight state-based 7pm Sunday television news bulletins rather than having a single national program and supplementary online bulletins.
2023 24 July: Sydney Morning Herald journalist Calum Jaspan writes article “The ABC chases the fountain of youth in a shallow funding pool”. At the same time as the ABC was cutting jobs, it was shifting the focus from TV and radio to digital. Jaspan quoted former host of Media Watch and ABC journalist for 35 years Jonathan Holmes who said that even with a refreshed strategy, getting younger Australians to connect with the ABC will be an uphill struggle. “The biggest challenge for the ABC has always
been being a visible part of young people’s media habits. It has always skewed old, with Australians coming back to ABC television in their 40s.” The difference now, Holmes says, is that young people are not watching TV at all, with streaming baked into their media habits”.
Reference
Callum Jaspan, The ABC chases its fountain of youth despite stagnant funding, July 24, 2023
2023 June 15: Sydney Morning Herald journalist Calum Jaspan quoted the ABC’s Andrew Probyn who struggled to understand the direction of the national broadcaster as it made his political editor role redundant, along with up to 120 other roles as it prepares for its digital future.
2023 June: ABC announces its digital-focused restructure with a new five-year plan (plus Background Document) to guide the broadcaster in becoming a fully integrated digital operation. This digital transformation diverts resources away from traditional broadcasting towards digital and streaming platforms, such as ABC iView, ABC Listen and ABC News programs instead of live radio and television channel broadcasting. One reason for this digital desire to increase audience numbers.
An ABC Friends question?To what extent should the ABC be (i) chasing audiences/members (like commercial media) or (ii) focus on its Charter objectives?
How should ABC Friends contribute to debates around the ABC’s strategic direction and do the branches have a role in this, such as through monitoring community attitudes?
The network’s standalone arts division is gutted with the positions of two of its most senior arts journalists—Arts Digital editor Dee Jefferson and Managing Arts editor Edwina Throsby—eliminated. All arts material, as well as everything else not designated as “News” comes under the control of the “Content” division, headed by Chris Oliver-Taylor, a recently hired Netflix senior executive. News programming will be managed by the news director, Justin Stevens.
The announcement coincides with announcement that the ABC will axe 120 jobs (1986 - ABC employed 8,000 staff; 2023 - employs 4,000 staff. Since 2000s estimated loss of 1,600 jobs). Andrew Probyn sacked. Positions in the news division, including journalists, editors, and camera and sound operators from 7.30, Australian Story and Four Corners to go.
The restructure introduces a digital-first 10-minute reintroduction of Stateline; a dedicated Climate, Environment, and Energy reporting team; enhanced iview, ABC News, and ABC Listen and new digital roles.
2023: Communications Minister Michelle Rowland initiates inquiry as to how to identify paths to greater financial stability and certainty for the ABC and measures to protect its independence.
2023: ABC staff receive their first pay rise after a lengthy industrial campaign, taking home a 4% increase on their base rate of pay and a one-off bonus of $1500. Another 4% will be delivered in October 2023.
2023: Five-year cycle of ABC funding introduced by Albanese Labor government replacing triennial-based funding.
2022 Dec: Australian House of Representatives and Senate passed the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Community Radio) Bill 2022. The Hon Michelle Rowland MP, Minister for Communications, said: “The bill’s passage was a glowing one for community broadcasting. Political support and funding are also needed for Radio Australia”.
2022: The ABC has invested in a large-scale project to digitise its fragile archive, and is on track to have 637,000 images, 97,000 videotapes and 54,000 audio carriers digitised by the end of 2022.
2022: The new Labor Government restores $83.7 million indexation funding cut but this does not make up for the shortfall of cumulative funding cuts. However the ABC remains woefully underfunded. The ABC has lost a third of its funding since the mid-1980s and yet it does much more. Four TV stations now instead of one then; more national radio stations and digital production now. Former ABC Editorial Director Alan Sunderland welcomed the increased ABC funding in the 2023 budget; however, he cautioned that, “The bleeding has been stemmed, but the wound remains”.
2022 Nov: ABC and CBC/Radio-Canada announce Kindred Animation co-productions and renew partnership agreement
2022 Oct: ABC Annual Report 2021-2022
2022: MEAA says the cumulative impact of these cuts, from 2014-2022 stripped the ABC of newsgathering capacity. In 2020 the funding cuts were estimated to be more than $783 million.
2022 Sept: ABC appoints Fiona Cameron as the inaugural ABC Ombudsman to strengthen the ABC's complaints handling processes that reflect the trust placed in the ABC by audiences.
2022 August: Update on Proposed ABC Staffing Cuts by Australian Society of Archivists.
2022 August 14: Lachlan Murdoch threatens news website Crikey with legal action over an article that suggested he and his media mogul father, Rupert Murdoch, were responsible for the riots at the US Capitol in January 2021. See Crikey article
2022 July: ABC announces the location of a new Parramatta office where up to 300 staff will be relocated to. This move is expected to be completed by 2024.
2022 May: Election of the Albanese Government who commit to providing the ABC with additional funding for its operational base and pledges to increase the ABC’s funding period from three to five years.
2022 June 30: 90th Anniversary of the ABC celebrated with 'ABC 90 Celebrate!' TV broadcast, hosted by Zan Rowe, Tony Armstrong and Craig Reucassel.
2022: ABC axes 75 archivists jobs - 58 permanent and 17 contract positions or 30% of the network's archival workforce.
2022: According to its 2022 Annual Report, the ABC owned $223 million of land assets as of June 30, 2022.
2021 Oct: ABC Annual Report 2020-2021
2021: Dharmendra Chandra appointed as new Chief People Officer for its HR department.
2021 mid: Formation of an ABC Archives Indigenous Unit (Tasha James, Manager) to develop sorely needed historical work on the ABC relations with Indigenous Australians.
Late 2019-2020: Black Summer Bushfires followed by COVID 19 lockdowns. ABC Chair Ita Buttrose says "The ABC walked beside Australians through the stress, fear and change of late 2019 and early 2020, a time full of uncertainty. It provided constant support for audiences with its wide-ranging and comprehensive news coverage, and help and distraction through quality discussion, entertainment, music, children’s content and specialist services. We adapted to our new operating circumstances expediently, while facing our internal challenges head on. There can be no better example of the ABC’s dedication to Australian stories, culture and experience than its activities throughout 2019-20".
2020 Sept: ABC Annual Report 2019-2020
2020: Cuts to 250 jobs across news, entertainment and regional divisions. The ABC's network's sound and reference libraries are dismantled to meet a $41m annual budget shortfall.
2020: abc.net.au leads as the most popular news website in Australia according to Nielsen Digital Content Ratings.
2019 July: New ABC Elevate Reconciliation Action Plan 2019-2022 sets out concrete and measurable ways in which the Corporation will contribute to reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians. This aims to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and names in ABC programming so that they may in turn become embedded in the vocabulary of the nation.
2019: Louise Milligan is the recipient of the 2019 Press Freedom Medal.
2019: ABC's submission to the Functional and Efficiency Review of the NAA (the ‘Tune Review’) described the ABC's archival material held at the NAA as a ‘national treasure of historical and cultural significance’.
2019: Australian Federal Police (AFP) raid of the ABC Ultimo headquarters, in pursuit of evidence relating to the 2017 publication of the so-called 'Afghan Files'. This shocked the ABC and other media organisations in that the legal framework and mindset of regulators and lawmakers tilted too much towards secrecy and intimidation of journalists and whistleblowers. Chair Ita Buttrose points out to Prime Minister Morrison that "no journalist should face imprisonment for doing his or her jobs - informing the public". ABC seeks to fight the legality of the raid and seek the return of the seized information.
2019: Imposition of a three-year indexation freeze, following a $50 million-a-year cut embedded into ABC Budget. ABC faces rising costs for production and acquired content, ever-increasing competition for audiences, and the need to replace obsolete equipment, forces the ABC Board to make tough choices and long-lasting decisions. The indexation freeze effectively embeds a $84m for 2020.
2019 Oct: ABC Annual Report 2018-2019
2019 May: David Anderson appointed ABC Managing Director.
2019 March: Ita Buttrose AC, OBE appointed Chair, ABC Board
2018: Competitive Neutrality Report, commissioned by Liberal Government found that the ABC had not strayed beyond its Charter and could not be blamed for the problems being encountered by the commercial sector. It endorsed the principle of a well-funded ABC taking full advantage of technological breakthroughs to serve new and existing audiences. The Report highlighted how the media sector has become one of the most disrupted sectors as a result of the digital change.
2018 Oct: Kids' series Bluey launched and becomes phenomenal success.
2018: Senate Inquiry and Departmental investigations into the ABC Board's decision decision to terminate ABC Managing Director Michelle Guthrie was made without reference to real or perceived political interference.
2018: Liberal Party National Council conference voted by a two-thirds majority to sell off and privatise the ABC. This resolution has never been rescinded.
2018: The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) campaign, supported by News Corp, calls to privatise the ABC. Chris Berg and Sinclair Davidson publish book Against Public Broadcasting Why we should privatise the ABC and how to do it.
2018 Sept: Three days after the ABC Board sacked its Managing Director Michelle Guthrie, Justin Milne, ABC Board Chair, is forced to step down following the publication of emails that showed he was willing to sack journalists Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn to maintaining a $500 million proposal for an elaborate content management system called Project Jetstream.
2018: ABC Finance Executive Louise Higgins reports at Senates estimates that the ABC had shed 1,012 jobs since 2014.
2018: The Coalition announces inquiry into whether the ABC is "using their privileged status to smother commercial operators" for a competitive neutrality inquiry. In its submission Fairfax, the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, accused the ABC of “cannibalising” its audience and stealing a potential $30m in advertising revenue by “aggressively” expanding online.
2018: The ABC is under extraordinary pressure. The budget presented by then Treasurer Scott Morrison and backed by then Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, cut funding to the ABC by $84 million. These debilitating cuts were on top of earlier savage cuts in the 2014 budget, which infamously broke the promise of Tony Abbott in the run-up to the 2013 election that there would be “no cuts to the ABC; no cuts to SBS”.
2017: 702 ABC Sydney rebranded as ABC Radio Sydney and broadcasts for Sydney, Illawarra, Central Coast, Newcastle, Blue Mountains. Most Local Radio stations in New South Wales simulcast 702's programming when not airing local shows for their areas. The exception is ABC Broken Hill, which relays 891 ABC Radio Adelaide due to Broken Hill being on Central Time.
2017: Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industries follows a series of programs on ABC's Four Corners.
2017: PM Malcolm Turnbull imposes an additional $84m "indexation pause" and orders a second efficiency review by former Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh and former Australian Communications and Media Authority acting chair Richard Bean.
2017: ABC ends its shortwave transmission service in the Northern Territory and to international audiences.
2017: The ABC studios at Southbank, Melbourne established.
2017: The ABC is known to have cost 9.7 cents per person per day.
2016: Michelle Guthrie, the new ABC Managing Director axes The Drum opinion and news analysis website and proceeds to divert funds from traditional broadcasting into a digital-first strategy. To fund the digital expansion, traditional programming begins to be been downsized, attracting more complaints from ABC viewers. Lateline and state-based 7.30 programs axed and radio current affairs shows PM and The World Today slashed in half, with reductions to Radio Nationals budget." Amanda Meade, The Guardian, 25 July, 2018
2016: More than two million watch iView.
2015: Mark Scott gives the inaugural Brian Johns Lecture in honour of the former managing director of the ABC (1995–2000) and distinguished journalist, publisher and media executive.
2014-2023: Nine years of Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments saw the loss of $800m in the ABC's annual operating funds and over 1,200 staff.
2014: The ABC's 11 foreign bureaux are scaled back in Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi and New Zealand.
2014: ABC's local Friday editions of 7.30 Reports axed including Quentin Dempster's Stateline (NSW).
2014: Abbott Coalition government's first budget breaks election promise that there would be "no cuts to the ABC" and imposes a $254m cut and the cancellation of the $196 million ABC contract to deliver the Australian Network to the Pacific. Malcolm Turnbull, as Communications Minster ordered an efficiency review that led to the loss of 400 jobs and the axing of the ABC's state-based Friday evening 7.30 programs.
2014: The ABC shut off its regional TV and radio services at the direction of the then Liberal/National Party government.
2013-2015: During the time Tony Abbott was Prime Minister he accused the
ABC of being un-Australian; Liberal Senator Eric Abetz was convinced the ABC was a “lefty love-in” and senior minister Peter Dutton often criticised the ABC.
2013: Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott promises "no cuts to the ABC or SBS" before the 2013 election where the Liberal-National Coalition is elected into government.
2010: ABC investigative journalism unit established.
2010s: Closure of metropolitan, regional and rural newspapers.
2010: ABC News24 launched.
2009: Black Saturday bushfires with ABC’s emergency broadcasting services establishing fly-in radio stations for affected areas including the Victorian town of Kinglake. ABC broadcasting was credited not only with providing emergency information during the fires but also in helping affected communities get back on their feet in the aftermath.
2008: ABC launches iview - Australia’s first on-demand service allowing viewers to watch ABC programming at a time of their own choosing. iView becomes on of the most popular streaming services in Australia.
2008: Mark Scott appointed ABC Managing Director and the election of the Rudd Labor government. However, ABC funding never quite returned to the level of pre-Howard days.
2007: Maurice Newman appointed as chairman of the ABC from 2007-2012 by John Howard. Before this he was a director from 2000 - 2004. He has also been chairman of the ASX, Chancellor of Macquarie University, & a member of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council.
2006-2016: Mark Scott ABC serves as ABC Managing Director. During this time he launches 24-hour news channel as well as extra digital TV and radio channels, TV streaming and a website hosting opinion and features as well as news. Meanwhile The Australian put up paywalls as its newspaper advertising revenues declined and expressed hostility to the ABC because it perceived it as a 'commercial rival'.
2007: ABC launches ABC 3 (Children’s) and ABC News 24.
2007: National Indigenous Television Service (NITV) was launched, providing a range of programming, including news, sport, and culture.
2006: Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1983-2006 by Ken Inglis published. The book explores the risk of political interference but more centrally focuses on the relationship between the ABC and government and the Australian people. It investigates controversies in greater detail and focuses around specific events and people. It recognises the ABC is under threat and shares the drama, conflict and high stakes. It is an enthralling study of boardroom and political dynamics. that the
2005 March: ABC 2 was launched.
2004: Maurice Newman quits ABC Board after accusing fellow director and staff-elected representative Ramona Koval of leaking confidential boardroom discussions about monitoring the broadcaster's bias.
2004: There was an extensive campaign from the right wing of politics to commercialise the ABC. The Howard government ABC Board appointments were politically conservative, and the position of Staff elected Board member was abolished. Under pressure from the board, the ABC screened “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, a British program which alleged that climate change was a hoax.
2003: ABC launched a new digital-only channel, ABC Kids offers a range of children's programming, including cartoons, educational shows, and live-action series.
2003, 2nd June: TV cameras unplugged at Studio 22 following episode 12 of Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. End of television made at Gore Hill.
2002: December: New Harris Street Ultimo complex opens, bringing television and radio transmission together. The new Ultimo studios have TV production facilities including four studios: two for news and current affairs, a production studio twice the size of Gore Hill's biggest (Enough Rope can squeeze in an audience of about 200 - the new studio will hold 450) and the Eugene Goossens Hall, which can house up to 700 for TV and radio broadcasts.
2002: Former John Fairfax & Sons executive, Mark Scott, appointed ABC Managing Director.
2001: The ABC commences digital broadcasts.
2000:2BL was re-branded as 702 ABC Sydney.
2000-2001: Jonathan Shier served as a controversial ABC Managing Director. He resigned in December 2001 when he felt he could not longer work with the chair Donald McDonald and the rest of the BC Board. Kerry O'Brien said, “Good people were lost to the ABC through that period. That was a climate of punishment. There was a real sense that we were being punished by a government." He was given a million-dollar payout.
2001: The Howard government is in power, Richard Alston was Minister responsible for the ABC and frequently on the attack with accusations of bias, supported by Senators Santo Santoro and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
1999:ABC journalists Richard Ackland, Deborah Richards and Anne Connolly from ABC's Media Watch programme revealed that 2UE talk back hosts John Laws and Alan Jones had been paid to give favourable comment to companies including Qantas, Optus, Foxtel, Mirvac and major Australian banks, without disclosing this arrangement.
1996: ABC produces its last major documentary series 'Breaking the Ice' (1996),a six half hour series presented by Tim Bowden. Kim Dalton, then Head of Television, announced the disbandment of the ABC in-house unit with programming being outsourced. Tim Bowden responded by saying, “[something] I always thought was very short sighted as the ABC team assembled there were fantastic; so professional and so helpful and it was a dream to work with them. I was also disappointed because in my view only the ABC makes certain sorts of programs, the hard ones and the ones the advertisers wouldn’t wear if it
was a commercial station”. While sections of the independent industry did tackle hard films and controversial issues, with the demise of this unit, gone was the crucial ability of the ABC to quickly respond to program ideas, something the independent sector could not do. As Tim Bowden said, “If the ABC got the scent of a good documentary, they would go for it and sadly this was lost”. This change was a portent of the future, not only at the ABC, but across the broad spectrum of the production
industry. What was also to change was the place and importance of government https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdfinfluence on the industry, as other forces outside its control began to make an impact.
1996: ABC corporatises its symphony orchestras due to rising costs of running orchestras.
1996: The Mansfield Enquiry into the ABC produces two-part report 'The challenge of a better ABC' (1997). The report made nineteen important recommendations, including triennial funding, the continued prohibition of commercials, the continued diversity of programming and the provision of “services that reflect Australia’s regional and cultural diversity”. Mansfield recommended the ABC “move to https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdfoutsource the majority of non-news and current affairs television programming.
1995: ABC launches online digital broadcast wwww.abc.net.au
1995: Andrew Ollie dies. 2BL staff initiate an annual Andrew Olle Lecture to be delivered by a prominent journalist.
1995-2000: Brian Johns ABC General Manager.
1994: https://www.nla.gov.au/collections/guide-selected-collections/symphony-australia-collection#The Creative Nation Statement issued by the Keating Government in 1994 announced that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra would be transferred from the ABC to local control and it was duly incorporated in 1996. In 1996 the Cultural Ministers Council decided that the other five orchestras should follow suit. Symphony Australia was set up as an independent subsidiary company of the ABC, replacing the National Office of ABC Concerts.
1994: The Palmer Enquiry into the ABC.
1980s Late: With government financial support for the independent industry, factual programming could be produced cheaper outside the ABC than inside. This resulted in a slow reduction of in-house factual production and the winding down of https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdfABC production units, support facilities and personnel.
1989: Media Watch, ABC TV begins hosted by Stuart Littlemore a Sydney barrister and former journalist. This 13-minute program monitors the Australian media.
1988: Triennial-based funding, instead of a year-by-year funding cycle introduced by the Hawke Labor government.
1988: 'Eight cents a day' funding campaign led by ABC Chair David Hill.
1987: Paddy Conroy, who had been Head of ABC Children's Programs, became Head of Television under David Hill as Managing Director.
1987: ABC's youth station 2JJJ brought into Tripple J network.
1987: The phrase "only eight cents a day" was coined by ABC managing director David Hill amid political attacks from the Hawke-Keating government and a slight loss of funding in the 1987-88 budget.
1987: David Hill served as chairman and managing director of the ABC from 1987 to 1995. Whilst its new headquarters were being built at Ultimo, its head office moved from Elizabeth Street to 150 William Street. Former Liberal Party Senator, Senator Neville Bonner, is the first Aboriginal member appointed to the ABC Board (as well as being the first Indigenous Australian to enter Federal Parliament).
1986 August: David Hill became Chairman of the ABC Board, replacing Ken Myer.
1986: The 7.30 Report with journalists Andrew Olle, Kerry O’Brien, Geraldine Doogue, Maxine McKew and Paul Lyneham.
1986: The ABC employs approximately 6,000 staff.
1984: The Australian Broadcasting Commission was replaced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In the following years, the position of the symphony orchestras within the ABC was the subject of a number of reports.
1983: Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983) introduced by Hawke Labor government changes the ABC from a commission to a corporation. It aimed to assist move the ABC into the modern era and established requirements for the ABC to be both innovative and comprehensive in its services, and to broadcast programs that would inform, educate and entertain. Geoffrey Whitehead is appointed the new Corporation's first Managing Director. Ken Myer was the Chairman of the ABC and Wendy McCarthy the Deputy Chair.
1982: ABC celebrates its 50th anniversary with the history, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932–1983, by K.S. Inglis. Later, Inglis would write Whose ABC?, an account of its culture and politics.
1982: Dame Leonie Kramer is chair of the ABC from 1982 to 1983.
1982: Geraldine Doogue hosts ABC television's signature current affairs program, Nationwide.
1981: First ABC Shop opens.
1981: Launch of SBS-TV in Sydney that offered a unique blend of multicultural and multilingual programming.
1981 May: The five volume report titled The ABC in Review: National Broadcasting in the 1980s, was presented to the Minister of Communications, Ian Sinclair. It made 273 recommendations,but few were ever accepted, either by the Fraser government or by the in-coming Hawke government after March 1983. One exception was the renaming of the organisation from ‘Commission’ to ‘Corporation’, something Tim Bowden stated “was no more than window dressing and had little effect on the way the ABC functioned”.343 Michael Shrimpton makes the point stating, “I’m unsure to this day why we bothered. I think the whole Corporation thing was a social disaster".
The report also commented on the newly-established SBS cultural niche, when “Dix identified serious failures within the ABC to respond to changes in Australian society, particularly the growth of multiculturalism” with the ABC being “suffocatingly anglocentric”. The Royal Commission had an unexpected consequence. While ratings were always closely watched by ABC management, [they] “mattered” as Andy Lloyd James said, “to different Controllers of TV differently”. However, the Commission’s report confirmed the need to accept ratings as an important indicator of
public interest and to effectively compete with the commercial networks for audience share. Most importantly, ratings showed the relevance or otherwise of the ABC and later SBS: whether people actually watched and engaged with programs broadcast. This translated into public murmuring as to why have an ABC and why spend money on a
national broadcaster if no one was watching. Historian Ken Inglis, suggested that the ABC “should address the whole nation, not merely sections of it neglected by the commercials”. Others, like David Hill, were forthright and vocal in justifying the ABC‘s annual funding by increasing audience share, raising local content and
‘Australianising’ the organisation. Michael Shrimpton stated, “David [Hill] was the one fronting Senate Estimate Committees and was the one getting ‘you are irrelevant. Why should we keep funding you?’ - a reasonable question”.349 This focus on relevance confirmed the need to accept ratings as an important indicator of public interest and in effectively competing for audience share. Others saw this as “justifying the exclusion of
independent documentary from a regular place in the ABC schedule”.
ABC staff generally supported and were enthusiastic about the Dix Enquiry “as it seemed to offer”, as Tim Bowden said, “the promise of much needed change”. However, one controversial recommendation was fiercely opposed by the ABC Staff Association: accepting money from commercial sponsors, known as corporate underwriting. With pressure for more populist, high-rating programs, Michael Shrimpton suggests “this led to the corporate underwriting issue – how do you get more money to make programs”?352 The ABC had already accepted corporate funding from travel companies for Bill Peach’s Australia, from Qantas for Wings Over Australia and from foreign governments for the series Journey to Japan and Journey to India.
ANOP’s polling for the Enquiry found that 50% of people polled accepted the need for corporate underwriting,354 but this was dropped by the Hawke government. Corporate sponsor funding created further problems for ABC management when an internal investigation later found that a number of commissioned documentaries had been funded by corporate sponsors in the period 1992-94.
The incoming Hawke Labor government was left to address the Dix recommendations. It accepted Dix on the issue of no corporate funding,355 a name change and Charter changes “which instead of charging it to produce ‘adequate and comprehensive programs’, now required ‘programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain and reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community’”. Dix noted that the main function of the ABC was to “inform Australia”357 because
people valued the ABC “more as a provider of information than as entertainment”. This was picked up by the independent documentary production sector, which lobbied the ABC to buy more Australian-made documentaries at realistic prices, certainly more than the 20% of the production budget they were then paying. 359 Gone, however, was the attractive, though suspect, proposition of accessing corporate funding, a mechanism
that for a moment, opened the door for both work and transmission time.
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdfwe bothered. I think the whole Corporation thing was a social disaster"
1980s: ABC annexes land belonging to the Samuel Taylor chemical company as an addition to the Gore Hill site. The Enough Rope office was located in the former Taylor buildings.
1980s: See the beginning of the slow decline in documentary production and in government-sponsored training and cadetships within these organisations. The subsequent diversion of funding and the increased use of freelance technicians, lead to the demise of the in-house ABC documentary units through the 1990s. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdf
1979: Nationwide (1979–81).
1979: Fraser Coalition government establishes enquiry into the ABC (1979-1981), led by businessman Alix Dix, who recommended advertising. Dix also recommended that the ABC should be a comprehensive broadcaster aiming to meet the information needs of all Australians; but that it should become a niche broadcaster for sport.
1978 2 Nov: Normal transmission resumed.
1978 Oct-Nov: Industrial action turns off ABC transmission for six days.
1978 Oct: Industrial action escalated when the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, Tony Staley, announced that the ABC's staff-elected position on would be abolished. ABC Radio and TV News staff went on strike over management's decision to stop a This Day Tonight interview about the industrial dispute.
1976 December: Sir Henry Band resigns as Chair of the ABC. Bland is a controversial chair and was enmeshed in arguments with ABC staff, community organisations supporting the ABC ad some government backbenchers. He resigned after a dispute wit the government over the size of h ABC's Board. J.D. Norgard, a retired BHP executive is appointed as the new ABC chair until 1981.
1976: Protests against the cuts to the ABC began in 1976. Among those at the forefront was the then Australian Broadcasting Commission’s first staff-elected Commissioner, a position established in the dying days of the Whitlam Government. The bearded, long-haired 2JJ and 2JJJ broadcaster, Marius Webb, had been popularly elected to the post late in 1975.
1976: Friends of the ABC launched by Walter Bass who was alarmed when PM Malcolm Fraser cut the ABC's budget and accused its current affairs programs of being biased. Since its inception ABC Friends has advocated on behalf of the ABC as a fully independent and properly funded public broadcaster.
1976: Harry Butler's ABC program 'In the Wild' from 1976 to 1981.
1976: ABC enmeshed in political turmoil ad budget cuts following a change of government. The acting chair Dr Earle Hackett approached Ken Inglis in July 1976 asking him to write a history of the national broadcaster. Almost immediately the proposal came under threat when in July 1976 Sir Henry Bland, a retired senior public servant who had worked under prime minister Malcolm Fraser in the defence portfolio, challenged the contract.
The ABC was immediately in the firing line of Fraser’s ‘Razor Gang’, as the Cabinet committee overseeing the cuts became known. By the time of the blackout in 1978, staff had been cut from 7600 in 1975 to 6400. The ABC’s operating budget had been slashed by 28 per cent and drama production had been reduced from 150 hours in 1975 to 72 hours in 1978.
Michael Cosby, who was in charge of the Staff Association committee that co-ordinated the industrial response, remembers that it felt as if the ABC was ‘doomed to extinction’.
1975: Introduction of colour television. See Bronwyn Barnett, Preparing for a Revolution, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
1975: Launch of Triple J in Forbes Street radio offices, Studio 206, in the old ABC building in Forbes Street, Darlinghurst, a former bomb shelter, affectionately known as "The Bunker.
1974: First ABC shop opens (need to check this).
1974: ABC Programs: Countdown hosted by Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum; 'Wild Australia' series (Inglis page 289).
1974: Bill Peach finishes as presenter of This Day Tonight (TDT).
1973: Height of Sir Charles Moses persuasive skills and far-sightedness at the first ever international media conference that brought together major broadcasters from developed ad developing countries and international news and newsfilm agencies.
1973: Licence fees are abolished and replaced by direct government grants, as well as revenue from commercial activities related to its core broadcasting mission.
1973: Richard Downing appointed ABC chair recognises the need to commission an official history for the 50th Anniversary of the ABC in 1972. The ABC Board agreed and during 1975 drew up a short list of potential historians.
1972: ABC Natural History Unit established in Melbourne, based on the BBC Natural History Unit (NHU) in Bristol. The unit became an institution within the ABC, particularly under the stewardship of Dione Gilmore after 1988. Dione was a regular visitor to the NHU and would “look at all the BBC stuff that came in our area and recommended to buy it or not”. Her contribution was enormous, producing many memorable series like the co-production Nature of Australia plus the work of David and Elizabeth Parer-Cook. Her role as the ABC executive producer for bought-in documentaries in Victoria “caused me to be the most hated woman in the ABC”292 until the unit was closed in 2007 and all wildlife programs were outsourced to the
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdfindependent industry.
972: ABC employs Caroline Jones as the first full time female journalist.
1971: ABC Programs: Monday Conference (1971–79); in Melbourne a series about birds and their habitat, 'Robin Hill's Bush Quest' was put on air by a group under Robert Horne (Inglis page 289).
1970s: It is said that William Cleary, in his last years, looked back on his days as chairman of the ABC with bitterness despite the fact that he had been its main guiding influence.
1970s: Colin Bendall, former protegee of Sir Keith Murdoch, advises the ABC's general manager to always assume that 'senior members of [newspapers'] editorial staffs have instructions to seek out, and give prominence to, any happening or statement likely to show the ABC in a poor light'. (Young, 2023, page 228).
1960s late: The ABC Rural Department produced a series of regular weekly programs directed at country Australia such as Landline, Countryman, The Modern Farmer and Countrywide. It also devised A Big Country under executive producer, John Sparkes, and two producers, Brian Todd and John Mabey. Mabey stated, “what we were doing was a mixture of documentary and current affairs with an agricultural leaning”. In the years following, ABC crews traversed the country, nurturing a legion of journalists, documentary producers and directors like Chris Masters, Bob Connolly, David Flatman, Bill Bennett, Ken Dwyer and Stewart McLennan. The contribution of these filmmakers was enormous, but the program had an unforeseen consequence, as noted by Graham White, the Director of Rural Programs in 1972: “A Big Country has become more than an Australian program. In a strange way, it appears to have succeeded in rekindling or keeping alive a nation’s interest in the rural way of life and in people who live close to the land”. Phillip Adams referred to the program as “the ABC’s quiet achiever” and thought that “the tripod of A Big Country has stood across Australia like a colossus”. A Big Country ran for almost three decades with the last episode going to air in August 1992. (https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdf)
1969:The ABC established the ABC-TV Features Unit under ex-BBC producer Humphrey Fisher who, noting the success of presenter-led series like Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Alistair Cook’s America, saw this style of British production as the way forward. ABC output shifted to formatted series: prescriptive,
presenter-led, with a focus on entertainment value rather than analysis or investigation. Programs included Peach’s Australia (1975-76), Peter Wherrett’s Torque (1973-80), Harry Butler’s In the Wild (1976-81) and the Keith Adams series, Journey to India (1977) https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdf)
1969: Australians watch on TV Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon. Also a time of watching Vietnam 'televised war'.
1969: Ken Taylor establishes the ABC's Natural History Unit of Australia, first with radio talks and documentaries and then with a series of award-winning natural history films, Wild Australia (https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2014/04/09/fire-and-water-vale-charles-ken-taylor-poet-filmmaker-1930-2014/) that was the first colour documentary series for the ABC.
1968: This Day Tonight (1968–78; or from April 1967). From the late 1960s and 1970s, ABC TV was a creative powerhouse led by an exceptional executive, Ken Watts. The most significant and controversial innovation of the era was ‘This Day Tonight’ (TDT). A mixture of current affairs and satirical humour, it broke away from the sedate format of traditional news programs and not only set a benchmark for future current affairs programs but launched the careers of some of Australia’s most legendary presenters and reporters. https://abcalumni.net/2023/07/11/this-day-tonight-tdtabc-visionary-ken-watts-greatest-legacy/
1967: The Holt Liberal government do not reappoint the ABC Chair government Dr James Darling. This decision was rumoured to have been the result of the government's anger over critical coverage of its policies on the ABC.
1967 April: This Day Tonight fires up a revolution in Australian television journalism. It was an eclectic blend of inquiring journalism and satire that captured a vast and influential audience never known before at the ABC. Bill Peach becomes one of the ABC's first television stars. Other reporters became household names - Peter Luck, Richard Carlton, Stuart Littlemore, Paul Murphy, Peter Couchman, Caroline Jones.
1967: ABC expands its reach, but the first regional television stations in Australia were independently operated and served specific areas outside the major cities.
1966 July: Playschool first aired and quickly becoming a firm favourite among Australian children. Groundbreaking in its use of puppets and simple sets, it set the standard for future children's programming.
1965: Sir Charles Moses retires as General Manager of the ABC.
1963: Prime Minister Menzies bans ABC television of a BBC interview with Georges Bidault, a former Prime Minister of France, and bitter opponent of President Charles de Gaulle, living in exile. This is met with anger by Charles Moses who argues that this overrides the ABC’s unfettered right to broadcast political and controversial subject matter under Section 116(1) of the Broadcasting Act.
1963: In 1963, 2BL radio swapped formats with 2FC and assumed that station's old role as flagship of the Interstate Programme, which eventually evolved into Local Radio. However, it continued to air parliament until 1988.
1961: Ken Inglis invited to help plan a national television series the University of the Air. The program went to air but 'suffered from under-preparation and vagueness about intended audience' (Inglis, This is the ABC, pp.209-10) and finished in 1966.
1961: Charles Moses is approached by producer Bob Raymond and announcer Michael Charlton requesting a new television program, based on the BBC’s Panorama, which would deal with contentious current affair issues. The idea for the program Four Corners was strongly opposed by both Programs and Talks. Moses overruled them and it went ahead with the co-producers reporting to him directly. While he applauded the ground-breaking approach of Four Corners, in later years he deplored, what he called, the pushing of personal opinions by members of the staff of This Day Tonight.
1960s: Beginnings of switchboard reports of calls made to ABC radio and television stations, which detailed praise, complaints, and requests for information, and were circulated to management.
1960s early: Establishment of close to 60 federal, state, regional, and specialist program committees advising the ABC on programs and services. Academics, teachers, scientists, musicians, writers, clergymen, returned servicemen, charity workers, local councillors and young people served on Advisory Committees for women, schools, kindergartens, talks, religion, science, nutrition, music, orchestras, ‘spoken English’, and Papua New Guinea.
1959: Comedian Spike Milligan asked Charles Moses as ABC GM to support an appeal to preserve the cottage of the poet Henry Kendall at West Gosford. This unprecedented involvement of the ABC helped to save the house.
1959: ABC Boyer lectures begin.
1958: Launch of Kindergarten Playtime.
1958: ABC established Television Advisory Committees in capital cities whose members were chosen to be, ‘as far as possible … representative of “the man in the street”’.
1958: ABC Listener and Viewer Panels established.
1958: New studios 21 and 22 open at Gore Hill. These twin rooms became the engine for decades of creativity.
1957: BBC Natural History Unit formed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Studios_Natural_History_Unit
1956 5 November: Television begins at the ABC when a broadcast from a studio in Kings Cross. Then shifted after 45 minutes to Gore Hill, where James Dibble presented the first news bulletin, bringing viewers up to date on the Russian invasion of Hungary. The 15-minute bulletin was followed by a live drama, The Twelve Pound Look, by Wind in the Willows author J.M. Barrie. Both were shot in the Arcon studio, a tin shed beside the Pacific Highway. Built in 1954, it was part of the parcel of Commonwealth land granted to the ABC in late 1955.
1956: ABC launches its television service, just before opening of Melbourne Olympics.
1956: The ABC, established on the Reithian principles of the BBC works to make a range of non-fiction programs
1955 late: Parcel of Commonwealth land at Gore Hill granted to the ABC. The Gore Hill site was chosen mostly for its elevation perfect for a transmission tower. Until the 1960s Seven had a tower a stone's throw up the highway towards St Leonards. Nine's remains in Willoughby.
1954: The Argonauts was renamed the Children's Hour, running from 5 to 6pm.[It became one of the ABC's most popular programs, running six days a week for 28 years until October 1969, when it was broadcast only on Sundays and was finally discontinued in 1972.
1954: Arcon studio, a tin shed beside the Pacific Highway built for television filming.
1950s: Regional Advisory Committees established across across Australia including in NSW regional Tamworth, New England, north-western NSW; Gippsland and Sale in Victoria; Central and north Queensland; and Launceston, and northern Tasmania.
1949 Feb: Blue Hills broadcast from 28 February 1949 to 30 September 1976.
1949: Australian Broadcasting Control Board (ABCB) records begin, relating to commercial radio and television broadcasters.
1949: Charles Bean chaired the Promotion Appeals Board of the Australian Broadcasting Commission until 1958.
1947, July 1: At 7pm, the first ABC news broadcast under amendments to the Broadcasting Act was aired, under Prime Minister Ben Chiefly. The changes aimed at removing bias by requiring all news to be produced by ABC journalists, rather than gathered from commercial sources.
ABC finally establishes its own independent news service and ended reading news was read directly from the newspapers. The Australian Broadcasting Act (1946) allowed the ABC to gather its own news in Australia, independently of the press. Frank Dixon is the ABC's federal news editor.
1947: The ABC'S Sydney Symphony Orchestra held its first concert in 1947, conducted by Eugene Goosens, and it was followed by Queensland (1947), Tasmania (1948), Victoria (1949), South Australia (1949) and Western Australia (1951).
1946: From 1946 until 1988, 2BL also carried parliamentary broadcasts.
1946: Eugene Goossens visits Sydney and is so impressed with ABC that he accepts the invitation to be Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
1946, July 10: Proceedings in the House of Representatives were broadcast for the first time, under Prime Minister Ben Chiefly . Legislation required the ABC to relay the parliamentary sessions on the interstate radio network. Senate broadcasts began a week later. 2BL becomes a 'National Programme' and 2FC carried an 'Interstate Programme', which had a lighter emphasis.
1946: Warren Denning and Frank Dixon lobby the Chiefly Labor Government to amend the ABC Act to make it mandatory for the ABC to gather all its own news.
1945: Radio Australia transmitters open in Shepparton, that can send strong short-wave signals right across the world. They were used in the immediate post-war period by then-immigration minister Arthur Calwell to reach into Western Europe as a publicity tool for his post-war immigration scheme.
1945 late: Moses successfully reaches agreement with the NSW Government and the City Council of Sydney to establish a permanent full-sized orchestra in Sydney.
1945: Following the end of World War II, reforms take place to the ABC. Some (Cater) argued that the ABC had been compromised by a poorly drafted charter, timid management, poor governance and wartime censorship. In April 1945, Boyer refused to accept the post of chairman until Prime Minister Curtin issued a mandate of independence which Boyer drafted himself. The ABC under Boyer and general manager Charles Moses invested as best it could in the cultural capital of the nation, establishing full-time symphony orchestras in each of the capital cities and seizing on the potential of television.... [Boyer's] neutrality was never seriously questioned.[42]
1941: The Argonauts Club was revived as a segment of ABC's Children's Session and broadcast nationally except in Western Australia where the two hour time difference made a local production more attractive. Zoologist Dr A.J. Marshall played the role of Jock the Backyard Naturalist whom children could send their observations and specimens from the garden and bush (Inglis, 1983,page 92).
1941 Dec: Warren Denning's ABC Canberra bureau staff begin to broadcast a daily bulletin of domestic news read from the national capital.
1940s: ABC establishes a Listener Research section with the emergence of ‘ratings’ agencies.
1940s: It is said that Labor Prime Minister John Curtin disliked “too much talking and too much serious music”, so staff dutifully obliged with lightweight programs to “cheer people up” (Diana Wyndham, Update Newsletter, December, 2023). It is also said that he complained about the lack of Australian content in programmes (ABD William James Cleary).
1939: Charles Mosses as General Manager instituted the ABC's Children's Session as a national program. Frank D Clewlow was then Controller of Productions (i.e. director of drama and light entertainment). His protegee Ida Elizabeth Osbourne was appointed as its first presenter, as "Elizabeth".[4] When she married in 1952, and was forced to leave as was then Public Service policy,[5] the position was taken by "Nan" (Margaret Dalton).[1]
The Children's Session was co-hosted from 1940 by London-born Scot Atholl Fleming, as "Mac" or "Tavish McTavish". His most durable co-presenters were the painter Albert Collins ("Joe"), then after his death the actor John Ewart, called "Jimmy" or "Little Jimmy Hawkins". The fourth member of the 'on-air' team was always female, again having an 'on-air' pseudonym. Some, perhaps most, are listed below. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts_Club
1939: ABC finally secures agreement to broadcast local news at 7.10pm as an independent news service. Prime Minister Lyons expressed concern about misleading news on commercial radio and became convinced that an independent news service was needed. He invites the ABC to appoint a representative to the Canberra press gallery. Warren Denning is appointed as the ABC's first political radio correspondent in the Canberra bureau. The ABC gains better access to BBC which the commercial newspapers claim they have copyright of. Charles Moses, ABC General Manager deflects this unsubstantiated claim.
1939 20 Jan: Under PM Menzies, ABC Radio Australia began broadcasting from Sydney. The station moved to Melbourne the following year.
1937: ABC brings international performers to Australia.
1937: Under General Manager Charles Moses, the ABC continues to make moves to establish its own independent news service and was again trying to broadcast news at an earlier time. In response Sir Keith Murdoch starts a campaign calling for listeners' licence fees (then the main source of the ABC's funding) to be cut, thus depriving the ABC of funding it would need to set up its own news service.
1936: Frank Dixon was appointed as the ABC's first Federal News Editor.
1936: Federal Music Library established as a central source for scores needed by ABC orchestras, dance bands and choruses.
1936: ABC studio orchestras had been formed in all the capital cities, numbering from 11 to 45 players, and they were supplemented occasionally for symphony concerts. Each year over 100 Australian works were offered to the ABC and Keith Barry, the Controller of Programmes, and William James, the Controller of Music, ensured that many of them were broadcast on at least one occasion.
1936 Sept: Commentary on the ABC’s The Watchman program (the Watchman was the on-air identity of commentator EA Mann) at times in conflict with Lyons Government policy. The Government applies pressure to the broadcaster to censor the program.
1936 Jan: ABC announces that listeners can purchase a booklet on cricket through its radio stations. Commercial broadcasters and newspaper publishers accuse the national broadcaster of ‘invading the publishing field’.
1936: ABC's first concert season. This is opposed by N.Tait who argued that the ABC had no right to give public concerts. A compromise was reached in 1937 when the ABC agreed to broadcast any concert for which admission charges were made.
1936: Sir Keith Murdoch threatens ABC with damages for broadcasting news at 7pm saying "You have taken the best time for yourselves. There must be room for bargaining . . . It amounts to this: If you can't alter the hour, the question that concerns us is how much you should pay us. The damages to us are very considerable." [Sally Young, 'Paper Emperors'. 2019, pages 446-447]
1935: The first state Advisory Committees were formed in Western and South Australia (in 1935 and 1937)
1935: Charles Moses appointed as the ABC's General Manager, aged 35, until 1965.
1935: W. T. Conder dismissed as ABC General Manager. Cleary acts as GM until (Sir) Charles Moses ready to take over the position.
1934: William Cleary (1885-1973) succeeds (Sir) Charles Lloyd Jones as chairman of the ABC. Cleary believed the role of the national broadcaster was to educate as well as entertain. With the assistance of Herbert Brookes, with whom he forged a close personal bond, he helped to establish permanent ABC symphony orchestras in each State by 1936, encouraged the holding of composers' competitions, and arranged for celebrity artists from overseas to give public concerts. He also promoted talks by experts and radio drama.
1934: Professor Bernard Heinze appointed as part time music adviser to the ABC.
1934: The ABC receives some 190,000 letters, with four ‘girls’ employed in Melbourne to sort the mail, and stamps costing £1600 to reply to each letter.
1933-1934: The Argonauts Club was an Australian children's radio program. It was later revived in 1941.
1932 to 1936: ABC stations in each State produced their own news bulletins. News was read directly from the newspapers and it wasn't until 1947 that the ABC established its own independent news service.
1932: The ABC was originally financed by consumer licence fees on broadcast receivers.
1932: Australian Broadcasting Commission establishes Advisory Committees.
1930s: From the onset the ABC had "numerous and vigorous competitors" (Inglis, 1983, page 20) and was reported in newspapers about "alleged bias". ABC announcers spoke 'very British'
1932 1 July: The Federal Parliament enacts legislation to establish the Australian Broadcasting Commission to set up and operate national broadcasting stations. Broadcast programs were to address as many of the interests of the community as compatible with 'suitable broadcasting'.
Prime Minister Joseph Lyons & ABC radio announcer Conrad Charlton launch the Australian Broadcasting Commission (the ABC). ABC radio announcer Conrad Charlton saying “This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission”. The Prime Minister follows inaugurating the ABC for listeners at home.
As the bells in the tower of Sydney’s General Post Office chimed eight o’clock on the evening of Friday 1 July 1932, the peals were picked up by a microphone and carried to every State of the Federation. “This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” said the announcer, Conrad Charlton. - So begins K.S. Inglis’s compelling history of the first fifty years of the ABC.
The ABC has always had to live with commercial competitors. The ABC did not have easy beginnings (Virginia Small, 2021). In 1932 it was shackled by conditions and controls insisted upon by commercial media who meddled in its start-up to limit its development.
The ABC was given statutory powers that reinforced its independence from the government and enhanced its news-gathering role. Modelled after the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is funded by a television licence, the ABC was originally financed by consumer licence fees on broadcast receivers.
The ABC effectively replaced the Australian Broadcasting Company, a private company established in 1924 to provide programming for A-class radio stations.
1929: The Federal Government, under Prime Minister James Scullin, acquires all Class A stations. They were then operated by the Postmaster-General’s Department with programming supplied by the Australian Broadcasting Company.
1929: Stuart Doyle with Frank Albert and Sir Benjamin Fuller founded the Australian Broadcasting Co. to provide a national wireless service. When it was taken over by the Federal government in 1932 and converted into the Australian Broadcasting Commission, they set up the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation Ltd (with Doyle as chairman), which acquired station 2UW, Sydney, and rapidly expanded.
1927: A royal commission investigated the radio broadcasting system and concluded that direct government control over broadcasting was inadvisable. However the royal commission recommended that there should be co-operation between Class A and Class B radio stations under the supervision of the Postmaster-General’s Department.
The government established the National Broadcasting Service which subsequently took over a number of the larger funded stations. It also nationalised the Australian Broadcasting Company which had been created by entertainment interests to supply programs to various radio stations.
1927: John Reith, the first Managing Director of the BBC espoused the equal consideration and presentation of different points of view and a commitment to public service broadcasting. “In 1949, Reith described the ‘four fundamentals’ as the combination of public service motive, sense of moral obligation, assured finance and the brute force of monopoly”. Reith, J.C.W. Into the Wind, (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1949), 99. See also Bell, E. “The Origins of British Television Documentary”, in Corner, J. Documentary and the Mass Media, (Hodder and Arnold,London 1986), 65-80.
1924-1928: Wireless became part of everyday life.
1924: The private company the Australian Broadcasting Company was established to provide programming for A-class radio stations. The Postmaster-General's Department followed with a licensing scheme to administer and establish certain stations with government funding, albeit with restrictions placed on their advertising content.
1924: In 1924 the radio industry lobbied for the introduction of an 'open system' that allowed radio stations to be funded by listener fees (“A” licenses”) and commercial stations to generate revenue through advertising (“B” licenses).
1923: 2FC (Farmer and Company) went to air on 5 December 1923. 2FC later went on to become ABC Radio National. Other radio stations in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart soon followed.
1923: 2SB ('2' denotes the State of NSW. 'SB' denotes Sydney Broadcasters Limited) is the first licenced radio station in Australia to go to air on 8pm on 23 November 1923.
1923: At the time the first radio licences were issued there were 26 capital city newspapers published on a daily basis. These were controlled by 21 independent owners. But once radio licences were issued it became clear that these were dominated by major newspaper owners. Consequently, it was not long before public concern was expressed about increasing ownership concentration. In response to such concerns, the Government introduced regulation under the WT Act to restrict the number of commercial broadcasting stations that could be owned by an individual or by a company. There were immediate protests from media proprietors about the unfairness of these restrictions, but while the Government relaxed its original proposal, limits on ownership were a reality for media owners from 1935.
1923: Radio became available to the public in 1923 through what was described as a ‘sealed set’ system of broadcasting. Under this system listeners paid subscriptions to have their radio sets ‘sealed’ to a particular station or stations. Listeners also had to pay a government licence fee. Only four stations commenced operation under the sealed system. Only 1,400 listeners bought subscriptions. As a result the 'sealed system' was an outstanding failure. It was replaced in 1924 with an ‘open’ system. The new system comprised two groups of stations — Class A and Class B stations.
1923: Bruce-Page government make more regulations to Wireless Telegraphy Act 1905.
1922: BBC launched with Lord Reith as first director who believed the BBC should lead rather than follow popular taste.
1920s: AWA became Australia's de facto international telephone carrier in the 1920s when the Hughes government brought a majority stake in what became known as the "Empire Radio Telephone". This service connected Australia to Europe and Canada in competition to privately owned submarine cables. Amalgamated Wireless of Australia became Australia’s largest radio company, manufacturing radios for homes, transmitters for radio stations and wireless communications for cross-country to cross-continent communications, as well as for ships and the military. Radios for homes ranged from mantels to taller floor-standing consoles.
1918: Amalgamated Wireless of Australia (AWA) provides equipment to pick up first radio broadcast from England to Australia (Wahroonga).
1905: Australian government introduces the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1905 (passed with Morse code signals in mind). This gave the federal Postmaster-General the power to licence the sending and receiving of all wireless messages. It also granted the Amalgamated Wireless of Australia (AWA) exclusive rights to operate a network of coastal maritime radio stations.
1901: Federation
References:
ABC Annual Reports:
ABC Annual Report 2024 - yet to be made available
ABC Annual Report 2018 Vol 1; Vol 2
ABC Annual Report 2017 Vol 1; Vol 2
ABC Annual Report 2015 - entitled ‘All About Audiences’, began with : ‘the ABC places audiences at the centre of its activities and strategies for the future’.
ABC Report 2008 - Maurice Newman as Chair
One Hundred and Tenth Report, The Australian Broadcasting Commission, Joint Committee of Public Accounts, 1969
References
Susan Abbott, Rethinking Public Service Broadcasting's Place in International Media Development, February, 2026.
ABC, ABC broadcast pioneer and Brushmen of the Bush painter John Pickup dies aged 91, Posted Wed 1 Feb 2023.
ABC, ABC History
ABC, Jack Absalom: The painter, author, desert survivalist on his unconventional outback life, ABC Science By Ann Jones for Off Track, Posted Sat 10 Mar 2018.
ABC Alumni, A Short History of the ABC.
Australian Media Hall of Fame
Initiated by the Melbourne Press Club in 2011, which has published a book of profiles of Victorian inductees (Smith et al., 2014)14 and a new e-book as the project spreads nationally. It has a website with substantial and up-to-date content as it hosts events around the country.15 The Hall of Fame is helping to familiarise Australians with media practitioners who have made significant contributions to the Australian media and also to highlight aspects of their own industry’s history.
David Anderson, Now More than Ever: Australia’s ABC, 2022.
Emma Ayres, Cadence: Travels with Music - A Memoir, ABC Books, 2014
Jeannine Baker & Bridget Griffen-Foley, ABC Bibliography: Unpublished Sources on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Centre for Media History, Macquarie University, 2022, ISBN 978-0-646-85667-4.
Jeannine Baker & Jane Connors, ‘“Glorified typists’ in no-man’s land”: The ABC script assistants’ strike of 1973’, Women’s History Review, vol. 29, no. 5, 2020, pp. 841–59.
Jeannine Baker, Australian Women War Reporters, 2015.
Bronwyn Barnett, Colour TV in Australia, Preparing for a Revolution, Part 1, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Bronwyn Barnett, Colour TV in Australia, Preparing for a Revolution, Part 2, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Paul Barry, Breaking news: sex, lies and the Murdoch succession, Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Paul Barry, Kerry Packer, 1993 and 2006.
Patrick Barwise & Peter York, The War Against the BBC: How an unprecedented combination of hostile forces is destroying Britain’s greatest cultural institution ... And why you should care. Read ABC Friends Diana Wyndham's review in Update April 2022, p. 15
Louise M. Benjamin, The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Programming, 1926-1945, Southern Illinois University Press (1 August 2009)
Study of the NBC Advisory Council in the United States that was abolished well before most of the ABC’s Advisory Committees were disbanded
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-nbc-advisory-council-and-radio-programming-1926-1945/louise-m-benjamin/9780809329199
Study of the NBC Advisory Council in the United States study of the NBC Advisory Council in the United States
In 1926, the new NBC networks established an advisory board of prominent citizens to help it make program decisions as well as to deflect concerns over NBC's dominance over radio. The council, which advised NBC on program development - especially cultural broadcasts and those aimed at rural audiences - influenced not only NBC's policies but also decisions other radio organizations made, decisions that resonate in today's electronic media. The council's rulings had wide-ranging impact on society and the radio industry, addressing such issues as radio's operation in the public interest; access of religious groups to the airwaves; personal attacks on individuals, especially the clergy; and coverage of controversial issues of public importance. Principles adopted in these decrees kept undesirable shows off the air, and other networks, stations, and professional broadcast groups used the council's decisions in establishing their own organizational guidelines. Benjamin documents how these decrees had influence well after the council's demise. Beginning in the early 1930s, the council denied use of NBC to birth control advocates. This refusal revealed a pointed clash between traditional and modernistic elements in American society and laid down principles for broadcasting controversial issues. This policy resonated throughout the next five decades with the implementation of the Fairness Doctrine. "The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Programming, 1926-1945" offers the first in-depth examination of the council, which reflected and shaped American society during the interwar period. Author Louise M. Benjamin tracks the council from its inception until it was quietly disbanded in 1945, insightfully critiquing the council's influence on broadcast policies, analyzing early attempts at using the medium of radio to achieve political goals, and illustrating the council's role in the development of program genres, including news, sitcoms, crime drama, soap operas, quiz shows, and variety programs.
Geoffrey C. Bolton, Dick Boyer, An Australian Humanist, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1967.
Borchers, W. A Pocket History of ABC Television, ABC Archives, ABC Content Services, Sydney, 2000.
Tim Bowden, Spooling Through – An Irreverent Memoir, 2003.
Bowden, T. Fifty Years: Aunty’s Jubilee, ABC Books, Sydney, 2001.
Brown, A. “Australian Public Broadcasting Under Review: The Mansfield Report on the ABC” in the The Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 26, No 1, 2001.
Meredith Burgmann & Nadia Wheatley, Radicals, Remembering the Sixties, Chapter on, David Marr, Geoffrey Robertson, Margaret Reynolds, John Derum, Peter Manning, NewSouth Publishing, 2021.
Richard Butsch (ed), Media and public spheres, New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Richard Butsch argues that ‘[p]opular and scholarly discussions of audiences have long lacked a historical context’.
Tim Burrowes, Media Unmade: Australia's Most Disruptive Decade, 2021 Read ABC Friends article Update August 2022, p. 27.
Charles Buttrose, Playing for Australia, A Story about ABC Orchestras and Music in Australia, 1982.
Mike Carlton, On Air, William Heinemann, Australia, 2018 [Ku-ring-gai Library 070/CARL]
Eoin Cameron, Rolling into the world: memoirs of a ratbag child, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2003.
Lynne Carmichael is completing a PhD thesis at Monash University on the ABC and classical music.
Centre for Media History, Aberystwyth University.
Centre for Media History, Macquarie University
Australia’s first Centre for Media History (CMH) was formed at Macquarie University in Sydney in 2007. Focused on the history of the media and history in the media, it has academic members, some of them engaged in practice-based research, and postgraduate associate members. It hosts events in partnership with industry and with cultural institutions. It has informal relationships with equivalent centres overseas, including at Aberytswyth, Bournemouth and Sheffield in the United Kingdom and George Mason in the United States.7 Since 2015, it has also been part of a strategic partnership with the University of Hamburg focused on Transnational Media Histories that now also involves Fudan University in Shanghai.8
Patricia Clarke, Bold Types: How Australia’s First Women Journalists Blazed a Trail, 2022.
Patricia Clarke, Pen Portraits: Women Writers and Journalists in Nineteenth Century Australia, 1988.
Mark Colvin, Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy's Son, 2016.
Ruth Cracknell, Ruth Cracknell, A Biased Memoir, Penguin, 1997.
Robert Crawford, Historical work on the advertising industry, 2008.
Denis Cryle, Disreputable Profession, 1997.
Study of colonial journalism.
Denis Cryle, book about Murdoch’s flagship Australian daily, launched in 1964, which has been the subject of so much criticism and controversy, became the subject of a 25-year history, 2008.
Ann Curthoys and Julianne Schultz, Journalism: Print, Politics and Popular Culture, 1999.
A most important contribution to Australian journalism history.
Llewellyn "Will" Davies, 'Look' and Look Back, Using an auto/biographical lens to study the Australian documentary film industry, 1970-2010, PhD thesis, The Australian National University, April 2018. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/154339/2/FINAL%20VERSION%20%20%20-%20corrected%20as%20at%2022.10.2018.pdf
Glyn Davis, 'Public interest and private passion: Ken Inglis on the ABC', in Peter Browne and Seumas Spark (eds), 'I Wonder', The Life and Wonder of Ken Inglis', Monash University Publishing, 2020 [Ku-ring-gai Library 297.0994/SAEE].
Emma Dawson, It's Our ABC, A research report for GetUP! by Per Capita, May 2020.
Quentin Dempster, 'A Short History of the ABC', an extended and updated version of Quentin Dempster’s contribution to A Companion to the Australian Media, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014, edited by Bridget Griffen-Foley.
Quentin Dempster, Death Struggle, Allen & Unwin, 2000.
Frank Dixon, Inside the ABC: a piece of Australian history, 1975 [Frank Dixon was appointed as the ABC's first Federal News Editor in 1936].
Helen Grasswill, ABC International Spreads its Wings, ABC Alumni.
Murray Goot, ‘Audience Research’ in Bridget Griffen-Foley, A Companion to the Australian Media, ASP, Melbourne, 2014, p. 31.
Richard Fidler, The Golden Maze: A biography of Prague, 2021.
Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow, Choke Point Capitalism, [How big tech and big content captured creative labour markets ad how we'll win them back], Scribe, Melbourne, 2022 [Ku-ring-gai Library 338.477 GIB].
Andrew Goodwin & Gerry Whannel (eds), Understanding Television, 1990
Frank S. Greenop, History of Magazine Publishing in Australia, 1947.
Bridget Griffen-Foley & Sue Turnbull, Editors, The Media and Communications in Australia, Fifth Edition, to be published by Rooutledge in late 2023.
Bridget Griffen-Foley and Jeannine Baker, ABC Bibliography: Unpublished Sources on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2022.
Documenting manuscript collections and oral history interviews held in repositories other than the NAA and ABC, as well as theses on the ABC, the bibliography is designed to make key sources on the ABC and its history known to ABC and academic researchers; it is also searchable electronically.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Australian Radio Listeners and Television Viewers: Historical Perspectives, Palgrave, Cham, 2020.
This book is a valuable reminder of her enduring interests and powers as a dynamic researcher of the unseen and out-of-sight in Australian media history’.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Inaugural KS Inglis address: making Australian media history, Volume 170, Issue 1, Media International Australia, 2018.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, A Companion to the Australian Media (2014) is the first comprehensive, authoritative study of Australia's press, broadcasting and new media sectors, featuring 300 contributors, and is available via AustLit.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio (2009).
Shortlisted for the Ashurst Business Literature Prize and longlisted for the Walkley Book Award
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Sir Frank Packer (2000, 2014).
Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘The complete adventures of Aunty’, Australian Financial Review, 1 September 2006, Review section, pp. 10-11.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Bibliographical essay, focused on the press, radio and television, Media International Australia, 2006.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to Dismissal (2003).
Bridget Griffen-Foley, The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire (1999).
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Letters to Maggie, Roy and H.G.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Nine Essential Moments in Early Radio, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Craig Hamilton, with Neil Jameson, Broken Open, Penguin, 2005.
John Henningham, Bibliographical essay focused on Australian journalism history, 1988 [John Henningham was the first professor of journalism in Australia].
David Hendy, The BBC: A People’s History, Profile Books, London, 2022.
‘We can’t hope to understand modern Britain – its politics, its culture, its sense of itself – without understanding the role of the BBC in the life of the nation.’ Hendy's exploration of ‘the role of the BBC in the life of the nation’, and ‘the wider story of the BBC’s tangled relationship with the public’ examines what the BBC's programs, stations and networks meant to listeners and viewers but is largely based on those who worked for the BBC.
Jim Hagan, Printers and Politics, 1966.
Kate Holden & David Astle, Two Sides of the Story.
Jonathan Homes, On Aunty. Melbourne University Press. Carlton, Victoria, 2019.
Hunt, C. “Tis all a chequerboard: early ABC documentary filmmakers tell their stories”.
PhD thesis, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, 2011.
K.S. Inglis, This is the ABC, The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, MUP, Melbourne, 1983. Written in celebration of the ABC's 50th Anniversary.
Ken Inglis (1929–2017) was the Emeritus Professor of History at Australian National University. Inglis’ remarks, in his introduction to This is the ABC, that ‘“A lot of history is concealed autobiography, and this book more than most”. Ken starts the 521-page volume with his own story. Just three years older than the ABC, he recalls the radio voices of his youth’. At the launch of the book at the Sydney Opera House, the ABC’s fearsome former general manager, Sir Charles Moses, rejected Inglis’ proffered hand, instead threatening him with legal action that, in the end, he did not pursue
K.S. Inglis, Whose ABC?: The Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1983–2006, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2006.
K.S. Inglis, 'The ABC and the public good', The fifth Sir Halford Cook Lecture, Queen’s College, 19 May 2000.
Sally Jackson, ABC response to Maurice Newman in The Australian, 2018
https://about.abc.net.au/correcting-the-record/abc-response-to-maurice-newman-in-the-australian/
Lesley Johnson, The Unseen Voice: A Cultural Study of Early Australian Radio, Routledge, London, 1988.
This cultural history of early Australian radio is arguably the first notable Australian study to consider (commercial and ABC) broadcasting and everyday life.
Dr Rhonda Jolly, The ABC: an Overview, Parliament of Australia, 2014.
Jolly, R. “The ABC: an overview”, Parliament of Australia, Canberra, August 2014 online PDF version.
http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/parliamentarylibrary_theabcanoverview_aug_2014.pdf
Dr. Phil Kafcaloudes, Australia Calling: The ABC Radio Australia Story, ABC, 2022.
Jeff Langdon, "The Social and Political forces that led to the Development of Public Radio in the 1960's", 1995.
Community radio was examined in Phoebe Thornley’s (1999) PhD thesis and by a major report for the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Forde et al., 2002).
Stuart Littlemore, The Media and Me, 1996.
C.J. Lloyd, A major studies of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, 1988.
C.J. Lloyd, History of the Australian Journalists’ Association (now the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance), 1985.
Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Jo Bardoel (Eds), From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media, 2007.
H. Lunn, Working for Rupert, 2001.
Paddy Manning, The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch Black Inc, 2022.
National Archives of Australia, Chester Hill, NSW that have voluminous archival material about the ABC. ABC paper records constitute one of the largest holdings in the NAA’s NSW office at 5372 shelf metres. A significant proportion – more than 90% – of this collection is yet to be examined for access and made easily discoverable by researchers via the online catalogue. Consignment lists for hundreds of series of records, listing thousands of individual items (ie files) that were transferred from the ABC to the NAA, are only available as typed or handwritten pages in ring-binders.
The the NAA collection includes:
● ABC audience research reports compiled by external ratings and surveys agencies.
● records of the ABC’s Listener Research section (established in 1943)
● the Research and Statistics section – principally studies of programs, stations and regions
● papers of ABC Listener and Viewer Panels, which were set up around 1958.
NAA’s online public catalogue - Record Search.
National Museum of Australia, Defining Moments, Start of the ABC..
Mass-Observation, a British social research and life writing project to document everyday life, initiated in 1937.
Louise Milligan, Witness, An Investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice, 2021.
Louise Milligan, Cardinal, The Rise and Fall of George Pell, 2019.
Denis Muller, 'Money, power, influence: How 'media monsters; used journalism to cement their empires' The New Daily, Jun 18, 2023.
George Munster, A Paper Prince, 1985 [this is arguably the strongest on Rupert Murdoch’s Australian activities].
Kerry O'Brien, Kerry O'Brien, A Memoir, Allen & Unwin, 2019.
Neville Petersen, News at the ABC, 1993, 1999.
Neville Petersen, News not views: The ABC, the Press, & politics, Hale & Iremonger, 1993 [elaborates in detail the ongoing constraints imposed by Australian newspaper proprietors on the fledgling Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in their ultimately unsuccessful struggle to restrict its news supply and influence. Drawing on subsequent press research based on international forums, the author revisits this rivalry, particularly Petersen's thesis that Australian press proprietors exercised disproportionate influence over the national broadcaster when compared with other English-speaking countries, such as Britain and Canada. Sage Journals].
A Biography of Sir Charles Moses, Global Media Journal, Australian Edition.
Neville Petersen, Sir Charles, Joseph Moses (1900-1988), Australian Dictionary of Biography. 2012.
Sian Prior, Shy: a memoir.
Tom DC Roberts, Keith Murdoch, 2015.
Matthew Ricketson & Patrick Mullins, Who Needs the ABC? 2022.
Michael Rowland (Ed), Black Summer, stories of loss, courage and community by ABC journalists on the ground during the 2019-2020 bushfires, ABC Books, 2021 [Ku-ring-gai Library 363.379/BLAC]
Leigh Sales, Storytellers. Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism 2023.
David Salter, The Media We Deserve, Melbourne University Press, 2007. (David Salter is one of Australia's most respected independent journalists and television producers. He was Executive Producer of ABC TV's Media Watch program, and writes regularly on media affairs).
David Salter, Media Watch https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/9598131
Diane Sawyer, ABC News Official Biography
Mark Scott, ‘The Future of the Australian Story’, 2015.
Scott, M. “New ABC editorial policies will set higher standards”. Radio Info, Tuesday
17 October 2006.
Jürg R. Schwyter, Dictating to the Mob: The History of the BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken English, Oxford University Press, 2016 [a study of the BBC’s Advisory Committee on Spoken English that was abolished well before most of the ABC’s Advisory Committees were disbanded].
Jean Seaton, Pinkoes and Traitors: The BBC and the Nation 1974-1987, Profile Books, 2017.
Semmler, Dr. Clem, The ABC - Aunt Sally and Sacred Cow, Melbourne University Press, 1981 [Sir Charles Moses took defamation action against this book].
Margaret Simons, The ABC since 2006 [yet to be published].
Gavin Souter, Company of Heralds, 1981 [commemorating the 150th anniversary of John Fairfax & Sons].
Robert Silvey, Who's listening?: the story of BBC audience research, 1974.
Research into the ABC’s Advisory Committees will generate insights into broadcasting history more broadly, build on international studies including Robert Silvey’s work on BBC audience research.
Ana Stevenson, In flag-rante: Julia Gillard and the infamous ‘flag scene’ in ABC’s At Home with Julia, 2018.
Alan Sunderland, The Ten Rules of Reporting, Journalism For the Community, Simon & Schuster, 2022[Ku-ring-gai Library070.4/SUND].
Michael Tracey, The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting
Kim Williams, Rules of Engagement (2014)
Wikipedia, History of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Sally Young, Paper Emperors, The Rise of Australia’s Newspaper Empires, UNSW Press, 2019 [Ku-ring-gai Library 079.94/YOUN]
Sally Young, Media Monsters, the Transformation of Australia's Newspaper Empires, 2023. See review. Ku-ring-gai Library 079.9409/YOUN]
Australian media historians interested in how audiences have influenced the ABC:
- Drs Justine Lloyd and Catherine Fisher on ABC listener correspondence;
- Michelle Arrow’s study of listener reaction to Blue Hills.
Other Media scholars:
Drs Kylie Andrews, Jennifer Bowen, Liz Giuffre, Justine Lloyd, Virginia Madsen, Margaret Simons, Dr Jane Connors (former Executive Producer of ABC's Social History Unit, Manager of Radio National and Head of Industry Policy and Strategy at ABC Radio. Jane is the author of Royal Visits to Australia. She is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for the Centre for Media History at Macquarie University), Dr David Sutton, ABC Senior Strategist), Stephen Vagg (thesis on early ABC television plays) and Michael Ward from University of Sydney.
- 90th Anniversary of the station that became 702 ABC Sydney. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (22 November 2013). Retrieved on September 14, 2020.
- Australian Communications and Media Authority. Apparatus Licence [Licensee 1103909, Australian Broadcasting Corporation]. Retrieved on September 14, 2020.
- The station never used the callsign 2BS, although this is quoted in a reputedly reputable source - Changing Stations. The Story of Australian Commercial Radio Griffen-Foley, Bridget, Sydney, 2009. (The callsign 2BS was later used by the local Bathurst station).
- Radio Survey #2 2012
- Linda Mottram. Retrieved on September 14, 2020.
- Speaking Out, with Larissa Behrendts. Retrieved on September 14, 2020.
- Laurie Oakes, The man who started the ABC's press gallery — and how the newspapers tried to stop him, Posted Tue 14 Aug 2018
- A brief history of Fairfax: from family paper to plaything for moguls
- ABC Radio Australia's 83 years of broadcasting to the world
YouTubes
Memorable moments from 20-year history of ABC's Australian Story, 2016
ABC Friends Northern Suburbs of Sydney Delegation to Parliament House, Canberra 5-7 October, 2020
Australia's first radio station began 100 years ago in Sydney
Podcasts:
The importance of the ABC archives, Later Night Live, Phillip Adams
ABC Radio National The History Listen
From 2SB to 2BL, then 702 and now ABC Radio Sydney, the rich history of Australia's first radio station by Broadcast Thu 23 Nov 2023 at 2:00am
End-of-war celebrations, Sydney, 1945
Kim Williams in Conversation, Fourth Estate
Trove:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/about
Frank Dixon, 'New Chairman for the A,B.C?, The Bulletin, May 17, 1961
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-684486341/view?sectionId=nla.obj-700311342&partId=nla.obj-684550749#page/n10/mode/1up
Archives
Helen Cross and Margaret Chambers, National Archives of Australia, Sound recordings in the National Archives, Research Guide, 2001.
ABC tv at Gore Hill in the fifties, National Library of Australia
Why is the ABC is so important?
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation was established in 1932 and is one of Australia’s most important cultural institutions and pillars of Australian democracy. The ABC as an independent broadcaster informs, educates and entertains Australians, whoever they are and wherever they live.
The ABC's legislative framework is the ABC Act (1983) and The ABC Charter.
The ABC Board has duties. Read Dr Rhonda Jolly, The ABC: an Overview, Parliament of Australia, 2014
The ABC has:
- through its independent public interest journalism instigated three of Australia’s most important Royal Commissions as a result of its Four Corners’ investigations– Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and Aged Care Quality and Safety.
- Kept Australians informed about important issues such as irrigation’s impact on our rivers, climate change, digital transformation, mental health, Indigenous rights, gender and cultural equality, homelessness, and welfare issues affecting the young and the aged.
- Kept Australians safe during times of crises and emergencies, such as during the 2019-2020 Summer Black Bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. The ABC played a critical role, with its rural and regional teams working around the clock to broadcast emergency broadcasting to disseminate crucial and, at times, life-saving information.
Research into the History of ABC and its Audiences
- More research is needed on the history of ABC audiences. It is highly likely that they were different to commercial broadcasting audiences. The fact that the ABC has no advertising is of seminal importance because it reflects intrinsic values of knowledge rather than commercial priorities.
- One ABC viewer described how the ABC provided him with a "university" education, something not available on commercial media.
Australian Media History listserv
Research into the History of ABC and building environmental awareness
- How did the ABC drama, science, current affairs, children’s and popular music programming, and emergency broadcasting contribute to the rise of environmental consciousness from 1932 to 1982?
- The ABC closely modelled initiatives from the BBC including its Natural History Unit, with its documentaries, written and narrated, by David Attenborough, including Life on Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984), The Trials of Life (1990), Life in the Freezer (1993), The Private Life of Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998). In 2022 David Attenborough received the UN's most distinguished environment award
- Charles Bean was chair of the ABC's Promotion Appeals Board from 1947-58. As the founder of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement of NSW he was also well connected to many Sydney conservationists.
- Crosbie Morrison (1900 - 1958) became one of Australia's best known naturalist during the 1940's and 1950's. As a journalist with the ABC, he made regular national nature study broadcasts to schools and other radio listeners for 20 years. He was also editor of Wild Life, a magazine which fostered interest in Australia's natural history and conservation, from 1938-54.
- In 1941 The Argonauts included 'Jock the Backyard Naturalist' (Zoologist Dr A. J. Marshall) to whom children could send their observations and specimens from the garden and bush.
- ABC Chairman William Cleary was a great bushwalker and played a pivotal role in saving the Blue Gum Forest in the Grose Valley when he lent money to purchase the forest.
- Charles Moses enthusiastically embraced woodchopping as a hobby and became chairman of the RAS woodchopping committee. He kept in his ABC office a collection of fine axes and it is said he invited visitors to allow him to shave their arms or legs to demonstrate how sharp his axes were. His friendship with the ‘roughneck’ RAS champion Tom Kirk appealed greatly to the press—as did his feat of walking fifty miles (80 km) on his fiftieth birthday.
Birds up a gum tree, 1949
Kay Kinane of Youth Education uses an acoustic baffle microphone to capture the songs of birds a Jamberoo, New South Wales, while Alan Robertson of the PMG holds another microphone. The station wagon houses a disc recording unit. ABC produces can now use native rather than European bird sounds. [Inglis, 1983, page 214]
Rural Australia on TV, 1957
In Australia Unlimited P.A. Yeomans, with a model of his property in New South Wales, tells Graham White (Supervisor of Rural Broadcasts, Victoria) about his 'keyline plan' for better use of land. [Inglis, 1983, page 214]
- ABC rural programs dealt with soil conservation, as outlined by P.A> Yeomans 'method' of tilling the soil without causing soil erosion.
- ABC television series In the Wild with Harry Butler was a popular program that promoted the Australian environment. Harry Butler wrote In The Wild, In the Wild (Part II) and Looking at the Wild.
- Colour TV in 1975 made environmental protests so much more vivid - such as the Terania Creek protests in northern NSW. In August 1979 protesters stood in the past of NSW Forestry Commission bulldozers. It was the first attempt at direct-action forest blockading in Australia and pioneered the environmental non-violent resistance movement.
-
https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'environment ABC': includes radio interviews with Professor GV Portus; ABC News; Behind The News; Lateline; Four Corners; The Science Show; Nationwide
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'conservation ABC': includes [ABC rural radio presentation by A Dunbavin-Butcher] 'The Conservation of Fauna' [Box 1; 3p]; ABC rural radio presentation by JE Ladewig] 'The Economics of Soil Conservation' [Box 2; 6p]; [ABC rural radio presentation by AJ Quilty] 'Water Conservation in NSW' [Box 3; 6p]; ABC rural radio presentation by GT Thompson 'Soil Conservation District Committees'; Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority [GBRMPA] - Australian Broadcasting Commission [ABC]/Australian Conservation Foundation [ACF] Film on Great Barrier Reef; Bob Hawke interview with Peter Thompson - ABC AM; Followed by interview with Senator G Richardson on various environmental issues; Four Corners; The Science Show - Peel Harvey Estuary; ABC News and Current Affairs on Water Conservation; This Day Tonight; Energy conservation - ABC documentaries
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Crosbie Morrison ABC': includes ABC publicity photos
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'national parks' includes Bob Hawke being interviewed on After 8 - ABC Darwin; ABC National Parks and Wildlife Service co-Production
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Duke of Edinburgh' includes Sir Dallas Brooks Speech
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'David Attenborough ABC' ABC Overseas Television Programmes publicity file 'Attenborough and Animals' [Children's series starring David Attenborough. Item contains correspondence and photographs relating to the series (1964); David Attenborough, BBC Producer (1960-1960)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Natural History ABC' This Day Tonight Segment Cricket Plague (1976); Dunbabin, Thomas - Bringing Home 200,000 Pieces of Our History (Mitchell Library's search for Archives - plans to microfilm all the documents relating to Australia and the South Pacific held in the Public Records Office, the Admiralty, The British Museum, the Natural History Museum; the East India Company, the French , Dutch, and Spanish archives to be available in the Mitchell Library - work under supervision of Miss Leeson, the Mitchell Librarian) - [script has no date] [ABC radio talk script (1940)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Science ABC'
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Nuclear testing ABC' Hon Bob McMullan MP Off-air News Recordings - ABC TV 7.30 Report - French Nuclear Testing in the Pacific [19 June 1995]
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Cyclone Tracey ABC': Cyclone Tracy - Darwin Disaster (1970-1990)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Koalas ABC': For Schools - About Koalas (1966)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Kangaroos ABC': ABC Radio plays information cards - 'Kangaroos at Christmas' to 'Koko' (1936-1980)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Forests ABC': ABC radio presentation by Ray Harris] - 'Dead Forests Down Under; (1951)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Bushfires ABC': ABC radio presentation by Paddy Pallin - 'Bushfires' (1951)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Floods ABC': Four Corners (1969); Alice Springs Special (c. 1972)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Murray River ABC': ABC Local Television Programmes publicity file] When a River Was the Only Road [Documentary re Murray River. Item contains photographs and correspondence relating to the programme (1966); ABC rural radio presentation by E Power, 'Cod Fishing in the Murray River' (1953);
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Water ABC': Dr SW Pennycuick - 'Salt Water and Thirsty Men' [ABC radio talk transcript (1947); ABC radio presentation by Warren Denning] 'Power out of Water - Two Talks on the Snowy Mountains Project' (1951); ABC radio presentation by Professor TJ Hunter] - 'Water into Gold' (1951); ABC radio presentation by Arthur Neville] - 'Making Water Wetter' (1951); ABC rural radio presentation by AJ Quilty] 'Water Conservation in NSW' (1951); Somerset Dam - The Wall Across the Water - a script broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Commission [ABC] Brisbane (1949); Radio talk presented by ABC war correspondent Fred Simpson] They make the lolly water (1945);
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Great Barrier Reef': Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority [GBRMPA] - Australian Broadcasting Commission [ABC]/Australian Conservation Foundation [ACF] Film on Great Barrier Reef (1968-1980); Four Corners [Series 70] (1970); ABC News [Series 81] - Great Barrier Reef - Segment (1981)
- https://www.naa.gov.au/ 'Wildlife ABC': ABC Local Television Programmes publicity file] Dancing Orpheus [Wildlife Documentary. Item contains correspondence relating to the programme (1965); For Schools - About Koalas (1965); For Schools - For Schools: About Wombats (1966); Visit to Australian Native Wildlife Sanctuary] [ABC Promo and Station Idents] (1903); ABC National Parks and Wildlife Service co-Production (1978-1983).
The ABC needs to be defended - for Nature's sake by Janine Kitson in National Parks Association of NSW, August 21, 2020
Defend the ABC - for wilderness' sake by Janine Kitson, February 2020
Australian Media History listserv
Media and building the environment movement
Miles Dunphy and the National Parks & Primitive Areas Council (NP&PAC) produced a newspaper supplement in the Katoomba Daily that promoted the conservation values, tourist development and wilderness area protection for the movement to acquire national parks for the Greater Blue Mountains Crown lands in 1934. (Hutton & Connor, 1999, page 67)
Marie Byles' book By Cargo Boat & Mountain: the unconventional experiences of a woman on tramp round the world (1931) was first serialised by the Sydney Morning Herald?
Thistle Y. Harris's father was a manager of the Sydney Morning Herald.
David G. Stead (1877-1957) environmental pioneer who was a founding Member, Wild Life Preservation Society of Australia in 1909 wrote numerous articles and letters to the press. He pioneered radio broadcasts on wildlife topics. He often wrote under the pen names 'Physalia' and 'Dinnawan'. His great work was as a popular scientific educator and as an advocate of conservation which aroused little enthusiasm in the 1920s and 1930s. (Walsh. G. P., 'Stead, David George (1877 - 1957), naturalist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography volume 12: 1891 - 1939 Smy-Z, Ritchie, John, ed. (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1990), pp. 57-8. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stead-david-george-8634/text15087. Details)
2GB commenced intermittent broadcasting in August 1926.[3] The operator, Theosophical Broadcasting Station Pty Ltd, owned by interests associated with the local branch of Theosophical Society Adyar, a 'new age' spiritualist movement that recognised "unexplained laws of Nature" was granted a radio broadcasting licence for the Sydney area.[4] In 1940, the station became the largest producer of radio drama programs in the Southern Hemisphere.[6]
Thank you Donors and Sponsors
Thankyou to ABC friends and supporters who made donations to NSoS to pay for its meeting room venues and other expenses for its guest speaker program.
If you are interested in donating a prize for future NSoS raffles let us know!
Loosely Woven Fundraising Concerts
Loosely Woven have generously donated $2,065 for ABC Friends NSW & ACT. $765 from its Waltz for Jill Concert (Sept 2023 -), $700 from its Bright Blue Rose Concert (May 2023), $600 from its Christmastide Concert (Dec 2022) THANK YOU Loosely Woven !
Concert tickets
featuring the hugely popular Vov Dylan + Glenn Amer
2pm, Sunday 2nd July
Humph Hall, 84 Allambie Road, Allambie Heights
Theatre Tickets
Thank you to Ensemble Theatre for donating a Double Pass to the play SUMMER OF HAROLD, July 2022 for the ABC Friends NSW & ACT WINTER DINNER on Thursday 20 July, 2023
https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/summer-of-harold/
Books
Thank you to New UNSW Press Limited for donating a copy of Media Monsters, the Transformation of Australia's Newspaper Empires by Sally Young for the ABC Friends Winter Dinner, 20 July, 2023. Read a review of it.
Doing It My Way - a memoir by Jan Latta - a powerful and inspirational story about never giving up.
Jan Latta had early training in advertising. First as a designer, then as a creative director working in Sydney, London and Hong Kong. She created a publishing company in Hong Kong and travelled worldwide for the Regent, Mandarin and Hyatt hotels. On a trip to Rwanda, Africa, her life changed when she came face-to-face with a mountain gorilla. When she heard there were fewer than 600 mountain gorillas left in the world, she decided to create a series of books on endangered animals. She travelled alone to Borneo, Uganda, India, China, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and eleven times to Africa, taking photographs to tell the animals' stories. Starting her own publishing company, True to Life Books, she led a unique and different life as a wildlife photographer. Jan travels throughout Asia giving school and festival talks about endangered animals.
The Wires that Bind Quarterly Essay signed by Dr Saul Griffith (2023)
Time of Our Lives by Maggie Kirkman (2022)
This book shares the life stories of extraordinary older women who challenge the myth of what it means to be ‘old’. It reminds us of the many outstanding
achievements made by women who were born before 1946. An inspiring book
celebrating the work of 'young at heart' women
Bold Types: How Australia’s First Women Journalists Blazed a Trail by Dr Patricia Clarke (2022)
Enjoy reading this book review published in The Conversation about Dr Clarke's book.
The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch
by Paddy Manning
Children's Books
Peppa Gets a Vaccination and a Peppa Pig Cushion
Book: Bluey Colouring In Book
The Bluey Colouring book celebrated the phenomenal success of the ABC Children's TV. Bluey holds the coveted position of being the most watched program ever on ABC iView. Bluey is also a winner of the International Emmy for Most Outstanding Children’s Programme.
Other Donations
Pair of Hand Knitted 'ABC winter viewing socks'
ABC Friends Gift Membership for One Year
Valued at $30
One of the best gifts you can give and receive and give - being a friend to the ABC
Authorised by Janine Kitson, Convenor, ABC Friends NSW & ACT Northern Suburbs of Sydney, PO Box 1391, North Sydney, NSW, 2059
Media Timeline
Work on this topic currently in progress
2022:BBC’s Centenary. See History of BBC.
2021: Streaming services such as Netflix and Stan continue to grow in popularity. These services allow viewers to watch TV shows and movies online without having to subscribe to a traditional pay-TV service.
2017: Australian government introduced a new tax rebate for television and film productions to encourage more investment in the local industry and support jobs in the sector.
2018: Advance is a right-wing campaigning group started in 2018 as a counterweight to activist group GetUp. It is led by Matthew Sheahan. David Adler is a member as he is also the President of the Australian Jewish Association.
2017: Australian government introduced a new tax rebate for television and film productions to encourage more investment in the local industry and support jobs in the sector.
2010s: Closure of metropolitan, regional and rural newspapers. Media sees a surge in the popularity of streaming services such as Netflix and Stan that allow viewers to watch TV shows and movies online without having to subscribe to a traditional pay-TV service.
2010: 80% of homes using digital television.
2001: Digital television introduced, allowing viewers to watch multiple channels on one screen and providing access to interactive services such as games and shopping
2000s: Decade of significant change for Australian television. This was also the decade when reality TV became popular in Australia, with productions such as Big Brother, Australian Idol, and The Block gaining significant traction. Is this the beginning of 'dumbing down' Australia.
1999:'Cash for Comment' 2UE scandal. ABC journalists Richard Ackland, Deborah Richards and Anne Connolly from ABC's Media Watch programme revealed that 2UE talk back hosts John Laws and Alan Jones had been paid to give favourable comment to companies including Walker Corporation, Qantas, Optus, Foxtel, Mirvac and major Australian banks, without disclosing this arrangement.
1997: Pay-TV service Foxtel introduced. Foxtel, a subscription-based service, offers a range of channels, including movies, sport, and entertainment.
1997: Australian government introduced new laws that required all television stations to broadcast a minimum amount of Australian content. These laws aimed to support the local television industry and ensure that Australian stories were told on screen.
1996: Sky News Australia, the country's first 24-hour news channel, was launched.
1988: The beginning of a proliferation of media and communications courses in Australian universities.
1982: Australian government introduces a system of funding for the production of local drama and children's programs. This "equity quota" system ensures a certain percentage of Australian content is shown on commercial television stations.
1981: Launch of SBS-TV in Sydney that offered a unique blend of multicultural and multilingual programming.
1980: Channel Ten expanded with a new station in Brisbane.
1980s early: There are more than four million television sets in use across Australia.
1980s: Hawke-Keating government emasculates the Australian Broadcasting Authority and its associated tribunal ng as part of their cosiness with big media in the 1980s.
1980s:2WS AM Radio station established, along wit 2-Day FM and 2MMM FM.
1980s: Introduction of a number of new channels and services. First 24-hour Australian news channels, with launch of CNN News Australia, providing continuous coverage of international and domestic news events.
1978: Launch of Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
1976: Australia finally bans cigarette advertising on television.
1975: Channel Ten went on air for the first time, initially available only in Sydney and Melbourne but later expanding to other parts of Australia. Its mix of programming, including soap operas, game shows, and variety programs, Channel Ten quickly became a hit with young viewers.
1975: Australian journalists known as 'Balibo Five', killed by Indonesian army in East Timor.
1974: The first experimental broadcasts of colour television took place, paving the way for the full-time introduction of colour TV in March 1975.
1972: Packer sells the Daily Telegraph to Murdoch.
1972: Journalist Alan Reid (Frank Packer’s lobbyist in Canberra) leads the charge to bring down the hapless Billy McMahon, eventually swept from office by Gough Whitlam in 1972. Rupert Murdoch behind the election of Whitlam.
1971: Mike Willacy moves from ABC to work at the Nine Network, where he hostedA Current Affairwhen it debuted in 1971. While atA Current Affair, Willesee introduced comedian,Paul Hogan, to the program program.
1970s: Channel Nine stars Graham Kennedy, Paul Hogan, Bert 'Moonface' Newton, Don Lane, Mike Walsh and Jeanne Little.
1970s: A decade of change for Australian television with the launch of several new channels, including the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) in 1978. SBS was designed to provide multilingual and multicultural programming that reflected the diversity of Australia's population.
1969: Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon televised; as was the Vietnam War.
1969: Media dominated by five groups: Herald Weekly Times, Fairfax, David Syme and Co (in partnership with Fairfax), Consolidated Press (the Packer organisation) and News Limited (Rupert Murdoch). Journalist Denis Muller explains that when he worked as a journalist for Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald in 1969: He would type his copy on what was called 8-ply (the original and seven carbons). The original and some of the carbons went to the Sydney Morning Herald. But carbons went also to the company’s Macquarie radio network, its Sydney television channel, ATN 7, to Australian Associated Press (AAP) and to what was called the interstate room. From there, the copy was shared via telex with all the interstate papers with which the Sydney Morning Herald had reciprocal copy-sharing arrangements. At that time, this included all the HWT papers: the Sun News-Pictorial in Melbourne, the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, The Advertiser in Adelaide and The Mercury in Hobart. This concentrated power arose entirely from cross-ownership and reciprocal deals the public and policymakers had little grasp of.
1967: First regional television stations in Australia were independently operated and served specific areas outside the major cities.
1966: Towards the end of Menzies term as Prime Ministr, he attempts to place controls on media concentration by creating the agency the Australian Broadcasting Control Board. However this was a timid and ineffectual as its successors – with the honourable exception of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and its associated tribunal.
1966: Sir Frank Packer takes over the Daily Telegraph that trumpets pro-Liberal views from the post-war years until 1972 when he sold it to Murdoch.
1965: UK bans cigarette advertising on television.
1964 September: Channel 0 (which would later become Network 10) launched in Melbourne. Based on a mix of programming, including live sport, news, and variety shows, Channel 0's debut paved the way for the further expansion of commercial television in Australia.
1960s mid: Colour TV widespread in US and UK in late 1960s.
1960s: Murdoch actively seeks ownership of Sydney's northern suburbs newspapers.
1950s late: Graham Kennedy, a master of improvisation was one of Australia's first TV stars, rose to fame with his variety show In Melbourne Tonight.
1957: Television rapidly gained popularity and expands to other places besides Sydney and Melbourne with with 200,000 sets in homes around the country.
1956: Packer obtains one the first television licences and sets it on a path to become the most successful commercial network.
1946: Post -WWI period sees the Fairfax family firmly entrenched as one of Australia’s media dynasties. The Fairfax flagship, the Sydney Morning Herald, was a leader in innovation in printing processes—the company was part of the group that formed Australian Associated Press and began the Australian newsprint industry.
1944: Rise of media concentration with media oligarchs owning newspapers, radio and television through secretive and complex interlocking and reciprocal share-ownership arrangements.
1944 mid: WS Robinson, the influential leader of Collins House and managing director of the Zinc Corporation, organised a dinner party at the Melbourne home of another mining industry heavyweight, James Fitzgerald. Historian Sally Young Young recounts that all the most powerful press owners and managers were present: Keith Murdoch, Rupert Henderson, general manager of the Fairfax company, Frank Packer (owner of Consolidated Press) and Eric Kennedy (Associated Newspapers). Over dinner and drinks, Menzies sought and obtained their blessing to create a new political party. Australia’s newspapers tend to support the election of Liberal-National Coalition governments. Sally Young produces a table showing the partisan support of major newspapers for every federal election between 1943 and 1972. It shows the conservative side of politics receiving 152 endorsements to Labor’s 14.
1943: The conservative lobby group, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) formed. It is backed by leading Melbourne businessmen connected to the Collins House (a collection of powerful business networks that dominated mining and manufacturing including Carlton and United Breweries, Dunlop rubber, Dulux paints , Colonial Sugar Refinery, as well as banking establishments that led to the ANZ, NAB and Westpac). The new body ensures that it includes a newspaper director on its inaugural councils in Victoria and New South Wales.
1943: Robert Menzies resigns as PM. Replaced by Fadden. The United Australia Party overwhelmingly defeated at the 1943 election, despite nearly every metropolitan daily newspaper in the country advocating for it.
1940s mid: Australia’s newspapers approach their zenith of reach. On a per capita basis, they will never sell more printed copies than they do in the mid-1940s.
1938 Dec: Radio licence of Sydney station 2KY, which is controlled by the NSW Labour Council, is cancelled. No reason is given, but the station had criticised the Lyons Government a number of times. After apologising for its ‘past offences’, 2KY’s licence is renewed.
1938 July: Hugh Denison founds and chairs the powerful Macquarie Broadcasting Services. It controls 15 radio stations, including 2GB (Sydney), 3AW (Melbourne) 5DN (Adelaide) and 2CA (Canberra). Networking is promoted as being able to give advertisers better coverage and value for money.
1938 June: Keith Murdoch makes an offer on behalf of Herald Weekly Times for an interest in Consolidated Press. This is rejected by Packer and Theodore.
1938 March: Australian Newsprint Mills established by eight publishers. Directors include Denison, Murdoch and Fairfax.
1937 Dec: Radio licences in Australia reach the one million mark. Sixty two per cent of licences in metropolitan areas.
1937 Oct: The Lyons Government returned to power at the election held on 23 October.
1936 Jan: ABC announces that listeners can purchase a booklet on cricket through its radio stations. Commercial broadcasters and newspaper publishers accuse the national broadcaster of ‘invading the publishing field’.
1936 Jan: Frank Packer and EG Theodore make an unsuccessful offer to buy Ezra Norton’s Truth. Packer and Theodore then buy the Daily Telegraph from Hugh Denison on terms that they not establish a Sunday paper for three years.
All three go into partnership as Consolidated Press.
1936: Journalist Eric White forms Cumberland Newspapers.
1936: Fairfax acquires The Newcastle Sun to become the Newcastle Morning Herald (until 1980 when the publication ceased).
1936: Nineteen capital city newspapers published. Twelve independent owners—Denison’s Associated Newspapers, the Shakespeare family’s Canberra Times, Fairfax, Herald Weekly Times, Consolidated Press, the Syme Company, Davies Brothers, John Norton’s Truth newspapers, West Australian Newspapers, Murdoch’s News Ltd and Wilson and McKinnon (owners of the Argus) and the British firm, International Publishing Corporation.
1935 Dec: The High Court rules that the Federal Government has the power under the Constitution to regulate ‘broadcasting’ (under section 51(v)).
1935 Oct: Broadcasters express concern about the extent of government control over radio and the lack of mechanisms to allow appeals about decisions that are made by the Postmaster-General’s Department.
1935 Oct: In response to concerns about increasing ownership concentration, regulation is made under the WT Actto restrict the number of commercial broadcasting stations that can be owned by an individual or company. Initially, the rule limits ownership of radio stations to one metropolitan in any one state, a total of two metropolitan stations, three stations in any one state and five stations throughout the country (rule 104).
Following immediate protests about these changes from commercial broadcasters, the rule is rescinded and a new rule (Statutory rule 120) is introduced (in November 1935). This rule increases the limits of ownership of stations to four in any one state and eight throughout the country, but keeps the restriction of only one metropolitan station per state.
1935 July: Australian Associated Press (AAP) is established through the amalgamation of Australian Press Association, run by John Fairfax, Edward Wilson and Lauchlan MacKinnon of the Melbourne Argusand the HWT Cable Service. Keith Murdoch co founds AAP.
1935: BBC establishes a 'General Advisory Council'. ABC does not follow this model of a central committee or council.
1934 Sept: United Australia Party wins federal election. It forms a coalition with the Country Party following the election. Joseph Lyons remains Prime Minister.
1933 June: Frank Packer and EG Theodore launches Australia's most successful Australian Women's Weekly.
1933 Aug: Keith Murdoch and entrepreneur John Wren merge their newspaper interests in Brisbane to form Queensland Newspapers and the Brisbane Courier and Daily Mail are amalgamated into the Courier-Mail.
1933 March: Fairfax acquires shares in Sydney radio station 2GB.
1932 Nov: Frank Packer and EG Theodore (as owners of Sydney Newspapers) make a deal with Hugh Denison that they will not attempt to begin publishing an afternoon paper in Sydney for seven years. Proceeds from the deal allow Packer and Theodore to begin publication of a women’s magazine—the Australian Women’s Weekly.
1933: The Albert family and associates’ Australian Broadcasting Company acquires the licence for commercial radio station 2UW. By 1956, the company had changed its name and the Alberts had bought out their partners and expanded its holdings to seven commercial radio stations, including 2UW in Sydney and 3DB in Melbourne.
1932 July: The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) is established. The ABC is to control national stations. Newspaper owners, in particular the owners of the Herald Weekly Times under Murdoch’s editorship, are opposed to the ABC broadcasting a news service.
1931: Keith Muir, Managing Director of the Herald and Weekly Times claims credit for installing Joseph Lyons as prime minister. It is reported that Keith Muir said “I put him in and I’ll put him out.”
1931 Dec: The Labor Government is defeated at the polls. The United Australia Party (UAP), under the leadership of Joseph Lyons, is able to form government without having to rely on a coalition with the Country Party.
1930 Dec: AWA opens 2AY, Albury. It later manages a number of stations (including 2CH, Sydney, for the Council of Churches) on behalf of the owners.
1930 June: Following the untimely death of James Edward Davidson, the owners of the Adelaide News (News Ltd) seek financial assistance from Herald Weekly Times to continue operating. Keith Murdoch demands voting rights in the company in return for assistance. This gives him control of the company, which his son Rupert later inherits.
1930: Australian Federation of Broadcasting Stations renamed Australian Federation of Commercial Broadcasters. The group, with 33 members, intends to present a unified industry approach to government on broadcasting matters. Copyright and royalty issues are its first lobbying concerns.
1930 March: Warwick Fairfax is appointed managing director of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd. He is to control Fairfax for 47 years.
1930: There are twenty capital city daily newspapers published and twelve independent owners.
1929-30: The Federal Government acquires all A class radio stations. These are then operated by the Postmaster-General’s Department with programming supplied by the Australian Broadcasting Company. Class B stations are designated as commercial stations. They continue to be regulated by the WT Act.
1929 Oct: On 29 October 1929, Black Tuesday, over 16 million shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars are lost and the economic devastation caused by the Crash of 1929 is a crucial factor which leads to the Great Depression (1929–39).
1929 Oct: A landslide election victory to the Labor Party, which is led by James Scullin.
1929 Sept: HR Denison forms Associated Newspapers, with Sun Newspapers and the Daily Telegraph News Pictorial, which Denison had acquired in December 1927, as subsidiaries. Associated Newspapers also buys the Sunday Guardian and Daily Guardian from Smith’s Newspapers.
1929: Eight national (formerly A Class and 13 commercial (formerly B Class)) radio licences in operation.
1928 Dec: Keith Murdoch's Herald Weekly Times syndicate buys South Australia’s oldest paper, the Adelaide Register and Langdon Bonython’s Adelaide Advertiser. The Register closes in 1931.
1928 Nov: Bruce Coalition Government returns to office with a reduced majority.
1928 July: Federal Government announces that it will take over all A class radio stations.
1928: Establishment of Australian Federation of Broadcasting Stations.
1928: Keith Murdoch appointed as Managing Director of the Herald and Weekly Times (HWT).
1927: Hammond Royal Commission does not recommend substantial administrative changes to the broadcasting system. It rejects the concept of direct control over broadcasting by government, but it supports the ideas of cooperation between stations and a monitoring role for the Postmaster-General’s Department. It makes recommendations with regards to the amount and distribution of licence fees as well as the location, power, frequency and operating conditions of stations and advertising restrictions and requirements.
The Hammond Royal Commission commented after a nine-month investigation into all aspects of wireless: ‘Having given the matter exhaustive consideration the commission has come to the conclusion that very little change in the existing system is advisable at the present time.’ With regards to the future of wireless, the Commission added:
‘Various schemes for the future control of broadcasting have been suggested to the Commission. [One of these is] direct control of broadcasting stations by the Government ... In our opinion such a scheme is inadvisable as experience already shows that when Governments are placed in charge of the means of disseminating news, they are apt to use such means for the purposes of political propaganda.’
1927: Lang Government imposes a newspaper tax. Later this is declared invalid by the High Court in March.
1926 Sept: Thomas Shakespeare launches the Canberra Times as a weekly paper (eight months before Parliament House is opened in Canberra).
1926 Jan: The Government appoints a Royal Commission, chaired by JH Hammond, to investigate all aspects of wireless broadcasting.
1926: Keith Murdoch begins to create a media empire for the Herald and Weekly Times group (which includes WL Baillieu and Theodore Fink). He purchases the West Australian in Perth (from the estate of John Hackett) and the Advertiser in Adelaide. The syndicate forms the public company West Australian Newspapers (WAN). In the early 1930s Keith Murdoch disposes of the syndicate's interest in WAN. Keith Murdoch also purchases a personal share in Queensland newspapers in partnership with entrepreneur John Wren.
1925 May: The first ratings-like survey taken by the Argus newspaper reveals radio audience preferences are for programming that features brass band, orchestral or instrumental music.
1925 April: Newspaper owner Hugh Denison closes the Melbourne Evening Sun after suffering heavy financial losses and sells the Sun News-Pictorial to Herald Weekly Times.
1925 March: 2FC makes what is thought to be the first ever broadcast of a parliamentary debate when it covers a session of the NSW Legislative Assembly.
1924: Decimus Mott, a member of the Mott family, which had been involved in print since 1856 when they began Albury’s (NSW) first paper, purchases a group of suburban newspapers distributed in Melbourne. Mott develops the Leader Group of newspapers from this purchase.
1924: The Australian Broadcasting Company Pty. Ltd. was a company founded in Melbourne in 1924 with a capital of £A 100,000 by a consortium of entertainment interests, notably Farmer & Company, J. C. Williamson Limited and J. & N. Tait to found and operate commercial radio broadcasting stations.[1] Other major shareholders, perhaps later entrants, were Union Theatres Limited, B & J. Fuller and J. Albert & Son. Directors were Stuart Doyle, Frank Albert and Sir Benjamin Fuller.[2] The Company was set up in Sydney by Sir Benjamin Fuller and Frank Albert.
1924 July: New regulations are introduced for an open set system for radio to replace the sealed set system.
1923 July-Nov: The sealed set system of broadcasting (in amplitude modulation, that is, AM) is established under regulations made under the WT Act. Four stations commence operation, one of which, 2SB (later to become 2BL), is supported by newspaper owner Joynton Smith.
1923 July: John Langdon Bonython sells the Adelaide Express to James Davidson who establishes an afternoon tabloid, the News, and a public company, News Ltd.
1923 May: After calls from the Association for Development of Wireless in Australia, a conference is held to discuss the introduction of radio. The conference endorses a so-called ‘sealed’ set of wireless broadcasting.
1923: Twenty six capital city newspapers are published on a daily basis. These are controlled by 21 independent owners. As radio stations are established ownership these become owned by major newspaper owners.
1923: Robert Clyde Packer becomes part owner of the Daily Guardian, and introduced his son Frank to his newspaper business and business partner, EG Theodore, who was to become Frank’s mentor and associate in establishing Consolidated Press.
1921: Keith Murdoch, on his return to Australia after reporting the Gallipoli campaign and working as managing editor of the United Cable Service for Hugh Denison, takes up the post of editor of the Melbourne Herald.
1919: Robert Clyde Packer partners to establish Smith’s Weekly.
1918: The Northern Times (established in 1916) is purchased by Sir Hugh Denison, publisher of The Sun who changed the name to The Newcastle Sun.
1916 & 1917: Denison's The Sun suffers a temporary setback in circulation due to its support for conscription.
1912: Hugh Denison travels to Europe to negotiate cable news from the London Times. As well he arranges the merger of the Australasian wireless businesses of the German Telefunken and the British-based Marconi, forming Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd. Fascinated by the new technology of radio, Denison becomes the first managing director of AWA, which was to become Australia’s largest electronics organisation, before being succeeded by Ernest Fisk. The British press baron Lord Northcliffe, who had recently rescued The Times, found Denison a “keen, enterprising controller”.
1910: Tobacco Industrialist Hugh Denison became managing director at Sun Newspapers Ltd in Sydney. Knowing little of the press, Denison recruited Montague Grover a talented editor. The Sydney Sun rose to popularity. It was the first Australian paper to feature news rather than advertisements on the front page, and the first to buy cable news from the London Times.
1908: The publishers of Sydney’s ailing afternoon newspaper, the Australasian Star, and the Sunday Sun secured desperately needed funding from British Australasian Tobacco.
1900s: Murdoch and Packer media dynasties begin.
References
Dr Rhonda Jolly, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, 1901–1922: broadcasting powers, wartime censorship, the Herald and Weekly Times and Keith Murdoch, Parliament of Australia.
Dr Rhonda Jolly, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, 1923-1938: sealed and open radio systems, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, consolidating the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax dynasties and a Royal Commission, Parliament of Australia.
Dr Rhonda Jolly, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, 1939-1949: censorship, the Broadcasting Act, licences and a regulator, Parliament of Australia.
Dr Rhonda Jolly, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, 1950-1956: British interests, Murdoch junior, the Paton Commission and the first television licences issued, Parliament of Australia.
Dr Rhonda Jolly, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, Media ownership are regulation: a chronology, 1957-1971: new stations, ownership concentrates, Australian content and FM deferred, Parliament of Australia.
Bridget Griffen-Foley, Biography, Hugh Robert Denison, The Australian Media Hall of Fame
Northern Suburbs of Sydney's
Other Northern Suburbs of Sydney Journalists, Photographers, Filmmakers, Cartoonists, Columnists
Mark Aarons
Mark Aarons was a political adviser to NSW Labor Premier, journalist, author and activist
Reference
This is a list of notable Old Falconians, alumni of North Sydney Boys High School. The Old Falconians Union is the alumni body of the school. The name "Old Falconians" is derived from Falcon Street which is the address of the school. All those who attended the School are included, even if they were only on the roll for a short amount of time.
Tony Abbott
Abbott worked as a journalist as a student for Honi Soit (the University of Sydney student newspaper) and later The Catholic Weekly and national publications such as The Bulletin. He eventually became a journalist and wrote for The Australian. He has recently been invited to join the News Corp Board.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Hartley 'Hart' Amos
Hart Amos was an influential and prolific early Australian comic book artist. He attended North Sydney Boys High School.
Reference
This is a list of notable Old Falconians, alumni of North Sydney Boys High School. The Old Falconians Union is the alumni body of the school. The name "Old Falconians" is derived from Falcon Street which is the address of the school. All those who attended the School are included, even if they were only on the roll for a short amount of time.
James Charles (Jimmy) Bancks
1889-1952
Jimmy Bancks grew up in Hornsby when it was just beginning to develop around the new railway junction while orchards and other agricultural activities still thrived in district. He used his experiences of growing up in Hornsby to draw cartoons of a young Aussie larrikin, Ginger Meggs that became a popular cartoon in the Sunday Sun from in the 1920s.
References
https://hornsbyshire.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/2225
Ann Barry
Editor of The Ku-ring-gai Observer
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Ron Bendall
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Ron Bendall was the editor of the North Shore Times from 1990 to 2005.
He paid tribute to Gough Whitlam following his death saying, “I met Whitlam when I was a reporter with the Farm and Garden (Hills Shire Times) covering his proposal to build a second Sydney airport at Galston,”
Mr Bendall, who was brought up by a single mother himself, recalled the changes Whitlam made to pensions to offer single mothers a benefit.
“He introduced the single mother’s pension in 1973 and although my mother didn’t take it up because she’d worked her whole life, it had a big impact on people of my generation whose mums did not qualify for the widow’s pension,” he said.
References
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/north-shore/former-prime-minister-gough-whitlam-remembered-by-former-north-shore-times-editor/news-story/f8e3835487e4c17c2d01b8c6ed684e4b
John Booth from the Weekly Times
Work on this biography is currently in progress
John Booth was the editor of The Weekly Times that was published in the Ryde and Lane Cove areas.
John Brennan OAM
In 1962, he was appointed Programme Director/Music Director/Executive Producer where he formulated the highly successful “Good Guy Format”. After 26 years with 2SM he joined 2UE in the mid-80’s.
As Programme Director, John introduced a talk format that made 2UE the premier Talk Station in Australia during the late 1980’s and through the 1990’s. He took responsibility for the 2UE 'Cash for Comment' scandal and that he should have been exercising more oversight of what his Alan Jones and John Laws were doing. The penalties issued by he ABA inquiry were minor.
Tina Brown
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Peter Coleman
Peter Coleman – NSW MLA (Lib) (1968–1978), Leader of the NSW Opposition (1977–1978), MHR (Lib) (1981–1987), editor of The Bulletin
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Falconians
Jane Caro
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Harold Cazneaux
1878–1953
Harold Cazneaux' artistry influenced generations of Australian photographers.
His father, Pierce Mott Cazneaux, owned a photographic studio in New Zealand. His mother, Emma (née Bentley) was a renowned miniature portrait artist.
In 1887 the family moved to Sydney, returning to Freeman Brothers – one of the oldest and most respected photographic studios in Australia. They then moved to Adelaide to work for William H. Hammer and Co.. There, aged 18, Harold began as an artist-retoucher.
Harold was inspired by John Kaufmann, a South-Australian born photographer who pioneer the Australian Pictorialism movement.
In 1907 he exhibited carbon prints at the Photographic Society of NSW and in 1909 was given Australia’s first solo photographic exhibition to wide acclaim.
In 1917 Cazneaux set up his studio in his beautiful garden home in Roseville, where he ran a successful photographic studio until his death.
His superb photography was wildly promoted through his work as the principal photographer for Home magazine and Art in Australia owned by Sydney Ure Smith.
Read more:
Harold Cazneaux - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
Harold Cazneaux: The Quiet Observer, Helen Ennis & Phillip Adams, National Library of Australia, 1994.
‘2nd Sight: Australian photography in the National Gallery of Victoria, Isobel Crombie and Susan van Wyk, National Gallery of Victoria, 2002.
Intersections, Helen Ennis, National Gallery of Australia, 2004.
‘Silver and Grey’ Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-1950, Gael Newton, Angus & Robinson, 1980.
Kathie Comb OAM
Mrs Kathleen Joanne COMB, from Berowra, received an OAM for her service to the community of Hornsby Ku-ring-gai. She is the founder and current Managing Editor, The Bush Telegraph for the Hornsby and Berowra district, since 1986; the Managing Editor, Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Visitors Guide, The Bush Tele Community Events Calendar and Business Directory, current; Deputy Mayor, Hornsby Shire Council, 1987-1988; Councillor, Hornsby Shire Council Hornsby Shire Council, 1987-1995; Awarded of the Centenary Medal, 2003.
John Conde
Work on this biography is currently in progress
John Conde was a chairman and managing director of 2UE who lived in Turramurra. He was the son-in-law of 2UE owner Stewart Lamb.
Carolyn Darby
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Michael Dillan
Before moving to Melbourne, cameraman, Michael Dillan, did work on the northern suburbs. He was a friend of Lindfield scout leader Dale Robins.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Melissa Doyle
It is thought that 'Sunrise' presenter Melissa Doyle was at one time the owner of Paddy and May Pallin's house.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Stuart Doyle
1887-1945
Stuart Doyle was a cinema owner, film producer, radio station owner and showman.
In 1921 Doyle had launched Union Theatres on large-scale modernization of old cinemas, pioneering new standards of comfort. In 1927 he opened Australia's first 'atmospheric' theatre in Sydney, the Capitol, based on an American design, and in 1929 the elaborate State Theatre.
In 1929 Doyle founded the Australian Broadcasting Co. to provide a national wireless service. When it was nationalised by the Federal government in 1932 and converted into the Australian Broadcasting Commission, he and Frank Albert and Sir Benjamin Fuller set up the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation Ltd (with Doyle as chairman). They acquired station 2UW, Sydney, and rapidly expanded.
Doyle died suddenly aged 57 with cardio-vascular disease at his home at Wahroonga on 20 October 1945.
Reference
Graham Shirley, 'Stuart Frank Doyle (1887-1945)', Australian Dictionary of Biography
Kathy Drayton
Asquith Filmmaker
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Ernest Fisk
1886 – 1965
In 1918, at Ernest Fisk's house, Lucania, on the corner of Cleveland and Stuart Sts, Wahroonga was a world first in the history of communication. The first wireless radio message sent from the UK to Australia was received in Wahroonga, making it the longest distance wireless message ever sent, beating all previous distance records for a radio message.
Fisk, a Marconi wireless engineer, had arrived in Australia from England in 1911 to market Marconi wireless telegraph equipment to shipowners. The Marconi radio equipment was installed in the Titanic in 1912 and when the ship sunk it enabled a distress call to be sent to nearby ships. The UK Postmaster-General is reported to saying that the survivors of the Titanic owed their lives to Marconi’s ‘marvellous invention’.
By 1913, the Australian government and the Marconi company joined forces to form a new company based in Australia to sell Marconi and (German firm) Telefunken communication equipment. Three years later, Ernest Fisk was managing director of this company, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, or AWA. In the same year, Fisk married Florence Chudleigh in St John’s Church, Gordon and the couple settled in Wahroonga.
At the height of the First World War, it was becoming clear that quick and effective communication over long distances was vital for political, economic and defence purposes. At this time, all telegraphic communication between Australia and overseas was done via underwater cables, but long wave radio transmissions were now possible over longer and longer distances. With government permission, Ernest Fisk set up a radio receiver in his home, and, on September 22, 1918, the first wireless message between Australia and the UK was received in Wahroonga.
The groundbreaking message was sent by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes from a long wave radio station in Caernarvon, Wales. The message said:
‘I have just returned from a visit to the battlefields where the glorious valour and dash of the Australian troops saved Amiens and forced back the legions of the enemy. Filled with greater admiration than ever for these glorious men, and more convinced than ever that it is the duty of their fellow-citizens to keep these magnificent battalions up to their full strength.’
And the Minister for the Navy (and Hughes’ deputy) Sir Joseph Cook also sent a message:
‘Royal Australian Navy is magnificently bearing its part in the great struggle. Spirit of sailors and soldiers alike is beyond praise. Recent hard fighting brilliantly successful but makes reinforcements imperative. Australia hardly realises the wonderful reputation which our men have won. Every effort being constantly made here to dispose of Australia's surplus products.’
These first messages paved the way for quick, reliable communication between Australia and the rest of the world.
In 1935 a commemorative statue – the Fisk Memorial – was unveiled outside Fisk's Wahroonga house.
Ernest Fisk was knighted in 1937 and continued to lead AWA until 1944. He was involved in many developments in the communication industry, including the establishment of the beam wireless service between Australia and England in 1927 and the radio telephone service between Australia and England in 1930. Fisk left AWA in 1944 to become managing director of Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI), in London. He stayed until the mid 1950s, when he returned to Sydney. Sir Ernest Fisk died in Roseville in 1965.
References:
https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/people_places/north/professionals/fisk/index.html
The first direct wireless messages from England to Australia (Epoch of radio communication), Sydney, N.S.W. : Amalgamated Wireless (A/sia), ([1935] ([Sydney] : Green Press)
Printed book (limited edition) DQ654.164/3
Stewart Fist
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Peter FitzSimons
Work on this biography is currently in progress
May Gibbs
1877-1969
May Gibbs is one of Australia’s most treasured illustrators, artists and children’s author of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.
In 1905, May began a successful career as an illustrator for leading Western Australia newspaper, The Western Mail.
Working in London she cartoons for various newspapers, including the Christian Commonwealth and suffragette publication The Common Cause.
In 1913 May returned to Perth and provided satirical cartoons to the Western Mail but then moved to Sydney where she settled in a boarding house in Neutral Bay. Each day she travelled by ferry to her ‘Little Studio’ at 4 Bridge Street in Sydney where she quickly established herself as a in-demand artist and illustrator. She maintained a steady livelihood with commissions from publishers, completing book covers for Angus and Robertson, cover illustrations for prestigious literary magazine The Lone Hand and major New South Wales newspaper Sydney Mail.
In 1925 she and her husband James Ossoli Kelly built their house, Nutcote, at Neutral Bay where May lived and worked as a children’s author and illustrator for the rest of her life.
Read more:
https://maygibbs.org/about-may-gibbs/
https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/may-gibbs
https://www.maygibbs.com.au/
Joe Glascott
1931-2016
Celebrated journalist and environmental champion Joe Glascott on top of Mount Kosciuszko.
Summary of Tony Stephens, Obituary Joe Glascott: Influential journalist was instrumental in saving NSW rainforests, January 20, 2016:
Joe Glascott environmental journalism brought the campaigns to save the NSW rainforests, Manly's Norfolk pines and the campaigns to save NSW's beaches from sand mining to the nation's attention. He was there to report on why Sydney's heritage including the Queen Victoria Building, Capitol theatre and the Walsh Bay wharves should be preserved. .
The United Nations included him on a list of the world's 500 most influential environmentalists in 1987, for "outstanding contributions to protection and improvement of the environment". The Sydney Morning Herald called him "environment writer", making him the newspaper's – and Australia's – first journalist so titled. The Duke of Edinburgh said he would be interviewed in Australia only by Glascott.
He was a stubborn zealot for the environment but one whose zeal was clear-eyed and cloaked in calmness and balance. After retiring from the Herald in 1988, he championed causes linked to the harbour foreshores and Cockatoo Island, leading to the Howard government's saving defence sites around the harbour for the public. He worked with Sydney's Botanic Gardens and was on the board of the National Trust.
He loved literature, particularly John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair, and newspapers. He read widely. Joining the Herald in 1954, his coverage included politics from the NSW parliament, civic rounds from Sydney Town Hall and leader writing.
As the paper's North American correspondent from 1971 to 1975, based in New York, Glascott reported on the Watergate break-in and subsequent political furore leading to the resignation of President Nixon, the Patty Hearst kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Sioux Indian uprising and blockade at Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973, and the controversial bussing of African-American schoolchildren from deprived areas to white school districts.
Glascott's subjects ranged from major political debates to the environmental concerns of individuals pitted against hopeless odds. He wrote about the efforts of Bernie Clarke, a Botany Bay fisherman, to save the bay from further ecological damage. He wrote of Spike Milligan's campaign to save Woy Woy's first church.
Glascott's interests in the town planning of Sydney included the protection of public housing – his father and brother Jack had been removed from public housing in Surry Hills in the early 1970s. He wrote of the need to preserve public housing, particularly in the Rocks, where the trade union green bans campaign led by Jack Mundey was so successful.
Glascott wrote about the need to end whaling in Albany, Western Australia, in support of Bob Hawke government's federal intervention under the World Heritage Act to prevent construction of the Franklin Dam, and about Premier Bob Carr's fight against the woodchip industry to extend the national parks in the south coast logging region of NSW.
His Order of Australia Medal in 1982 was largely for bringing to public prominence the protests over logging in the Terania Creek rainforest. The protests led to a government inquiry and eventually to the decision of the Neville Wran government to ban rainforest logging altogether.
This protest and its outcome set the template for the preservation of about 900,000 hectares of rainforest including the Washpool, the Hastings, Eden and Coolangubra in NSW, the Daintree and later all the wet tropics in north Queensland, the Franklin and the Lemonthyme in Tasmania.
Wran said: "Terania Creek was to the natural environment what green bans were to the built environment." He added: "When we are all dead and buried and our children's children are reflecting on what was the best thing that the NSW Labor government did in the 20th century, they will come up with the answer that we saved the rainforests."
Jim Somerville, a prominent anti-logging campaigner, wrote in his memoir: "Just as we could not have won without the support of Neville Wran, equally we could not have won without the support of Joseph Glascott." Glascott wrote on retiring in 1988: "The creation of the rainforest National Parks was undoubtedly the highlight of my 14 years as the Herald environment writer."
Rupert Albert George ('Rags') Henderson
Rupert Henderson was the business brain and managing director of the Fairfax company from 1949-1964; and Chairman of ATN-7 unit 1974. It is believed that Rupert Henderson at one time lived in in Wahroonga.
Billy Hughes
From October 1907 to October 1911 Billy Hughes contributed a widely read weekly column to the Daily Telegraph.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Reference
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hughes-william-morris-billy-6761
Graham Kennedy
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Graham Kennedy at one time lived at Hunters Hill.
Malcolm Knox
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Stewart Lamb
Stewart Lamb owned 2UE.
References:
https://radioinfo.com.au/news/late-stewart-lambs-contribution-radio-industry/
Henry Lawson
1867-1922
Henry Lawson's was the son of journalist and editor Louisa Lawson an. He left school at 13 and became one of Australia's most popular story writers and poets, publishing in Australia’s newspapers.
Yet to federation Australia, Lawson was the new country’s most popular poet, bush balladeer and author. To a land looking for national identity, Lawson wrote a reality that turned into a myth. His stories captured the realism of bush life so often papered over by more romantic stylists whose antecedents rested more with English tradition and a hunger for a ‘home’ they had not seen.
Louise Lawson was an early supporter of Federation. She used money from running boarding houses to buy shares in a radical newspaper The Republican in 1887. Her literary and bohemian world imbued Lawson and his first published poem, A Song of the Republic. It ran in The Bulletin in October 1887.
Lawson published his first short story in 1888 in The Bulletin. His Father’s Mate gave a glimpse of the controlled power he had for the short sketch but his special talent lay fallow while he wrote for his mother’s newspaper. He was offered ‘‘the first, the last and only chance I got in journalism’’ on Gresley Lukin’s Brisbane Boomerang and contributed to William Lane’s The Worker.
Following the publication of his short stories, While the Billy Boils, and poems, In the Days When the World was Wide, he became literary celebrity.
Read more:
Henry Lawson - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
Michael Lester
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Reg Mahoney
Reference
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/stories/australians-wartime/mixed-feelings-pows-waited-be-released
https://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/6752906/reg-mahoneys-bush-boyhood-will-evoke-memories-of-goulburns-days-gone-by/
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Jim McDougall CBE
1903-1995
Jim McDougall was a journalist who began his career as a cadet reporter for Murdoch's Melbourne Herald. Murdoch was impressed with his talent and sent him to the Herald's London bureau for two years. He returned and was asked to keep an eye on poet C.J. Dennis, then a Herald columnist but a heavy drinker. McDougall made Australian radio-broadcasting history on 25 August 1927 when his interview from Melbourne with a subject in Sydney was transmitted live in both cities.
He returned to live in Sydney in 1937 as a sub-editor then pictorial editor of (Sir) Frank Packer's Daily Telegraph. From 1946 he transformed to the Sun where his daily column 'Contact' became a popular column receiving up to a thousand letters and phone calls each week.
He became 'perhaps one of Australia’s best-known columnist' (Newspaper News 1966, 11), with an uncanny knack for accurately predicting honours awards, senior political appointments, and Archibald prize winners. He was appointed OBE (1969) and elevated to CBE (1974) for services to journalism.
It is thought that Jim McDougall lived near Beaconsfield Avenue, Lindfield.
Research
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macdougall-james-claude-jim-22810
Amy Mack
1876-1939
Amy Mack, c. 1913, by May Moore. Public Domain, via NLA
Louise Mack, by Kerry & Co, 1890s (Photo:
National Library of Australia, nla.pic-an23474744, via ADB)
Amy Eleanor Mack was a writer of children’s books, journalist and editor. She is best known as a children's author of such books as Bushland stories (1910) and Scribbling Sue (1914) and others, as well as a journalist and an editor of Sydney Morning Herald.
Her older sister Louise and younger sister Gerttrde were also writers.
Mack married Professor Launcelot Harrison on 29 February 1908.
Amy Mack was an honorary secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales between 1920-23. She was also the first woman on the council of the Institute of Journalists in New South Wales and the only woman ever elected as vice-president of the institute.
Soon after graduating from Sydney Girls High School Mack started working as a freelance journalist. In 1907 she became an editor of the ‘Women’s Page’ of the Sydney Morning Herald and remained in this position till 1914. In 1909 Mack published her first book, A Bush Calendar, that consisted of her nature articles that previously appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.
References:
Amy Eleanor Mack (6 June 1876, Port Adelaide – 4 November 1939, Sydney),[1] also known as Amy Eleanor Harrison and Mrs. Launcelot Harrison, was an Australian writer, journalist, and editor. She was honorary secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales.[2] She is best known as a children's author of such books as Bushland stories (1910) and Scribbling Sue (1914) and others, as well as a journalist and an editor of Sydney Morning Herald.[3]
Amy Eleanor Mack was born on 6 June 1876 in Port Adelaide and was one of thirteen children in the family.[3] Her father, Rev. Hans Hamilton Mack was a Wesleyan minister from Downpatrick, Ireland, and her mother Jemima, née James, was from Armagh.[2] Due to his work her father was required to move every three years, therefore the family lived in various places in South Australia and New South Wales.[3] They left South Australia in 1878, then spent three years at Morpeth and Windsor, New South Wales, and finally settled in Sydney in 1882.[2] Mack was educated at the Sydney Girls High School.[1] Her older sister Louise and younger sister Gertude were also writers.[3]
Louise Mack - The Australian Media Hall of Fame (melbournepressclub.com)
“Death of Louise Mack” in The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 November 1935
Craig Munro, Mack, Marie Louise Hamilton (1870–1935), AustLit, 2014
Nancy Phelan, “Introduction”, The world is round by Louise Mack, Pymble, Angus & Robertson, 1993
Nancy Phelan, ‘Mack, Marie Louise (1870–1935)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch, chief executive, News Corporation, writes in the 50th anniversary
issue of the North Shore Times, Sydney (14 May 2010): ―When I first looked at the
potential for a free newspaper on the North Shore in 1960, I knew it had to be much more than a local news vehicle—it also had to reflect the lives and aspirations of people living in Sydney‘s north. I had just acquired the Cumberland Newspaper Group, a chain of highly successful suburban newspaper based in Parramatta, which held incredible potential for expansion. It was clear then that the North Shore was a prosperous area and one that would continue to grow. I felt people living north of the Harbour would welcome their very own newspaper...
―When the North Shore Times launched on 11 May 1960, it was a 40-page newsprint
edition with a circulation of 75,000. I personally oversaw production of that first edition and even today I like to keep tabs on the Times, one of two newspapers I have started from scratch in Australia*—the other being the Australian. Fifty years later, the Times is a popular and much loved bi-weekly paper, with a Friday gloss edition that frequently boasts more than 200 pages. In 2008 the Times printed a record 316-page edition.‖
[*Murdoch has obviously started more than two papers in Australia: e.g. the Brisbane
Sun, the Melbourne Sunday Herald and the Melbourne Sunday Sun.]
Reference:
AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER HISTORY GROUP NEWSLETTER, ISSN 1443-4962, No. 58 July 2010
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_Times
Juanita Nielsen
1937-1975
Nielsen was born Juanita Joan Smith to Neil Donovan Smith (of the Mark Foys retail fortune) and Vilma Grace Smith (née Meares). Her parents separated soon after her birth and she was raised by her maternal grandmother at Killara. She attended Ravenswood School for Girls at Gordon. In 1962 she married a Danish merchant seaman Jorgen Fritz Nielsen in Kobe, Japan, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1967. She was the founder of an inner city newspaper opposing the development of the Kings Cross area in the 1970s. She 'disappeared' in 1975 because of her opposition to the developments and supported Jack Mundey and the BLF's Green Bans.
Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita_Nielsen
Phil Noyce
Film director Phil Noyce has produced outstanding films including director of Newsfront, Patriot Games and Rabbit-Proof Fence
In 1968 when he was 18 years old and a year 12 student from the northern suburbs when he noticed a poster near the University of Sydney, where he was planning to study law, advertising “underground movies”.
Reference
Peter Overton
Television Journalist
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Old_Falconians
Sir Douglas Frank Packer
1906-1974
Frank Packer spent his childhood growing up in the bush around the family home at Waitara (https://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/frank-packer).
Frank attended Abbotsholme and Turramurra colleges, Wahroonga Grammar School and Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore).
References:
Bridget Griffen-Foley , Sir Douglas Frank Packer (1906–1974), Australia Dictionary of Biography
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/packer-sir-douglas-frank-11326
The House of Packer – The Making of a Media Empire, Bridget Griffen-Foley, Allen & Unwin 1999.
Sir Frank Packer – A Biography, Bridget Griffen-Foley, Sydney University Press 2014.
Peter Sinclair
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Peter Sinclair was the first North Shore Times journalist working for Rupert Murdoch's newly opened office in Miller St, North Sydney.
Peter Sinclair began his career reporting courts and councils in rural Orange (NSW) in the late 1950s then worked briefly for The Daily Telegraph where, because of his fluent shorthand, he was banished to the Coroner’s Court.
In 1965, he climbed over the journalistic fence to work as press secretary for a succession of NSW cabinet ministers (both Liberal and Labor) until 1991.
He lived in Killara and was a prolific letter writer to the North Shore Times in the mid 2000s.
Reference:
AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER HISTORY GROUP NEWSLETTER, ISSN 1443-4962, No. 58 July 2010
https://sidharta.com/author/Peter_Sinclair
Jean Posen scrapbooks, Ku-ring-gai Historical Society
Errol Simper
Described as The Australian’s longest-serving employee - 38 years - and much most-loved colleague, Errol Simper, retired in 2016. off this week. Simper was the media columnist in the Monday Media section where his column was titled A Certain Scribe. As a journalist and chief of staff three times hehas covered some of the biggest stories of the past few decades including the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain.
Reference
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/19/fairfax-keen-to-protect-its-fantastic-four-as-decades-of-talent-heads-for-exit
Dick Smith
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Dick Smith is an entrepreneur, aviator, adventurer, publisher, philanthropist and founder of the Australian Geographic magazine.
Founded in 1987 by Dick Smith founded the Australian Geographic Society is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting scientific research, protecting and fostering a love for Australia's environmental and natural heritage, encouraging the spirit of discovery and spreading the knowledge of Australia to Australians and the world in 1987. The AG Society’s members subscribe to the Australian Geographic magazine that publishes stories about Australia’s nature, culture, people and places since the first edition was published 1986.
References
https://www.theleader.com.au/story/7800619/top-50-most-influential-interesting-and-inspiring-people-on-the-beaches/
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/about-australian-geographic/
Hedley Thomas
Hedley Thomas is an Australian investigative journalist and author, who has won seven Walkley Awards, two of which are Gold Walkleys. In 2018, along with producer Slade Gibson, he won his second Gold Walkley for his podcast series The Teacher's Pet, a 14-episode investigation of the unsolved disappearance of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson in 1982. As of December 2018, the podcast series was downloaded 28 million times, and was the only Australian podcast to hit the number one spot in the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Ethel Turner
Work on this biography is currently in progress
George Warnecke
1894-1981
Through his involvement with the Irish nationalist cause he met Nora Hill, a gifted soprano and the daughter of a Dublin journalist. They married on 18 October 1924 at St Anne’s Church of England, Ryde.
Reference
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/warnecke-glen-william-george-15903
Stan Wilmot
Stan Wilmot was the 2UE's General Manager and lived om the North Shore at one time.
Tanya Wood
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Northern Suburbs of Sydney Television Stations
Work on this biography is currently in progress
Work is currently in progress in regard to the location of many of Sydney's television stations located on the northern suburbs of Sydney - SBS (Artarmon), Channel 10 (Delhi Road, North Ryde), Channel 7 (Mobbs Avenue, Epping), Until the 1960s Channel 7 had a tower not far from the ABC tower along Pacific Highway towards St Leonards on the corner of Mowbray, TCH-9 (Channel 9) - first TV station at Willoughby and owned by Sir Frank Packer.
CHANNEL 7
The initial transmission tower in 1956 was located near the ABC tower at Gore Hill, Sydney. This was eventually demolished after ATN was invited to share a new site at Artarmon which was built by a new 3rd, commercial broadcaster TEN-10.
CHANNEL 10
ATN was invited to share a new site at Artarmon which was built by a new 3rd, commercial broadcaster TEN-10.
“Artarmon Triangle”
“Sydney’s TV Towers”
SBS
FOX SPORTS
FOX SPORTS Australia Pty Limited (FOX SPORTS) is Australia’s leading producer of sports
television coverage and is home to Australia’s favourite subscription television sports channels as well as Australia’s number one general sports website. FOX SPORTS is owned by News Corp Australia and is located in a brand-new (2013), purpose-built broadcast facility in Artarmon on Sydney’s north shore, with operations nationwide.
2NSB Northside – FM 99.3
The station began broadcasting in May 1983 from a property in Orchard Road, Chatswood, transmitting to the North Shore – an area that covers the Municipalities of Willoughby, Lane Cove, North Sydney, Mosman and Ku-ring-gai.
The station was originally broadcasting on FM91.5. Following a move to the FM99.3 frequency in 2003, the station was rebranded Rhythm & Jazz, encompassing a range of genres from traditional jazz to smooth jazz, funk, soul, blues and world music. The station now serves the whole of the North Shore community with a mix of music best described as ‘adult contemporary’, with a wide range of news, views, information and just good fun.
2MBS FM 102.5
The station is run by the Music Broadcasting Society of NSW Co-operative Ltd. The Society was formed in 1970 with the intention of broadcasting ‘fine music’
2GB was owned by the Theosophical Society and named after Giorano Bruno, the 16th Century martyr to free thought.
2KY owned by the Trades & Labour Council.
References:
https://abc17603.wordpress.com/history/workplaces/entertainment/radio-tv/
https://vintage-radio.com.au/default.asp?f=10&th=8
History of Radio in Australia Courtesy CMS Radio FM 91.1
http://www.foxsports.com.au/about-us
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