{"id":191,"date":"2017-11-26T19:40:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T09:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/?page_id=191"},"modified":"2017-12-10T18:31:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T08:31:07","slug":"191-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/national-film-and-sound-archive\/191-2\/","title":{"rendered":"ATV0 the early years"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is John Fife (JF<\/strong>) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 We were talking last week about the establishment of channel 0, and it occurs to me that really they fought early a bit to start with didn\u2019t they, with that frequency problem.\u00a0 What was all that about?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well, what happened\u2026\u00a0 I filmed them digging out a tunnel and building and there was an interview with Reg in front of it, and we used to put out weekly bulletins through the tower which was already operational.\u00a0 And from the tower we used to play music and show some silent footage of channel 0 being built.<\/p>\n

Once the building was finished and the equipment started to come in, the tech was really ripped \u2013 you know, they were like really surprised.\u00a0 \u2018What is this?\u00a0 Gee whiz, this is the latest where you don\u2019t have the wires all over the place but you have a little slide that you put it in a rack!\u2019 and they were surprised at the advancement in technology. \u00a0\u00a0And that was put into the equipment, because most of the techos that I had from ABC or 9, and they were used to old type of piece of copper wire and soldering, where you had to look for faults or anything else.\u00a0 But here, you had racks that you actually could do a slide up with another slide in, with little transistors and what have you, and things got fixed.<\/p>\n

The equipment that arrived was first class.\u00a0 It was American equipment, first class.\u00a0 And once we went on air, picture was beautiful – except you couldn\u2019t see it in Melbourne because it was a different frequency!\u00a0 It was a frequency made for long distance.\u00a0 You could actually\u2026 when we were in Hayman *Island doing a story there with Mary Queen? we could actually receive little snippets of channel 0 from Melbourne, up as far as Queensland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, I don\u2019t know whether Reg put something special into there so we could watch it because this was his island!\u00a0 But you couldn\u2019t do it in Melbourne.\u00a0 So they tried everything.<\/p>\n

They invented firstly, they were going round homes and free of charge adjust their television sets, which meant changing the direction of the antenna and changing something else \u2013 which interfered with the other channels.\u00a0 So that wasn\u2019t good enough, and somebody designed a little black box that you put it in through your aerial and your television set, and they were given free to people in Melbourne and surrounds, just anywhere they want it, so they can put it onto their television set so that they could see channel\u00a0 0.<\/p>\n

Well, that worked but not 100 percent because you wouldn\u2019t have everybody looking at putting some additions to it.\u00a0 You know, it\u2019s different now with a set top box or whatever.\u00a0 But in those days it was nuisance.\u00a0 So basically, channel 0 was so far behind as far as viewers were concerned, that the revenue wasn\u2019t coming in because advertisers weren\u2019t keen to give you money when you can\u2019t be received in Melbourne!<\/p>\n

So that was a constant struggle.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 But the programs were good programs?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 There were some terrific programs.\u00a0 Magic Circle Club, Young Talent Time, Ray Taylor Show \u2013 there were some very very good programs that would have rated the pants off everybody else if they could have been received in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 So what was the attitude of the people on the road?\u00a0 Other crews, did they look down on channel 0?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Oh, they just sniggered.\u00a0 What are you going to go with this for, you can\u2019t even see you anyway!\u2019\u00a0 You know, what are you bothering about?\u00a0 Which is a bit of bullying to put you down in what you do, because Melbourne news were doing really well and at one stage they were beating everybody.\u00a0 And then they had to do something about it, so they, channel 9 used money to buy people out!\u00a0 (Laughs)<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Was that when they started to get personalities for the news?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 One that really pulled the plug from under channel 9 was (David) Johnson and Jana (Wendt) with their sort of humorous little bit of bantering around, plus we had quite a concise news service.\u00a0 Our pictures were always good, we were always filmed within the top time of providing service, and channel 9 discovered that they were losing ratings left, right and the middle.<\/p>\n

Channel 7 wasn\u2019t even in the race.\u00a0 So what happened?\u00a0 They bought Jana and then they bought what\u2019s her name –\u00a0 Jo Pearson.\u00a0 So the personalities were gone, the type of news service was gone.\u00a0 And Johnson alone just couldn\u2019t pull them in.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Yeah, I remember that when I came in 76, I think Bruce Mansfield was reading the news for channel 0, and maybe Naylor was possibly over at 7, or Johnson.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0\u00a0 Well, Bruce was a bit of disaster.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t really a newsreader was he?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well, he\u2019s Mister 10 percent.\u00a0 (chuckles)\u00a0 No, not really\u2026<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 In fact, having Bruce on board was heavy baggage in a way, because news reading \u2013 he was regarded more as an entertainer wasn\u2019t he.<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Well, he was just a voice over man really,\u00a0 like Geoff?\u00a0 Like Smith at channel 9.\u00a0 He\u2019s been there for years, but to put him down as a newsreader or whatever the management did\u2026<\/p>\n

The problem was that the management keep changing, and the management keep changing people.<\/p>\n

For instance, we had a program called \u2018Dateline\u2019 which was fronted up by Barry McQueen, Mickey *deStoup, Andrew Carroll, Phil Monteley?\u00a0 And that was rating up to about 26 \u2013 28.\u00a0 So every time the ratings came out and they were high, the program was changed to a different time slot.\u00a0 And then the ratings would drop down and gradually work it up again, as soon as it goes up to a higher figure \u2013 stop it there, put it somewhere else!<\/p>\n

And final knockout was when we did a story about an agricultural college in Sunbury discharging pigsty into the local creek.\u00a0 Beautiful pictures of green slime getting into the creek and pigs just about 2 metres from the creek itself.\u00a0 Everything\u2019s overflowing, flowing into the creek, and well of course, we got clobbered by people who said that whoever is making disreputable of them, and the nuns refused to fly and the friars used to stop praying \u2013 and that was the end of Dateline.<\/p>\n

Because Dateline was virtually based on \u2018you ring us and we\u2019ll go and investigate\u2019.\u00a0 Which was a story that actually made Willesee rich afterwards, with his dude busting which we did for years.\u00a0 Except that when we started rating, the program was taken off.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 What was the story with the nuns and the friars?\u00a0 I\u2019m not quite with you there.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Well the friars owned the piggery and the school, Whitefriars.\u00a0 And we had two priests actually turn up in our boardroom and basically, blatantly say \u2018Well, you know, consider the possibility of withdrawing our support for transport as far as our people are concerned unless you do something about this problem.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Political pressure.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Did political pressure happen a lot?\u00a0 Was Reg quite happy for the news to run as it did?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Basically he was really happy for the news to run as it did.\u00a0 His management was considering the possibility of losing a lot of aircraft passengers one way or another, so management says \u2018Look, we\u2019ll just have to fold.\u2019\u00a0 Same thing, we had a story on swimming pools \u2013 roman pools, which is same company that is manufacturing blinds and what have you, and garage doors.<\/p>\n

Well the pools were alright, except that what they were doing, the walls of the dugout and the plastic, they used to put polystyrene in it.\u00a0 Well of course, polystyrene is not strong enough to withstand the pressure of the water, and the pools used to crack within about a fortnight after being installed, and they wouldn\u2019t accept the responsibility because they didn\u2019t really know what was going on.\u00a0 Well they DID, but then they, you know.<\/p>\n

So we did two stories on that, on two pools, showing what was wrong and what they looked like, and of course the tear jerkers, my children for Christmas, and all this sort of crap.\u00a0 And of course the company that manufactured them said \u2018Okay, fine.\u00a0 We\u2019ll withdraw all our advertising of the rest of our products.\u2019<\/p>\n

So every time you did something wrong, you were dead against the wall.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have protection.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 You can\u2019t really run a current affairs show and not upset people.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme.\u00a0 My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP). JF:\u00a0 We were talking last week about the establishment of channel 0, and it occurs to me that really they fought early a bit … <\/p>\n

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