ATV is a television station in Melbourne, Australia, part of Network 10 – one of the three major Australian free-to-air commercial television networks. The station is owned by Paramount Networks UK & Australia.
History
In April 1963, the licence to operate Melbourne's third commercial television station was awarded to Austarama Television, owned by transport magnate Reginald Ansett. The new channel, ATV-0 (pronounced as the letter O, never the number zero), began transmission on 1 August 1964 from a large modern studio complex located in the then-outer eastern suburb of Nunawading, in the locality now known as Forest Hill, but referred to at the time as Burwood East.
The new station opened with a preview program hosted by Barry McQueen and Nancy Cato followed by a variety program, This Is It!. Reception difficulties in parts of the city resulted in the station's virtually permanent third position in the Melbourne television ratings.
In 1964, under Reg Ansett, ATV-0 opened their studios in Nunawading, which was at the time the first purpose-built commercial television station in Melbourne. It was also the studio where the first ever colour broadcast in Australia would be filmed, leading to its consideration for heritage status in 2018.
ATV-0 had been experimenting with colour transmissions from 1967, when the station was the first to mount a colour outside broadcast in Australia, from the Pakenham races. Many other colour test transmissions occurred subsequently. Full-time colour transmission was introduced to ATV-0 in March 1975 in line with other stations around the country.
Rupert Murdoch gained a controlling interest in Sydney television station TEN-10 in 1979 and had bought a controlling stake in transport company Ansett, owner of Austarama Television (licensee of ATV-0). That triggered a government inquiry into media ownership, the main concern being Murdoch having a controlling interest in television stations in Australia's two largest cities, ignoring the fact that the Kerry Packer-owned Australian Consolidated Press had controlled the Nine Network channels in Melbourne and Sydney for many years.
Due to problems in reception and falling ratings, and the desire to move TV stations out of the VHF band so as to enable FM radio in Australia, the station moved frequency and call-sign from ATV-0 to ATV-10, after getting the agreement of neighbouring Gippsland station GLV-10 to change its frequency to become GLV-8.
On 20 January 1980, the revamped ATV-10 was launched with a jingle campaign ("You're on Top With Ten"), Graham Kennedy's introductory presentation and 10's Summer Sunday, a 3-hour live outside broadcast from Torquay Beach. Later in the evening, You're On Top With Ten with Kennedy provided a preview of upcoming shows on the new channel, followed by the movie-length pilot for new drama series Arcade.
On 11 February 1980, Eyewitness News was relaunched with David Johnston and Jana Wendt as chief newsreaders. By May, Eyewitness News went back to its former one-hour duration, claiming that it was "First in Melbourne" due to its many innovations and historic moments and the fact that in the 1970s ATV was the first of the now "Network Ten" stations to adopt the Eyewitness News brand and the one-hour newscast(with the first 1-hour newscast debuting in November 1975). Wendt left the channel in 1981 with Charles Slade replacing her and was later replaced by Jo Pearson, who served till 1988, joined by Mal Walden in 1987 and by the next year by Tracey Curro.
By the end of 1981, Murdoch had finally received approval for control of ATV-10.
The 1986 transfer of Neighbours to the Ten Network (from the Seven Network) proved to be a success. Aside from its use of suburban locations in Melbourne itself, ATV-10's Nunawading studios were used to produce the program.
On 7 September 1992, ATV-10 relocated from the station's famous Nunawading studios to the Como Centre in inner suburban South Yarra. The Nunawading complex is now operated by Fremantle Media, while the Como Centre studios in South Yarra are used for The Project as well as news, current affairs, entertainment and sport programs.
In 2004, Network 10 finished second nationally, and in ATV-10's Melbourne region, only behind the dominant Nine Network.