60 years young: Channel Nine Perth kicked off with songs and jokes – and maintained its high spirits

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

It all began on a Saturday night 60 years ago — June 12 to be exact — with a pictorial celebration of the city, Montage of Perth, and ending with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons singing and dancing their way through Guys and Dolls.
But the most intriguing part of the opening night popped up in the middle of the evening with the locally produced a half-hour sketch comedy show called All My Eye and Betty Martin Too featuring the bearded, accordion-playing Pinjarra-raised entertainer Peter Harries dressed as Mr Whippy.
'Perth City Council had moved to ban Mr Whippy playing Greensleeves because it was annoying people,' remembers Harries.
'So I dressed up in a white tunic and white hat and sang [to the tune of the traditional English folk song], 'Alas, dear sirs, you do me wrong, to cast a ban on my ice cream song'.'
Unfortunately, All My Eye and Betty Martin Too, a Perth version of the British news satire That Was The Week That Was and Seven's Mavis Bramston Show, was pulled after 14 weeks as the incipient station cast around for a point of difference from its Dianella neighbour TVW-Seven, which launched six years earlier.
'We were 30 years ahead of our time,' chuckles Harries, who despite being on the cusp of 90 still has vivid memories of the night our second commercial television station came on line.
'We were easily beaten by a variety show on Seven hosted by Gary Garvolth. Indeed, the whole station struggled in the early days.'
Harries held on to his job and became one of the station's most popular performers, appearing on the Channel Niners Club (along with Veronica Overton, ventriloquist Ron Blasket and Gerry Gee and musician Peter Piccini) and became part of tradition of breeziness and warmth that has distinguished Nine from its more traditionalist commercial rival.
On Thursday night there will be a nostalgia-filled glimpse of the early days of Nine Perth when Harries joins many of the station's former stars such as Jenny Seaton, Jo Beth Taylor, Chris Woodland, Terry Willessee and Jenny Dunstan in Celebrating 60 Years: Channel Nine Perth, a 90-minute special hosted by newsreaders Michael Thompson and Tracey Vo.
Nine Perth's history is also being celebrated with an exhibition at the WA Museum Boola Bardip that includes one of Channel 9 Perth's first studio cameras and a Steenbeck flatbed editing suite used for splicing tape for broadcast in the 1960s.
Nineteen-year-old Seaton (nee Clemesha) was working at Boans as an announcer and fashion show host when she was asked by the legendary smoothie Lloyd Lawson, who had crossed over from Seven to Nine, to audition to be a stand-in for weather girl Veronica Overton.
'There weren't a lot of people experienced in public speaking back then, so there wasn't a lot of competition. I bluffed my way through, quite frankly,' laughs Seaton.
Seaton did such a fine job filling in for Overton she was given her own gig, Women's World, and worked on a range of other programs, including children's and panel shows.
'All for a $150 a week,' she laughed.
'It was so exciting. There were so many talented, creative people working together to get a television station up and running. It was all brand new. We were making things up as we were going.
'And you have to remember that so much of it was live television. It was like a mini Hollywood. Big sets, huge studio cameras, outside broadcasts.
'And this was going on every day.'
Seaton spent 15 years at Nine before moving to Seven, and her long experience with both stations has given her insight into the difference between the two broadcasters.
'Seven was always a more conservative station because of the people who started the station, such as Sir James Cruthers,' she says.
'Nine always felt like more fun. Hey Hey It's Saturday over in Sydney captured vibe at Nine.'
Former Nine producer and presenter Jenny Dunstan agrees that the station always had an upbeat vibe.
'Channel Nine to me was always one of the friendliest and more progressive TV stations. I had a childhood dream to work with Channel Nine,' says Dunstan who eventually became the full-time presenter for young people's programming and family entertainment.
Nine Perth was so committed to entertainment that they hired one of the stars of the racy 70s soap The Box – Melbourne actor Barrie Barkla – as an all-round presenter and to do the weather.
Sometimes that commitment to keeping it light backfired. Barkla was fired for an April Fool's stunt, when he was asked by the news crew to dress up as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was rumoured to be gate-crashing the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference.
'They told me to get down to the airport where there's a uniform and a make-up person waiting for you. We put it to air, but the bosses were furious and fired everyone involved. For about two hours we weren't working for STW-9,' Barkla, 82, says over the phone from his home in Adelaide.
It is hardly surprising that with Nine's light and bright brand they would be first station in the country to broadcast in colour in 1974, be the first to broadcast for 24 hours and be targeted by the country's most flamboyant businessman, Alan Bond, who ran the entire network from Perth for a few years in the 1980s.
'Straight away it was apparent that we were meant to be doing braver and bolder things in news,' former Nine news director Terry Spence recalls in tonight's show.
Bond's involvement in sailing meant that Spence's team had a ringside seat for the famous 1983 victory in the America's Cup and its defence in Fremantle four years later, with cameras placed in the boats transforming a remote event into a white-knuckle ride.
Sport has been so central to the Nine Perth brand that it was not surprising that in 2018 its highest-profile sports presenter, Michael Thompson, was tapped to be its weeknight news presenter, giving the station a genuinely appealing focal point in its continuing battle against cross-town rivals Seven.
Thompson believes the character of Nine goes back before Bondy to another sporting moment intertwined with the station's history – the creation of the World Series Cricket in 1977.
'Kerry Packer took on the cricket establishment and injected some of that Sydney flare,' says Thompson, who began his career in journalism with The Daily News and joined Nine in 1987.
'While Nine Perth is a very news-driven organisation we understand the need for light and shade.
'A huge team is involved in putting together the news. As newsreaders, Tracy and I have the privilege of seeing how it all comes together, so we see the whole picture.
'Sometimes the day's news can be very challenging, so you just need something that is a bit of fun or a bit lighter. As a presenter you really feel that.
'You feel the need to mix up the stories so it's not all heavy news.'
'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day.'
Michael Thompson
Vo agrees that there is a real difference between the way Nine and their great rival Seven present the news.
'We have always had a more conversational approach to presenting the news,' says Vo, who joined the Nine Network in Sydney in 2007 and returned to Perth permanently in 2020.
'We have never wanted to come across as news anchors and presenters. We want to be the people who tell you the story. It is your story, not ours.'
Thompson and Vo say that being involved in tonight's 60th birthday show reminded them of how much has changed in news presentation, even while they've been at the station.
'We are now finding that people on the streets are journalists,' says Vo.
'They film events on the streets and send them to us. Or post them on our social media accounts. So they have become our eyes on the ground.
'Compare this to the days when a journalist had to use a pay phone to file a story.'
But with all these changes, Thompson remains convinced that traditional television news has a future.
'The overall reach of Seven and Nine last night would have been over 300,000,' he says.
'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day.
'They want the nuts and bolts, the news you can't afford to miss.
'And they want it to be presented in a way that reflects the gravity of those events but balanced with something that brings a smile.'