The first live production, This Is It! followed at 7.00pm hosted by Ray Taylor, who would go on to host ATV0’s regular Saturday night talk show. Later the same year, United Telecasters Sydney Limited was awarded the licence to operate Sydney’s third commercial TV station and in September announced their new channel’s callsign, TEN10.Īfter months of test transmissions, Melbourne’s ATV Channel 0 made its official debut at 6.30pm Saturday 1 August 1964 with an opening preview by newsreader Barry McQueen and children’s presenter Nancy Cato. A few months later construction began on studios in the outer Melbourne suburb of Nunawading. In April 1963, Reginald Ansett’s Austarama Television was awarded the licence to operate Melbourne’s third commercial television station.
Older TV sets had to be re-tuned to receive the new channel 0 frequency (Picture: TV Times, 1964)īy 1963, the Government had announced plans to licence an additional commercial TV channel in the capital cities Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.