Adelaide's Channel 9's live entertainment gifted by radio, music and theatre tradition, in old Methodist church
Lionel Williams brought his Adelaide radio experience to NWS Channel 9's early days . At right: The former Primitive Methodist Church on Wellington Square that became Studio 9 for the channel.
The official opening of Adelaide first television station, NWS Channel 9, at 7 pm on September 5, 1959, by South Australian premier Tom Playford had to be within a temporary studio – the women's dressing room – in the channel’s Tynte Street, North Adelaide, building.
A fire has destroyed most of the new studios even before the opening. Work on the studio had only started 10 months earlier while a 505 feet transmission tower was put up on Mount Lofty. Station owner Rupert Murdoch, also proprietor of The News, was in the audience or the opening but most viewers were at the homes of friends or relatives who had a television set or they gathered around the windows of electrical shops in Rundle Street.
Despite this raw start, Channel 9 was presenting live entertainment in shows such as Adelaide Tonight a month later on October 17, 1959. The show ran for four nights a week at 9.30pm live from Studio 1.
This was possible because of the steading experience of Adelaide radio talent such as Kevin Crease and Lionel Williams. A tradition of live radio shows and theatre entertainment in Adelaide also meant a ready supply of musical and comedic talent. Julie Anthony, a 16-year-old singer from country South Australia, was among many who became regulars on the shows, with later interstate exposure The Country and Western Hour, that launched national careers.
In a very Adelaide twist, Studio 9, within the Channel 9 studio complex, was the former Primitive Methodist church on the Wellington Street corner, dating back to 1882. Its church service days ended in 1929 but it took on a theatrical bent when dance teachers Joanne Priest and Mrs. F.W. Cornell used it as the Studio Theatre from the 1930s. Television watching did take its toll on live theatre.
By June 1960, with three Adelaide channels, 84,967 licences had been issued in South Australia. By June 1964, this had risen to 194,430, but still trailed the 266,027 radio licences issued that year. Television gradually spread to country areas as transmission improved. In the early 1960s, with the state suffering an economic slump, television gave home entertainment. At around £200, a television set was expensive but soon came to be considered almost essential, especially as it could be bought on time payment.
