50 years of Channel 9 Adelaide

Television holds the mirror up to a changing society and that's certainly the case since Channel Nine first began broadcasting in 1959. The annual Christmas Pageant is a barometer of sorts about the state's fortunes. For more than 70 years hundreds of thousands of people have been lining the city streets to celebrate the arrival of the big fella in red. Viewers watched the 1972 telecast in black and white but back at the Channel Nine studios staff were seeing it on glorious colour. The technicians were using the Pageant to test the new colour gear before the official switchover in 1974.

The 1970s was a landmark decade in other ways too. It was the era of big hair, tight pants and a big sound. The rock program Move, compared by ex Valentines singer Vince Lovegrove ran for several years on Saturday mornings. It attracted some of the biggest names in Australian rock'n'roll like Axiom with Brian Cadd and Glen Shorrock who went on to front the Little River Band.

The NWS Nine studios were a hothouse of rock'n'roll talent including Fraternity with the late Bon Scott who'd become a rock legend with ACDC.

A lot of the people that went through the Channel 9 machine went on to bigger and better things and that includes us - Postcards. Our Postcards format has been picked up and emulated in several states of Australia. The Postcards brand started right here nearly fifteen years ago. The idea for Postcards was and still is quite simple - tell a good yarn about our place in the world - South Australia. Now we are more than 500 programs in, we've told some two and half thousand stories and mercifully you are still watching and we are very grateful and humbled.

In a way, Postcards has carved out quite a distinctive chapter in Adelaide's Channel 9 story. For instance there are three best selling books - On the Road gain, a Few of Our Favourites and Day Trips from Adelaide, that was huge. And then three DVDs too - The Ghan - which is a national icon of course, Postcards South Australia and we really loved doing our tribute to the River Murray.

Postcards is just one of a raft of programs that has helped get NWS Nine get to the half century. That's a big achievement - 50 fun-filled years - plenty of highs, a few lows and big changes too not just in the technology but also in the world we seek to reflect. We know that a lot of you have grown up with all this and we look forward to the next 50 years.