50 years of News and Sport

News has been a staple part of our television diet since NWS Nine went to air half a century ago. The first newsreader was John Doherty - his horn-rimmed glasses becoming a trademark. He became a nightly visitor to our living rooms delivering the news of the day right from that first night in September 1959.

John Doherty, First Newsreader: "The fact that you could sit down at quarter to seven as it was then, and watch a quarter hour of news. It was a coverage that had world news, Australian news and local news and that was basically all condensed into a quarter hour. That changed people's lives, I'm quite sure of that."

It certainly did. John, and later our own Kevin Crease became the human face of Nine News. It was Creasey who brought us the big stories like the moon landing and the assassination of JFK. But in the early days news wasn't instant - it took days to reach our shores and our screens. These days we can beam live pictures to or from almost anywhere in the state of the world for that matter. In this digital age news has never been more instant - and the bigger it is the more we still turn to TV to see the pictures for ourselves.

Rob Kelvin, Nine News: "Remember 9/11? That happened at 10.30 at night. Almost from that moment it was shown continually throughout the world - anybody anywhere in the world could see it. We covered 9/11 for about three days."

Sport has been a big part of Channel Nine Adelaide too - our Grand Prix' were broadcast to the world and the Crow's Grand Final Parade in 1998 was one of the great sporting moments. But years before anyone dreamed of Adelaide teams playing on the national stage, Channel Nine was fostering a vigorous local competition.

Ian 'Daisy' Day, Former Football Commentator: "In 1964 I finished the last game with South were on top in 64 and in 65 that's when they decided they were going to televise football full time. And that's when the bidding started between the channels and from 1965 on I was just lucky - I was about the only player to retire that year - a premiership player to boot. Blair Schwartz rang me up and said 'how would you like to call a game of football?' I said 'I wouldn't have a clue how to do it?' he said 'neither do we'. I said yes and that's how it started."

Ian 'Daisy' Day was a Channel 9 commentator and he remembers the hey-day of local footy and the Sunday Sports show - again it was live - it was raw - but it was history.

Over the years Nine's sports shows developed their own unique styles with their own unique characters. Sport was the winner as the Nine programs garnered a loyal following of viewers keen to see what the likes of KG and Neil Kerly would get up to each week on the Footy Show. The Channel Nine archives are full of classic moments in sport and the role it's played in Australia's psyche.