1932
The Play School rocket clock
Your ABC
Thousands of Australian children learned how to tell the time by looking at the rocket clock – a large rocket with a clock face near its tip that featured in a regular segment on the children’s television program Play School. The naive style is typical of the 1950s. Based on an English show, Play School became one of the longest-running and most popular shows on Australian television, and a childhood experience shared by Australians in every location and every possible demographic.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (formerly the Australian Broadcasting Commission) is the cement that holds Australia together. For 80 years, the ABC has been the one public amenity that binds all Australians and is used in some way by all Australians at some point in each day. More than 80 per cent of Australians approve of the ABC and believe it is a trusted source. In times of distress, it is the national information source.
In 1932 the federal government nationalised 12 failing regional radio stations and amalgamated them into a new network. Like the British Broadcasting Corporation, the ABC was funded by licences. Prime Minister Joe Lyons made the first speech on the network, at 8 p.m. on 1 July 1932.
The ABC’s brief was to offer music, news and current affairs, sport, drama, children’s educational supplements and school broadcasts. The first day’s programs included a Children’s Session, ‘Racing Notes’ and a call of the races at Randwick, ‘British Wireless News’ received by cable from London, weather, stock exchange and shipping news, the ABC Women’s Association on ‘commonsense housekeeping’, and a talk on goldfish and their care, as well as ‘Morning Devotions‘ and music.
From that point, the ABC gradually evolved. News bulletins used to be a simple read-out of the newspaper, but in the late 1940s the ABC began hiring its own journalists and establishing an independent news service. It was also during the 1940s that the formal relationship with the government was codified to ensure the ABC’s independence. Parliament began to be broadcast. That service and coverage of Test cricket were essential pan-Australian services linking the country.
There have long been claims that the ABC has a left-wing bias driven by its staff, but every inquiry into the matter has found this not to be the case, and that ABC reporting is balanced. A survey of ABC journalists who have become politicians found that 10 went Labor and nine went Liberal.
ABC radio began the Argonauts Club in 1933 but it went on hiatus until 1941 when it was revived as part of the Children’s Session. Named for the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the club was a national organisation. Members were given a card with a pseudonym and a number – and many remembered their names and numbers for the rest of their life. Argonauts were encouraged to send in stories and contributions. Each day guests would provide educational and improving talks. At its height, the Argonauts had 50 000 members around the country. The program ran six days a week for 28 years.
Prime Minister Robert Menzies launched ABC TV on 5 November 1956, and children’s programming on that medium has also been critical. One of the first programs was Kindergarten Playtime, which ran until Play School replaced it.
Based on the BBC program of the same name, Play School was first broadcast on 18 July 1966. The program revolves around simple activities appropriate for preschool children, such as telling the time, reading stories, playing games and craft activities. All of the craft activities are created with items that can be found in the home. The Play School theme song, beginning with ‘There’s a bear in there’, is one of the most widely known Australian songs.
Some 80 per cent of children under six in Australia watch Play School at least one day each week. So many Australians have grown up with the program that toys from the show Big Ted, Little Ted and Jemima are national icons. Play School was a launching pad for The Wiggles in the early 1990s, but perhaps the most significant of all Play School segments is the Bananas in Pyjamas. The song, by Carey Blyton (nephew of Enid), was incorporated into the program’s repertoire in 1976. By the late 1980s the Bananas were being played by actors, and then in 1992 they graduated to their own TV show with teddy bears Morgan, Amy and Lulu. The Bananas have since become known around the world.
Play School has attracted many of Australia’s best actors and screen performers as hosts, including Lorraine Bayly, Benita Collings, John Hamblin, John Waters, Noni Hazlehurst, Colin Friels, Philip Quast, Simon Burke, Deborah Mailman, Rhys Muldoon, Justine Clarke, Brooke Satchwell, Georgie Parker and Eddie Perfect.
There isn’t space here to list all of the ABC’s achievements in broadcasting. Its news and current affairs programs represent the gold standard in reporting, despite the organisation’s small budgets, and the departments of drama and light entertainment have produced some of Australia’s most loved and most influential programming.
The ABC now operates with a total annual budget of $1.22 billion to cover four television stations plus the Australia Network and Radio Australia. It operates a national radio network and a network of regional and metropolitan stations, as well as youth network triple j, classical music network Classic FM, and a range of online and new media initiatives.
The ABC has always courted controversy and complaint, be it about bias, moral standards or a thousand other issues. The controversies always reflect the arguments raging in the community at large. But for all its perceived faults, the ABC and its programming and products reflect and define Australia and its people.