An
interview with Bert Newton taken
from Australian magazine New
Idea 10 August 02
While TV has changed over the decades, one face has been there for more than 40 years.
if there were ever any doubts that Bert Newton is the uncrowned
king of Australian television, the reception he received at this year's
Logies well and truly put paid to them.The television industry is not
easily impressed by one of its own and when Bert's peers spontaneously
rose to their feet and greeted him with a thunderous roar of applause, their
acknowledgment said it all.
Bert's relationship with television began only a matter of months after it
was launched, so a more fitting 'expert' on TV's history and the way it has
mirrored - and influenced - our development as a society
would be hard to find.
He recalls a fond image of the nation's first encounter with
television. There were pockets of people with eyes glued to the new
medium suddenly springing up outside practically every electrical store around
the country,' he laughs.
'Sometimes there'd be up to 200 people, including children in pyjamas
and dressing gowns, often having travelled for miles on public transport,
just to plonk themselves down to watch
the "magic box".'
Contrary to popular opinion, Bert believes that 'for the first 20 years
television brought families together'.
'It may have ended the period of us all sitting at a dining table. But
remember there would have been only one TV set in a home and most of the
programming was skewed at a very broad demographic (a term which
wasn't even known in those days), so the family would watch as one.
'At 6pm everyone would sit with their TV meals on their laps and watch until
close, which was usually around 11pm.'
Television began in 1956 but the Federation of Australian Commercial
Television Stations (FACTS) didn't come into existence until 1960.
The first four years were therefore classification-free and censorship
was left to the discretion of executives, producers and the talent.
'It was an unusual feeling because everyone in the industry was starting
off together. We got away with a lot of stuff because there was no
comparison,' he says, explaining that even in films, television was hardly
mentioned because big movie studios saw it as the enemy and
so they did nothing to promote it.
'It was a brand new start. Almost like a new land being discovered,'
Bert muses.
About a month after commencing as host of The Late Show at Channel
Seven in 1957, a producer informed the 19-year old compere that they
were going to try something new. 'He told me we were going to be
doing some subliminal advertising,' says Bert, admitting he had absolutely
no idea at the time what the producer
was talking about.
The practice was stopped the following day. Bert recalls his shock
when he learnt that people had been unaware they had
received advertising hype.
'My background was in radio where you were a voice without a face,' he
says. 'I think it was my second night at Channel Seven working with Noel
Ferrier when I was travelling home on
a tram that I became conscious that people were staring at something.
It was me!' he laughs.
But it was impossible to become 'too big for your boots' back in those
days. With national television still a long way off, local 'stars' like Bert
would leave one state as household names and arrive in another state
as a virtual nobody.
'It was an unusual feeling because everyone in the industry was starting
off together. We got away with a lot of stuff because there was no
comparison,' he says, explaining that even in films, television was hardly
mentioned because big movie studios saw it as the enemy and
so they did nothing to promote it.
