60 YEARS OF TASSIE TELEVISION

Reflecting on 60 years of television in Tasmania

THEN, WHEN THEY CHANGED BOSS POSS TO A FULL-SIZE COSTUME, THEY REALISED I WAS TOO BIG TO FIT INSIDE IT, SO THEY JUST MADE ME THE HOST INSTEAD — THAT’S ALL THE QUALIFICATION YOU NEEDED BACK THEN!

LEGISLATIVE COUNCILLOR AND FORMER TV HOST CRAIG FARRELL

PERHAPS it is fitting that the 60th anniversary of television in Tasmania comes at a time when people are stuck at home, watching more TV than ever before.

But in between bingewatching entire seasons of big-budget overseas productions on Netflix, take a moment to cast your mind back to the heyday of television in Tassie, when our industry was a miniature Hollywood in its own right.

Craig Farrell, now a Legislative Councillor, fondly recalls the glory days of Tasmanian TV production, and his special place in its history.

For five years, from 1989-94, he hosted The Cartoon Company, Hobart’s Saturday morning cartoon show, alongside Boss Poss.

“I used to be the puppeteer for a hand-puppet version of

Boss Poss when the show was hosted by Julia Gibson,” he said.

“Then, when they changed Boss Poss to a full-size costume, they realised I was too big to fit inside it, so they just made me the host instead — that’s all the qualification you needed back then!”

Television first appeared in

Australia in 1956, and Tasmania followed four years later in 1960.

On May 23, 1960, TVT6 (now WIN Television) was the first to begin regular transmissions in Tasmania, closely followed by ABC’s southern Tasmanian station ABT2.

Northern Tasmania’s own station TNT9 (Now Seven

Tasmania) started in 1962, soon followed by ABC’s northern channel ABNT3.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, before aggregation turned Tasmania’s two regional commercial stations into extensions of the Seven and Nine networks from the mainland, Tasmania had a booming TV production industry.

Being geographically isolated in a time before the internet, we were forced to produce a lot of our own content.

And not only was it a hit here, a lot of it went on to be

shown interstate and even overseas.

Some of our most iconic locally made shows included KTV, Good Sports, Cartoon Company, Quiz Quest, Hunter, and the hugely popular Hook, Line and Sinker, which is still screening on 7mate.

When TasTV and Southern Cross aligned with mainland networks in the mid-90s, a lot of local production dried up, simply because of the wealth of content available from the big networks.

ABC powered on for a bit longer, though, producing hugely popular series like Gardening

Australia and Collectors out of Hobart, but when production of Gardening Australia was shifted interstate in 2004, it was seen by many as the death knell for our local production scene.

Hobart couple Adam Reibel and Kate Fox are both descended from Tasmanian TV royalty. Mr Reibel’s father is cameraman Rob Reibel, who has worked for TVT6 and the ABC and still works as a cameraman.

Adam followed in his father’s footsteps and is now also a cameraman, having worked for WIN and Southern

Cross, and now freelances. Kate Fox’s dad is Tony Fox, the producer responsible for KTV (which won a Logie award) and Good Sports in the 1980s, both screening internationally, and is currently manager of WIN in Tasmania.

Ms Fox also followed in her father’s footsteps, and now works in TV production, having most recently worked on local productions Rosehaven

and The Gloaming.

“I’d always had interest in TV and film production from an early age, because I was able to go to work with Dad and see what he did,” she said.

“I spent four years with Winning Post Productions doing commercials and so forth, and then went freelance about two years ago and got to work on The Gloaming and Rosehaven.”

With productions like The Gloaming, The Kettering Incident and Rosehaven, and films like The Nightingale in recent years, Tasmania’s television industry is experiencing what might be its renaissance, but the pandemic has stalled production here, as it has around the world.

Both Ms Fox and Mr Reibel are confident it will bounce back. “Rosehaven’s international appeal has shown that you don’t need to be a $20 million-per-episode series to be a hit. The small budget stuff can still resonate,” Mr Reibel said.

“And that’s what we were always good at here.

“It’s really important for people to remember those good old days, too,” Ms Fox said.

“That nostalgia can help drive people to be creative because, if that’s what we could produce in the age of VHS, imagine what we can do now!”

Mr Farrell said he would love to see Tasmania’s community-produced television industry reappear.

“Forty years ago, our TV stations really catered to their regions, and TV these days is sadly lacking all that local content,” he said.

“We used to have school groups in to be our studio audience on The Cartoon Company, so kids had that opportunity to be part of TV production.

“It wasn’t sophisticated, but it was important.”