ABSTRACT
Television first went to air in Australia on 16 September 1956, and its introduction coincided with the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. At its commencement, there were two commercial stations in Sydney (TCN 9 and ATN 7) and two in Melbourne (GTV 9 and HSV 7), with one public broadcasting service channel (ABC, Australian Broadcasting Commission, later Corporation) operating in each city. Broadcast television transmissions commenced in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in 1959, and access to television services was gradually extended throughout Australia through the 1960s and 1970s. Remote areas of Australia, with large indigenous populations finally received television through BRACS (Broadcasting to Remote Aboriginal Communities Services) in the late 1980s, after the 1985 launch of the AUSSAT satellite, which enabled national television networking.
