The Advent of Television

In the early years of 1956 Harold Bond and John Lillywhite visited the ABC offices in Sydney to discuss the form of presentation of weather forecasts and other information in their TV programs. These were followed by discussions on the same subject with commercial TV stations.

The ABC decided to follow the British Broadcasting Commission practice of having the weather session presented by meteorologists from the meteorological office. After ABC auditions in Sydney and Melbourne, programs in Sydney commenced on 6 November and those in Melbourne on 31 December 1956. Allan Rainbird, Ray Sheard and Alan Wilkie (brother of Ray and later to become a fulltime weather presenter on a commercial station in Sydney) were the presenters on ABC TV in Sydney while the Melbourne team for ABC TV was Gordon Hunter, Tony Powell, Geoff Tyler and Arthur Woolcock.

In the meantime the commercial TV stations in Sydney and Melbourne decided to use their own presenters and after a period of elementary training in the Bureau TCN 9 commenced broadcasting weather programs on 15 September in Sydney and HSV 7 broadcast two weather presentations each night beginning on 4 November 1956.

Allan Rainbird has been one of the most generous in responding to my request for information on his career in the Bureau. He recalls that following the completion of his cadetship in Sydney and training as a forecaster in Melbourne he joined the Sydney Divisional Office and worked as a forecaster with Max Moss, Gwynne Wilson, Ken MacKinnon and Bruce Kell. He also worked in the Climatological Section and remembers an interesting assignment in 1954 when he and Ken Smith were attached to an army unit at Holsworthy camp some distance from Sydney to provide meteorological information for a 25-pounder artillery calibration shoot. It lasted three to four days from daylight to dark with little opportunity for rest.

Bureau of Meteorology