If ever a decade introduced Australian consumers to a new technology revolution, it was the 1970s. Yet despite the world witnessing humans walking on the moon less than six months earlier, the decade started inauspiciously enough – and in Australia, in black-and-white no less. The only entertainment television provided was free-to-air broadcasts and due their unique voltage/power requirements, many new televisions were still driven by electronic valves. However, by the end of the 1970s, Australians would be playing computer games, watching their favourite movies whenever they liked – and doing it all in glorious colour. But not everyone finished the decade a winner.
The Battle for Australian Colour TV
Much in the same way WWII delayed television’s arrival in Australia, so too the Vietnam War delayed Australia’s switch to colour TV – as the late Bruce Gyngell put it in a 1998 interview quoting former Prime Minister William McMahon, ‘frankly,
[given] the Australian economy, we can’t afford to be in Vietnam and in colour’ (https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/colour-tv-part-1). Nevertheless, the switch to colour would never be a ‘quick fix’ – the first step was to decide which colour format Australia should adopt.
Colour television began in the U.S. in 1954 and TV manufacturers had been displaying their wares to Australian decision-makers
