GTK (TV series)
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''GTK'' (standing for "Get to Know") was an Australian popular music TV series of ten minute episodes, produced and broadcast by
ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...
from 1969 to 1975.


History

The series title was an initialism of the phrase "Get To Know". Officially, it was said that ''GTK'' was created by the ABC to address the perception that the Australian youth audience was being poorly served by commercial radio and TV, and that international music and especially Australian popular music was being ignored by commercial TV and radio at that time. Ken Watts, ABC's Director of Television, had a problem at 6:30pm time slot. Because ABC-TV was non-commercial, 30-minute American programs only ran 24'30" without ad breaks, which created a programming problem when the commercial networks started their news broadcasts. ABC TV had been running an American
sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
across the 6:30pm to 6:40pm timeslot, after which '' Bellbird'', a very popular
soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
about an Australian country town, began. ''Bellbird'' finished at 6:55pm and across Australia, each state would then insert local news into the schedule until 7:00pm when the ABC's iconic national news started, followed by a current affairs show, ''
This Day Tonight ''This Day Tonight'' (TDT) was an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) evening current affairs program from 1967 to 1978. Founding When ''TDT'' premiered in 1967 it was the first regular nightly current affairs program on Australian TV, an ...
''. Watts understood that if ABC TV started a program at 6:30pm, viewers would have an alternative to watching the commercial news broadcasts and it would of course lead them to watch ''Bellbird'', then ''
ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
'' and ''This Day Tonight''. Watts needed to come up with a program only ten minutes long that would run Monday to Thursday before ''Bellbird''. Ric Birch, aged 24, the ABC-TV network's youngest ever television director, devised a program that would attract teenage viewers, and in less than six weeks, made four pilot shows. He was given the go-ahead to start production and continue until the end of November, when the network went into summer break programming. Writer
Stephen MacLean Stephen MacLean (1950 – April 2006) was Australian screenwriter, journalist, broadcaster, and director of films and television series. His best known work is a biography of Peter Allen which was adapted to create the hit musical ''The Boy fr ...
, who also worked at the surf/music magazine ''
Go-Set ''Go-Set'' was the first Australian pop music newspaper, published weekly from 2 February 1966 to 24 August 1974, and was founded in Melbourne by Phillip Frazer, Peter Raphael and Tony Schauble. NOTE: This PDF is 282 pages. Widely described as ...
'', worked on the show. ''GTK'' premiered on 4 August 1969 and achieved higher ratings than ''Bellbird'' within three weeks. Watts authorised the show to continue throughout the following year. Birch produced and directed ''GTK'' until the end of 1970, when he moved to the United States and then to the United Kingdom, from where he conducted interviews and sent the filmed material back to ''GTK'' in Australia. ''GTK'' ran until 1975, after which it was superseded by ''Funky Road''. ''GTK'' and its successor ''Funky Road'' co-existed with the weekly show ''
Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...
'' for a brief period. ''Funky Road'' had the same producer, Bernie Cannon, in addition to Stephen MacLean and Albie Thoms. Its duration was 30 minutes instead of the previous 10 minutes and moved to a 10:30pm slot.


Description

''GTKs magazine-style format included interviews, reports, music film-clips (
music videos A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
) and occasional footage of local and visiting international acts in concert.


Production and broadcast

A feature of every episode was the daily live-in-the-studio performance segment, especially recorded by ''GTK''. These segments featured notable and lesser-known Australian acts of the period. The band chosen as featured group for the week would often record their own 'cover' version of the ''GTK'' theme (composed by
Hans Poulsen Hans Sven Poulsen (born Bruce Gordon Poulsen, 7 March 1945 – 17 February 2023) was an Australian singer-songwriter and musician of Danish descent who was popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and known for his eccentric hippie style.McFa ...
), which was played at the start of each of the programs. These live performance segments were recorded to videotape in Studio 21 at the ABC's
Gore Hill Gore Hill is an urban locality on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Gore Hill is located within the southern part of the suburb of Artarmon, and the north-west of the suburb of St Leonards. History It takes its na ...
,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
complex, which had originally been used for drama during the early days of live-to-air production. Groups were called in early on Monday mornings, and four songs/pieces were recorded, with one segment broadcast each day. Another aspect that makes this ''GTK'' footage important is that many of the bands were asked to play material from their live repertoire—including cover versions—rather than their current or recent hit song/s, since it was felt that the groups would perform these better, and because it would show off other facets of their music. Because these live performances were videotaped and later transferred to film for broadcast, many of these performances were preserved, despite the fact that all of the broadcast master tapes were later erased. Because full-time
colour television Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...
transmissions was not introduced in Australia until early 1975, most of ''GTK'' was shot on black-and-white film or videotape, although some segments of programs in c. 1974 are known to have been shot in colour. It was thought for many years that most of the videotapes of the program had been erased during an ABC economy drive in the late 1970s, it was discovered during and after the closure of the old Gore Hill studio complex that much of the series had been preserved on "telerecordings", which were film recordings transferred from videotape. Estimates from the ABC have indicated that almost 100% of the series has been saved, which included interviews with
Pete Townshend Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Townsh ...
and
Marc Bolan Marc Bolan ( ; born Mark Feld; 30 September 1947 – 16 September 1977) was an English guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a pioneer of the glam rock movement in the early 1970s with his band T. Rex. Bolan was posthumously inducted int ...
and colour footage of
Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...
's 1974 Sydney concert (including one of the earliest known films of Reed performing " Walk on the Wild Side") and his disengaged Sydney press conference, which features noted Australian television journalist
Ian Leslie Ian Craig Leslie OAM (born 6 July 1942) is an Indonesian-born Australian television journalist and corporate communicator. Early life Ian Craig Leslie was born in Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Leslie was born one of twins in Bandu ...
.


References


External links


GTK Flashbacks: Ausmusic Month
ABC iview ABC iview is a video on demand and catch-up TV service run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Currently iview video content can only be viewed by users in Australia. As of 2016, ABC iview attracts around 50 million plays monthly and ac ...

''GTK''_at_the_National_Film_&_Sound_Archive
.html" ;"title="National Film & Sound Archive">''GTK'' at the National Film & Sound Archive
">National Film & Sound Archive">''GTK'' at the National Film & Sound Archive
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gtk (Tv Show) Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming Australian music television series Black-and-white Australian television shows 1969 Australian television series debuts 1974 Australian television series endings