Pics from the past | GMV-6 — Almost 50 years of home-grown television

By Geoff Allemand

Dec 29, 2023

Under lights: The GMV-6 studio, 1960s. Source: Peter McPhee Collection. Photo by Contributed

GMV6 was only the second regional television broadcaster in Australia when it launched in 1961. It was located on the east side of Wyndham St, now occupied by Wyndham Early Learning and Triple M 95.3 Goulburn Valley.

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Back then, about 32 hours of television were broadcast each week from the original station building. Names such as Ken Austin, David Brice and Nancy Cato were well known in the Shepparton community as presenters of local news and current affairs.

By the 1970s, when colour came to television, GMV-6 expanded its station to accommodate new equipment to deliver full-colour broadcasting on March 1, 1975.

GMV-6 won TV Week Logie Awards in the 1980s for Outstanding Contribution by a Regional Television Station and for local programs Footsteps Of A Legend and Autumn Faces.

Other local productions of the era included local news and children’s programs such as the GMV Juniors and The Morning Show with Jan Deane, which started in 1984.

Together with sister station BTV-6 in Ballarat, GMV-6 also hosted iconic shows, including Sounds of Sunday, Six Tonight and Tonight with Ernie Sigley.

Following aggregation in 1992, GMV-6 began broadcasting Nine Network programs exclusively and two years later joined Australia’s largest regional network, WIN Television.

Lost Shepparton Facebook comments:

Roz Cairns: I was on the Juniors show with Nancy Cato and was on her show in fancy dress as a pirate at age six! In 1966, many years later, in 2009, I met Nancy again through my employment at VicRoads. I recognised her, and we chatted. She was then an author living in Bayside, Melbourne.

John Tuttle: It’s a great place to kick start a 40-year career. And an absolute hoot, even learnt a bit!

Judy Hunt: I presented a short segment on kids’ books in the Shepparton Library during the Nancy Cato-hosted program. She would pick me up from the library and drive me to GMV-6.

Colin Knight: I have great memories of Nancy Cato and David Bryce compering and Ken Austin reading the local news.

Jason Sofra: I remember GMV-6. It used to be next door to the 3SR radio station. I remember when I was in primary school, my schoolmate and I visited that station for the first time being on the Sixes Super Saturday Show.

Artie Stevens: I worked at GMV6 in the early ’70s with Bruce Vine, Geoff Vallance, Russell Goodrich and Ron Euling.

Glenn Davey: I was also part of the GMV Juniors. It was live-to-air. I remember all the mums sitting in the audience watching all their kids.

Mary Seidel: I loved watching Joey the Clown on GMV-6! I saw him at a rodeo also playing ‘the clown’ in the ring.

Brendan Atchison: We didn’t have TV, so we used to go next door to the neighbours (in Yarrawonga) to watch this show. I recall Wally McQuaker as Joey the Clown and Nancy Cato. In fact, I can still clearly remember the night she said goodbye to head off to the then-new ATV-0.

Brian Smith: Wally McQuaker was a great friend of mine when I was an announcer at GMV6. A number of years ago, I was in the middle of Australia covering the Australian Safari when this voice called out, “Smithy, you bastard”, and sure enough, it was Wally. He and his wife, Alice, were touring their show, and even at GMV, Wally was a talented artist as well as a bloody good bloke. I have a photo of the two of us, which I hope to post. I have great memories of a great station, GMV-6 and a great bloke. As indeed were all my workmates in 1964 and 1965.