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FROM REGENT FITZROY

TO

HSV-7 TELETHEATRE

By Harold Aspinall

near the corner of Brunswick Street, it
was the second cinema on the site. Its
surroundings had slipped from an
address of note in the 1880s to just
another down-at-heel suburb, with a
terrible name for crime. (It has since
enjoyed a rebirth as a lively and
youthful place).
The Regent had all the signs of
becoming an early casualty of
television. It was, but its demise also
turned out to be a re-birth in a
somewhat spectacular fashion.
Television in Australia has now with trepidation. Hoyts alone had six
By 1960 HSV-7 needed more studio
passed the 50-year mark. Opening night city theatres and 36 others running in
production space. Local productions
was Sunday 4 November 1956 and in the suburbs, some of them grand
(mostly ‘live-to-air’) were increasing in
Melbourne the first station to air was edifices like the Victory St Kilda with
number, size and scope. Senior Channel
HSV Channel 7, the Herald-Sun 2,500 seats or Regent South Yarra and
9 producer Norman Spencer - who was
station. The comperes were Eric Pearce Padua Brunswick, each with nearly
credited with engineering the Graham
and Danny Webb and the program line- 2,000 seats. Even the smaller theatres
Kennedy/IMT juggernaut at 9 - made a
up consisted of a live concert from the held over a thousand patrons, and as I
surprise switch to HSV to oversee
Tivoli Theatre Bourke Street, live remember, it didn’t matter what you
production. The eyes of Spencer and
programs such as I’ve Got a Secret were running, you always filled the
chief engineer Jim Fisher fell on the
from the Dorcas Street studios in South house on Friday and Saturday nights.
empty cinema in Fitzroy. They saw it as
Melbourne (telecast from the smaller It was a while before television ideal for conversion to a modern ‘state-
Studio 2 - Studio 1 was not yet ready) started to bite. The cost of a set was of-the-art’ TV studio. The property was
and various film programs including high and a lot of the programming at acquired by the Herald-Sun
episode one of Robin Hood starring the beginning was not all that organisation and the conversion was
Richard Greene. wonderful. In the early days there were started late in 1960.
At HSV-7 film programs were no movies of any note screening on
This turned out to be no easy task.
exclusively 16mm and were screened television and, of course, there was no
Perhaps the biggest problem was the
on Bell & Howell JAN projectors, a color. Nevertheless television was
fact that the proscenium could not be
machine capable of handling the creating it’s own ‘stars’, with Bert
removed, as the building would have
idiosyncrasies of TV operation: lots of Newton compering the Late Show on 7
fallen down! This fact severely
starting and stopping, ability to run in and a cheeky young man named
compromised the studio floor area,
both directions, fast run-up speed and Graham Kennedy hosting In Melbourne
which could only extend full width
more. Tonight (IMT) on Channel 9.
from the proscenium back into the
At the time I was a young assistant The first theatre closures began in stalls. The result was a studio which
projectionist at the Athenaeum Collins 1959 and the early sixties brought more required careful handling when it came
Street, operated by Hoyts. I was closures and some theatres reducing to to the placement of sets and cameras.
somewhat dismissive of television, and three nights of operation.
Another problem was the poor
thought that this little blue and white Just on the edge of town, in the acoustics of the building. If you cast
picture wouldn’t amount to much. How suburb of Fitzroy, Hoyts Regent, your mind back, most Hoyts suburban
wrong I was. The cinema industry at seating 2,200, was a worthy example of theatres sounded a bit like echo
large viewed the coming of television the name. Located on Johnson Street
canyons. They were fine when full of
18 2007 CINEMARECORD