BROADCASTING pioneer George Barlin says it was a challenge from former British media mogul Cecil Harmsworth King, that prompted him to fulfil his dream to start television in Canberra.

It was the late 1950s and Mr King, owner of the London “Daily Mirror”, had bought out the radio station 2CA, plus other regional radio stations under the company Macquarie, that Mr Barlin was managing.

“King used to come out to Australia periodically and look at his investments here,” Mr Barlin said.

“One of these trips I had to take King and [Macquarie boss John] Patience to Yass.

“King was a very stern fellow, very economical with words, monotonous tone.

“As we were going past Hall, Patience said to King something complimentary about what I had done.

“King then said: ‘That might be all very well, Mr Patience, but what has he done about television?’ and I piped up and said: ‘We could never afford television in Canberra, haven’t got enough of a population, it’s not a goer’.

“King said: ‘Are you aware of what has been going on in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe?’ and I said: ‘No, I haven’t followed it’ and he said: ‘Well I would advise you to know what you are talking about before you express an opinion in future’ or words to that effect.

“That immediately gave me the impression that he wanted me to look into television… I went to America and learnt as much as I could.”

Mr Barlin’s six-week trip took him to metro and regional television stations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Washington, Atlanta and to the states of Texas, New Mexico and California, and also Toronto, Canada.

He describes the transition from radio to television as “a pretty steep learning curve”.

“Officially, my job was to see what was happening to radio in the days of budding television,” he said.

“And I did a report on that and how I felt about it. But in a separate one-page sheet I said I had learnt enough about television to recommend that we go all out and learn what we could and do what we could to bring it to Canberra and other country areas in Australia.”

Mr Barlin described the establishment of television in Canberra as a “dog fight” as two commercial stations in Sydney – one owned by the Fairfax family and the other by the Packers – were looking to relay all television programming out of the city.

But Mr Barlin stuck to his guns. “I wanted to have a fully operational, independent station,” he said.

By June 2, 1962, it all came together, with 22 staff, Mr Barlin founded CTC – Canberra Television Canberra – a 22-person station that sat on top of Black Mountain.

PHOTOS: George Barlin… the transition from radio to television was “a pretty steep learning curve”. Photo by Silas Brown