Our World

The First Global Satellite Programme
26 June 1967 (AEST)

by John Sarkissian - 25 June 2017

Introduction

On 26 June 1967, from 5:00 AM (AEST), the world's first global live television programme was broadcast. Titled, "Our World", it was viewed live in 31 countries with an estimated audience of 400 million. Broadcasters from 14 countries were involved. Initially, 19 countries were to be involved, but the Soviet Union and several Eastern block countries, pulled out shortly before the broadcast in protest over the Western response to the six-day war.

The programme was conceived by BBC producer Aubrey Singer. It was 10 months in the planning and ultimately required the participation of around 10,000 technicians, producers and interpreters. The entire broadcast was co-ordinated through the BBC studios in London. A global network of four communications satellites was used to connect the world. There were only two stipulations - no politicians were to appear and all segments had to be live, with no pre-recorded material used.

Each participating nation included an introductory segment, which preceded the international broadcast, to explain the programme and what their audiences could expect to see. In Australia, this was hosted by James Dibble, a well known ABC TV news reader.

The programme began with the Vienna Boys Choir singing the "Our World" theme song in English and 21 other languages. The focus of the broadcast was "Babies", so the first segments showed the birth of babies, live-to-air, from Japan, Denmark and Mexico. The programme then moved from country to country showing scenes of daily life and interest. From the ABC press kit:

    In keeping with the Our World theme, the programme will be centered around recent human arrivals in that world: five babies newly-born in widely separated countries. Through the miracle of inter-continental television, the babies will be taken into yesterday and to-morrow - made possible by the time differences around the world. Through a series of sequences they will be introduced to This Moment's World (what people are doing at this moment around the world); The Hungry World (what scientific man is doing to attempt to solve or alleviate the hunger problem); The Crowded World (the population explosion with a look at proposed solutions); Aspiration to Physical excellence (man's continual attempt to develop physical skill); Aspiration to artistic Excellence (the drive to excel in the arts); The World Beyond (a look into space and space travel).

The broadcast ended with three memorable segments; the Beatles recording "All You Need Is Love", at the Abbey Road Studios, London, followed by a cross to the Apollo 4 launch preparations at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida (for the first ever launch of a Saturn V in November 1967). The grand finale to the entire broadcast showcased the CSIRO Parkes Telescope with the Observatory Director, John Bolton, observing the Quasar 0237-23 (at the time it was the most distant object known to man).

In many ways, this broadcast became a dress rehearsal for the even larger Apollo 11 broadcast two years later, on 21 July 1969. Numerous technical issues were encountered and resolved. Many of the same technicians and engineers involved in the "Our World" broadcast, also worked on the Apollo 11 broadcast, providing a level of experience that proved to be invaluable. And Parkes was there for both.


Watch the video of the CSIRO Parkes Observatory segment

Video provided by Darren Osborne (ABC) courtesy of Colin Mackellar.


The Australian Segments

The co-ordinating broadcaster in Australia was the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). The Executive Producer was Dr Peter Pockley (the previous November, he had produced the very successful programme, "The Astronomers of Parkes" for ABC TV). The Executive Engineer was Ken Middleton. From the ABC press kit:
    The Australian section of the Our World telecast is a major achievement in long distance overland television transmission.

    It has been made possible by combining the facilities of four organisations concerned with communication - the Department of Supply, the Postmaster General's Department, the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the Overseas Telecommunications Commission.

    The Our World transmission will be received from the ATS-1 satellite and the Australian segment of the program will be transmitted to the ATS-1 satellite from the tracking station at Cooby Creek a few miles from Toowoomba in the south east part of the State of Queensland.

    The Cooby Creek station was built and is manned by the Department of Supply for the American National Aeronautical and Space Agency (NASA). From there the signal from the satellite, received on the 525 line system, will be carried by microwave link and cable through Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, to Sydney, the capital of NSW, a distance of more than 700 miles.

    In much of the east of Australia there are permanent co-axial and microwave links operated by the Postmaster General's Department, but other temporary links will have to be established to receive the satellite programme and manned to complete the coverage. These temporary links will be provided by the Postmaster-General' s Department and by the ABC and will require the outside broadcast resources of the Commission's television stations in all States.

    In Sydney the signal will be converted to the Australian 625 line system at the ABC's Gore Hill studios and relayed through a vast microwave and co-axial network to television stations in five eastern states and the Australian Capital Territory. The Network spans many hundreds of miles and stretches from Cairns in the far north of Queensland to Hobart in the Island State of Tasmania more than 1200 miles south, and from Lismore in the east of NSW more than 700 miles west to Port Pirie in South Australia. (This is an area roughly equivalent to the area covered by Eurovision).

    To provide the Australian segments of the programme, the ABC outside broadcast units, microwave links and even parts of the television studio centre have been modified from the Australian 625 system to the 525 line system so that the programme can be transmitted directly into the American circuit where it will be combined with other Asian and American Zone contributions and relayed on to Europe via the Early Bird satellite.

    The ABC's outside broadcast units will be at Parkes in Central NSW, in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and the national capital, Canberra, to provide the three proposed Australian segments.

    Additional ABC microwave links and PMG coaxial cable and microwave circuits will be necessary to bring these segments to the ABC's Sydney studios at Gore Hill where they will be fed into the Our World international programme. Three ABC television studios at Sydney's Gore Hill will be used to control the incoming programme and to send out the Australian segment through the Cooby Creek tracking station to the ATS-1 satellite, More than a hundred technicians and engineers will man the cross country microwave links O.B. Vans and Studios during the Our World transmission.

    Not the least of the problems in receiving the programme and providing the Australian segment will be that of receiving and transmitting the producers' instructions and the commentary by cable. The Overseas Telecommunications Commission and the Postmaster-General's Department have co-operated with the ABC to provide up to 30 sound circuits to allow for this.

    For Australia, the Our World programme is a significant advance in the handling of television transmission.

    It will be the third reception of a television programme live from overseas. It will be the second transmission from Australia to the outside world but it will be the first in which there is both transmission to and from Australia.


The first 30 minutes of the Australian Broadcast from ABC TV.


Dr Peter Pockley explaining the Australian segments of the "Our World" broadcast.

Video recorded and provided courtesy of Colin Mackellar of the Honeysuckle Creek Web Site.


The CSIRO Connections

The Australian segment of the "Our World" broadcast included two live crosses to world-class CSIRO science facilities; The CSIRO's Phytotron in Canberra and the Parkes Radio telescope. It was a great opportunity to introduce Australian Science, and CSIRO's world-leading research, to an audience of hundreds of millions around the globe. In fact, the Parkes segment closed-off the historic global broadcast - ending on a thought provoking note.


From the ABC press kit: The Parkes Radio Telescope and the most distant object known to Man.

    A segment for Our World from the giant radiotelescope at Parkes in western New South Wales will attempt to observe the most distant object known to man.

    This is a mysterious quasar discovered by John Bolton, director of the radiotelescope, and previously observed by only two or three privileged people. The quasar has no name - only the catalogue number 0237 Minus 23. It is a mere speck on photographic plates taken with the biggest telescope.

    Yet it is the most powerful object known to man giving more energy than 100 galaxies like our Milky Way - ie. about a million million suns. It is so far away that its light and radio signals take 13,000 million years to reach us.

    Earth is four and a half thousand million years old so 0237 Minus 23 has been in existence three times as long as time itself as measured on our world.

    This object also holds a speed record since it is rushing away from us at the rate of 156,000 miles every second.

    Because it will still be dark at Parkes 15 minutes before sunrise in the midwinter week of the OUR WORLD programme, special lighting will be used to illuminate the big dish of the radiotelescope. This dish is 70 yards across - the area of a soccer pitch.

    The Parkes radiotelescope is the second largest in the world, but it is the most accurate and sensitive and several times more precise than Britain's Jodrell Bank. Its moving structure weighs 1000 tons and is controlled with the accuracy of a naval gun merely by pushing buttons.


Click on the image above to view a slideshow of the pictures taken at Parkes during the broadcast. Images © CSIRO.


From the ABC press kit: CERES - The CSIRO Phytotron in Canberra.

    CSIRO's phytotron is a laboratory in which plants can be grown under a wide range of closely controlled climatic conditions. It is one of the world's finest and most up-to-date facilities for plant research. The word "phytotron" is coined from two Greek words meaning "plant" and "instrument". The Australian phytotron has been named CERES from the initial letters of Controlled Environment Research Laboratory. In mythology Ceres was the goddess of plant growth.

    The Canberra phytotron is a two-storey building which contains 15 naturally lit glasshouses, each 150 square feet in area. In each glasshouse day and night temperature can be closely controlled. In addition, there are cabinets in which plants can be grown under even more closely controlled conditions.

    Controls include those of temperature and day length (cabinets have steel shutters which can be programmed to open automatically at pre-determined times, simulating any required day length), and with other devices it is possible to simulate wind, frost and cloud cover.

    CERES is used for experiments in plant physiology, nutrition, pathology, breeding, genetics and introduction.

    In field experiments it is almost impossible to unravel the effects on plants of the individual climatic variables - day and night temperature, day length, light intensity and wind speed to mention only a few. But in the phytotron it is possible to keep several of these factors constant so that a scientist can vary one of them and quickly find out the effect of the variation.

    Near sterile conditions are maintained in CERES when it is in operation. All equipment and plants brought into the building are fumigated, the air supply is filtered to exclude dust, insects and disease organisms, and people entering the phytotron are required to change into sterilised outer clothing.

    CERES is a laboratory of CSIRO's Division of Plant Industry (CSIRO is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and Dr. Lloyd Evans is the Director.

    He does much of his research between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. - a convenient time for the Australian organisers of Our World which will be seen exactly at that time by Australian viewers.



As described by Peter Pockley above, another short segment included a scene from Melbourne of the first trams of the day departing their depot for the morning run. Click on the image below for more about this segment:


The Global Satellite Network

Broadcasters in the participating countries received the live black-and-white video feed using Intelsat 1, known as "Early Bird" beacuse it was the first Intelsat satellite; Intelsat II F2, called "Lani Bird"; Intelsat II F3, called "Canaray Bird"; and NASA's ATS-1. The positioning of the four satellites provided complete global coverage, allowing the program to be broadcast in 24 countries with interpreters providing voice-over in 22 different languages.

Click here to read this post from INTELSAT, remembering the historic broadcast - "The Beatles said, "It's Easy", but the 50th anniversary of the 'Our World' broadcast reminds us it wasn't".

In Australia, NASA's Applications Technology Satellite, ATS-1, was used for the broadcast. It operated from the Cooby Creek tracking station, near Toowoomba, Qld. (Just a few weeks earlier, the station was used to receive a live, video broadcast from Montreal, Canada, from Australia's pavilion at World Expo 67).

Click on the image below for more about the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) station at Cooby Creek, Darling Downs, Queensland (PDF file).


Booklet provided courtesy of Colin Mackellar.




The ABC Press Kit

Click on the images above to download the PDF file of the ABC Press Kit.
The kit was provided courtesy of Bill Jayet of the Parkes Champion Post.
All documents were scanned with OCR by John Sarkissian.


The Australian Producers



The Australian Commentators



The Parkes Observatory Press Pictures





The Beatles

Today, the most remembered part of the broadcast was the recording of the song "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles in the Abbey Road Studios, London. On 18 May, the Beatles signed a contract to represent Britain in the broadcast. Their appearance was announced four days later on 22 May. John Lennon wrote the song especially for the occasion, to the brief given by the BBC: it had to be simple so that viewers around the world would understand it.

Click on the image below for more information and a colourised video of the Beatles performing "All You Need Is Love". It was the third last segment in the broadcast (followed by the Kennedy Space Centre and Parkes segments).



Acknowledgement

I wish to thank my colleague Colin Mackellar, the editor and webmaster of the Honeysuckle Creek web site - an invaluable resource of Australia's space history. Visit the site here: Honeysucklecreek.net



John Sarkissian OAM
25 June 2017




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