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.
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.
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.
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