GTK (TV series)
| Company type | Television series |
|---|---|
| Industry | Television broadcasting |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Founder | Ric Birch |
| Defunct | 1975 |
| Fate | Ended, succeeded by Funky Road |
| Headquarters | Sydney , Australia |
| Products | Television program focusing on popular music |
| Parent | ABC Television |
GTK—an abbreviation for "Get to Know"—was an Australian television series focusing on popular music, featuring episodes of ten minutes each. It was produced and aired by ABC Television between 1969 and 1975.
History
The acronym "GTK" stood for "Get To Know." ABC developed the program to respond to the widespread view that Australian youth audiences were underserved by commercial radio and television, where both international and domestic popular music received minimal exposure.
Ken Watts, serving as ABC's Director of Television, encountered a scheduling challenge for the 6:30pm timeslot due to the network’s non-commercial nature and the timing of commercial news broadcasts. To maintain audience engagement before the well-liked soap opera Bellbird, ABC required a brief 10-minute show airing Monday through Thursday that could serve as an alternative to commercial news segments. Ric Birch, who was ABC-TV’s youngest director at age 24, created GTK within a six-week period and produced four pilot episodes. The series received approval to continue production until the November summer hiatus.
Stephen MacLean, a writer also connected with the surf and music publication Go-Set, contributed content to the series. GTK debuted on 4 August 1969 and quickly outperformed Bellbird in ratings within three weeks, ensuring its ongoing production. Birch remained as producer and director until late 1970 before moving abroad; he continued to provide interviews remotely from overseas.
The program continued broadcasting until 1975, after which it was succeeded by Funky Road, a longer-format show produced by Bernie Cannon along with Stephen MacLean and Albie Thoms. Unlike GTK's concise 10-minute episodes, Funky Road aired for 30 minutes in a later 10:30pm slot. For a time, these programs overlapped with the weekly music show Countdown.
Description
GTK adopted a magazine-style presentation that included interviews, reports, music film clips (early forms of music videos), and live concert footage featuring both Australian and international performers.
Production and broadcast
Each installment contained a live-in-studio performance segment recorded by GTK, spotlighting prominent and emerging Australian musical acts. The band featured weekly often recorded their own rendition of the GTK theme song—composed by Hans Poulsen—which was played at the beginning of every episode.
Performances were videotaped in Studio 21 at ABC’s Gore Hill, Sydney complex, a space originally designated for drama productions. Bands would record four songs during early Monday morning sessions, with one performance aired each day. Notably, artists performed selections from their live sets—including cover songs—rather than focusing solely on current chart hits, thus showcasing varied facets of their repertoire. Many of these recordings survived through transfers from videotape to film despite subsequent erasure of original master tapes.
Since full-time colour television broadcasting commenced in Australia only in early 1975, the majority of GTK episodes were captured in black-and-white; however, some segments from 1974 were filmed in colour.
Although it was long assumed that most recordings had been wiped during ABC’s cost-cutting measures in the late 1970s, discoveries following the closure of the Gore Hill studio revealed that nearly all episodes were preserved as "telerecordings"—film copies made from videotapes. This collection includes interviews with Pete Townshend and Marc Bolan, as well as rare colour footage of Lou Reed’s 1974 Sydney concert alongside a press conference conducted by journalist Ian Leslie.