It’s quite simple to respond to this question in terms of its wording. My favourite TV shows when I was growing up were – there were none!

That was of course Radio. My favourite radio shows, directed toward children, were “Dad and Dave”, and “Hop Harrigan”. Those programs used to be followed one after the other on the radio half an afternoon. Each program was about half an hour long.

The first was set in Snake Gully, with Dave being desperately in love with Mabel who was from the farm next door. Hop Harrigan was a fighter plane pilot and specialised in taking down enemy kites. My mother sometimes used to worry that it was probably not good for me to watch Shop Harragon.

The first time I ever watched television was while at teachers’ college in Perth in 1968. I was 22 years old. I was boarding with my Aunt, who did not have a television set But had a friend whose relation did have a TV. I used to let my aunt know that I was off to study at the library (which I frequently did) but rather on a particular night of the week when “Homicide“ was being aired, would go around to my mate’s place and watch the episodes with him.

It was in the following year, 1969, when I was in a teaching practice in a simulated one-teacher school attached to Claremont Teachers College, that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Practice teaching and teacher training kind of put on hold for the day while people gathered to watch what was happening on the television screen (maybe 40 cm x 30 cm). This one television set was shared by at least 200 people. We watched for hours and hours and hours until finally Armstrong set foot on the moon and made his famous statement “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.“

Over the years as an adult, we’ve had TV, more particularly from 1980 onwards. In the early part of those years, we were watching delayed telecasts on reels that were brought from Darwin to our community to be shown 24 to 48 hours after being seen by everybody else.

I could go on, But the question addressed TV while I was a child. The question is quite succinctly answered.

TV, what TV?