Sound Unlimited/sOUNDS
On
1 March 1975, colour TV officially arrived in Australia and Donnie
Sutherland launched the pop TV show which was to change Saturday
mornings around the country.
Pre Donnie, Saturday morning was for part-time jobs, sport and
sleeping in. With Donnie, suddenly 9:00am - 12:00 noon became the
time to get hip.
Barry White's Love
Unlimited Orchestra theme - all sweeping violins and seventies
guitar - signalled that Sound Unlimited (later, Sounds)
was on the air and Australia was waking up to the best of pop and
rock.
Like its contemporary Countdown,
Sounds not only introduced a generation of Australians to
rock & roll, but (a decade before MTV hit the US airwaves) it
ushered in the era of video music.
The show began life as Graeme Webb's Saturday Morning Show
with ex-Blind Date presenter and British pirate
radio star Graeme Webb, who was the real pioneer of rock video
in Australia.
Frustrated at trying to find material to screen, he would
commission a young Russell Mulcahy, then working as a newsroom
editor, to film sequences to accompany the hits of the day. The
results were the first real video clips to be consistently given
TV airplay.
 Record
companies soon caught on to the promotional possibilities and a
new industry emerged. Webb soon gave up hosting for production,
entrusting the job to ex-Sydney DJ, Donnie Sutherland. A star and
a hit were born.
The figures on Sounds success are quite staggering. At
its peak it was shown on over 100 TV stations nationally and
regularly reached 85% of the viewing audience. For three hours a
week, 52 weeks a year until December 1987, Sounds had most
Australians between 13 and 35 watching rock & roll.
It was an unprecedented achievement, held together by
Sutherland's impish grin and infectious spirit and a freedom
unthinkable in today's tightly controlled programming.
With three hours a week to fill in, Sounds had the time to run
lengthy interviews, specials and non-mainstream clips. Guests
could vary from Slim Dusty to Siouxsie
Sioux. It became a magazine for young people and a reference
point for all aspects of youth culture.
 Unable
to compete with Countdown's insistence on the right to
premiere clips, Sounds instead concentrated on presenting
an unparalleled breadth of artists.
In 1984, the show received international recognition with a
bronze award for best TV music show in the world at the
prestigious New York Film and TV Festival.
This was significant praise for the Australian industry and
worthy recognition for the show which interviewed over 5000 people
during its life, pioneered satellite and location shows and
provided an essential outlet for local talent.
When Sounds failed to renew Sutherland's contract in
December 1987, it was at the whim of Channel 7's new owner,
Christopher Skase. It was still rating as highly as it ever had
and no other show has ever effectively replaced it.
Today Donnie Sutherland draws crowds as a DJ, while Christopher
Skase couldn't set foot in the country in his final years!
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