720 ABC Perth - History

History

See also: History of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and ABC Local Radio

6WF transmitted its first broadcast on Wednesday 4 June 1924. It was originally owned by Westralian Farmers Co-operative, and operated from a studio in the Westralian Farmers building in Perth. The Premier of Western Australia, Philip Collier made a speech on-air to mark the opening of the station.

The station was equipped with a transmitter that was the most powerful allowed under Commonwealth regulations. It was intended as a source of "information and entertainment to rural areas". The station's original broadcast footprint covered most of the state of Western Australia. In 1929 the radio station was sold to the Australian Broadcasting Company. As a result the radio station moved from the Westralian Farmers buildings to the ESA Bank building on the corner of Hay and Milligan Streets in Perth. When the Australian Broadcasting Commission was founded in 1932, 6WF became part of the national network.

The station moved again in 1937 to the Stirling Institute building located in the Supreme Court Gardens, St Georges Terrace. Despite the fact the building had been built 21 years earlier as a temporary structure it became the home of 6WF for the next 23 years.

In 1960 a specially built 23 studio building complex was completed at 191 Adelaide Terrace and the station moved there during that year. This building was to provide the home for the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra for a number of years, running alongside three separate radio stations.

These buildings lasted 45 years, until it was decided that new buildings must be built. A site was commissioned and the radio station moved to its new offices and studios in East Perth in March 2005.

The Adelaide Terrace site was sold to property developers in 2008 who have proposed demolishing the structure and erecting residential buildings. The transmission tower was demolished in January 2011.

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