Kommotion

Kommotion was a popular Australian "Top 40" pop music TV show that premiered in December 1964. The program was hosted by popular disc jockey Ken Sparkes, who was one of the main presenters at Melbourne pop radio station 3UZ. In 1965, after the end of his previous series, Teen Scene, pop singer Johnny Chester became the associate producer of the program.^[1]

It was produced by the Willard King organisation for Melbourne TV station ATV-0 (Channel 0) and was pre-recorded on videotape at the station's Nunawading studio. It was originally seen only in Melbourne, but was later relayed to interstate stations in the newly formed 0-10 Network as they came on line during 1965–66. The Kommotion format was a fast-paced, teenage Top 40 pop music show. It was originally shown in daily half-hour episodes, Monday–Friday at 5.30 pm; an additional one-hour special on Sundays was added later in the run of the series.

In August 1964 Channel 0 premiered its first pop TV program, The Go!! Show (or Go!!). It proved such a ratings success that its original 13-episode contract was extended to 39 episodes after only seven weeks on air, and this encouraged Channel 0 to capitalise on this success by commissioning a second series that would appeal to younger viewers. Both programs showcased the emerging 'beat' pop trend, and provided an energetic alternative to the mainstream family-oriented variety format of the rival Nine Network program, Bandstand. In combination, Go!! and Kommotion gave the nascent 0-10 Network an unbeatable lead in pop TV programming, with The Go!! Show alone regularly pulling in over 400,000 teenage viewers every week.