Less than 10 years after the introduction of television in Australia, the Federal Government decided each mainland state capital could handle another station, and the 0-10 Network was born. The public was excited for a new choice, the existing networks nervous at a new arrival, but the new stations were slow to take off and had to work hard to steal already loyal audiences.

By the early 1960s the Menzies Government had announced its plans to give each of the mainland state capitals a new commercial television license, which would bring the total to 3 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide and finally give Perth viewers a second choice. VHF-10 was chosen as the preferred frequency, however the second Perth station would stay on VHF-9, and the Melbourne and Brisbane stations would be given VHF-0, as stations broadcasting on the channel 10 frequency had already been allocated close by.

Sir Reginald Ansett was one interested player in this new round of licences, and used his company Ansett Transport Industries to fund and apply for licences in Melbourne and Brisbane. Austarama Television was created as a subsidiary of Ansett and won the licence for channel 10 in Melbourne on 4 April 1963. There was a slight problem though, as regional station GLV-10 has begun broadcasting on the VHF-10 frequency from Gippsland in 1961, and could be received in Melbourne. Austarama was therefore given VHF-0 instead, and began building their new studio on 10 acres of land in what would become the outer suburb of Nunawading.

Test transmissions for ATV began at 8am on 4 May 1964, and Sir Reg Ansett, who was a big fan of horse racing, had the station officially opened on the 'horses' birthday' (1 August).

The first night began at 6.30pm with an introduction by Barry McQueen and Nancy Cato, followed by the spectacular "This Is It " with Ray Taylor at 7pm. The next night News Director Brian Wright presented ATV's first news bulletin, but former Channel 9 anchor Barry McQueen picked up the Monday to Friday job and presented a 45-minute bulletin at 6.15pm each night, 15 minutes before HSV-7 and GTV-9. By the following year however, this bulletin was dropped in favour of 5-minute updates throughout the evening.

United Telecasters Sydney Ltd, a syndicate headed by Sir Lionel Hooke, won the Sydney licence in 1963 and named the station TEN-10. Studios were built on Delhi Road in North Ryde, and the first night of transmission began on 5 April 1965, with the special "TV Spells Magic", tracing the building of the new station.

In Brisbane, Ansett also had a 49.9% stake in the new company Universal Telecasters Queensland Ltd, which was awarded the licence for Brisbane in 1963. The station opened as TVQ-0 on 26 July 1965, and like its sister station ATV only carried 5-minute news summaries.

Adelaide's third television service, SAS-10, began broadcasting on the same night as TVQ-0 Brisbane, 26 July 1965.