Astor Radio Corporation

Astor Mickey, 1946

Astor - Radio Corporation - Electronic Industries was the largest Australian electronics manufacturer, manufacturing across the retail sector of products from Washing Machines to Radio. Astor, which began operating in 1926, making electronics in Victoria. The firm was innovative in that it offered radios in dynamic designs and colours compared with the conservative designs offered by other companies.

Astor bought its competitors, Eclipse and Essanay. However, it was itself bought by the English electronics company Pye Ltd in the 1960s, and Pye was later taken over by the giant Philips electronics company.

Astor

(subsidiaries of EIL, Radio Corporation, Electronic Industries)

Astor BPJ 5 valve, 1959

Astor produced TV, Radio, Washing Machines and Tumble Dryers and other white goods for the Australian domestic market borrowing from design patents from other overseas companies products with the understanding that the companies free use of these in production and consumer markets would not become more ambitious than the local Australian market share. Astor produced a controversial Mickey Mouse Radio and Astor became embroiled in a long-running court battle with Disney over the use of the Mickey Mouse name and logo. The result was that Astor was forbidden to use the name "Mickey Mouse" for its radios, but it continued to produce the “Astor Mickey" radio for the next 16 years.

The Demise began in earnest in about 1970 as Astor was turning a corner. It had been absorbed fully into Philips with a buy out and had clearly started moving its manufacturing to Clayton from its South Melbourne factory. The daily organiser known as "Miss Hurley" who was in print for all jobs advertised at the firm was ubiquitous to all the job advertisements at Grant Street, South Melbourne. Mr Wood was the person of contact in the Clayton premises and records reflect that by 1971 all Astor dealings were from the Clayton location and that by this date they had completely moved manufacturing over to Clayton.

The database of news articles reflects that a very sudden demise occurred at Astor better known as Electronic Industries by this stage (EIL, Radio Corporation). This sudden demise was sometime in 1972. By the beginning of 1973, Radio Corporation had ceased to exist which reflects that a sudden end of production had come into effect - no further production of TVs or Radios at least by 1973 and no further positions advertised by this date. Hundreds of regular employment advertisements by Radio Corporation in 1972, advertising for solderers, product designers, sprayers and plastic moulders reduced to nothing at all by 1973. Astor refrigeration and Freezers seemed to advertise until 1975 for the sale of those respective white-goods however no jobs at Radio Corporation were advertised further. The white-goods advertisements like fridges and freezers ended beyond 1975.

From 1973 onward only the Astor Music Division prevailed from the same company location in Clayton where previously manufacturing had been done. Advertisements for Music Developers and experts in vinyl pressing were sought. The most famous release by this date was "Joe Dolce - Shuddup-You-Face" from 1981 under the Astor label - of Lygon Street, Melbourne fame. This record reached number 1 on the Australian music charts.

It must have been an extremely quick exit from the market for Astor. Mr Huyer featured predominantly (of Philips of Holland) in the media discussing the 25% Tariff reductions. After Philips took hold of EIL which meant the takeover of Astor and its subsidiaries in 1970, all Astor dealings were from Clayton within 2 years and the promise of "great employment with career progression" which was touted in advertisements for positions at Astor / Radio Corp swiftly ended after 1972. Welders, Solderers and Wiring experts (who could follow diagrams) were advertised for by the hundreds in the papers. Then in 1972 Astor completely vanished from the employment section of the newspaper database under Radio Corporation.

It is possible that Electronic Industries (EIL) continued to produce its fridges and Dryers up to 1974 from its Clayton plant, however a news article from Mr Huyer of Philips cites the Tariff reduction scheme of 25% in 1973 as the reason workers would be laid off in "stages" in 1973/4 however it seems that the company manufacturing had almost certainly ended completely by 1973. We can only assume it was an early decision by Huyer (of Philips) to close all the radio and television manufacturing first. In retrospect it would have been such a strange experience to have been a new employee who applied for the industrial design position at Astor in 1971 for example - to design and conceive concepts for TVs and Radios into the future for Astor only to lose your job the following year - it certainly happened to many employees who applied for positions in the early 1970s at Astor.

Astor House in Grant Street, South Melbourne was being sub-let by 1974 to office space - perhaps vacated by Astor/Radio Corporation and had completely cleared out by this date or perhaps they used several floors of the building only by this stage. It was noted in an article that "receivership" meetings were being held here by then with no other affiliation with Astor other than that the meetings took place at "Astor House" of Grant street, South Melbourne. By the late 1970s, the Astor name must have been removed from the building and the famous name had vanished from the domestic appliance market completely.

Such an unexpected and sudden end to one of the most innovative and powerful companies in the Australian electronics market with the demise being partly due to Philips of Holland (who owned a 30% share in eclipse which went to EIL in the 1960s) taking over the remainder of EIL (Astor) in 1970 and the issues Mr Huyer (of Philips takeover) had in consolidating and removing the unprofitable subsidiaries of Philips in Australia one by one from 1970. There were 60 subsidiaries of Philips at this stage of which "Astor" was only one. The sudden demise was accelerated by the 25% Tariff reduction scheme initiated by Gough Whitlam, the Prime minister of Australia. The move was regarded as a sledgehammer taken to the Australian manufacturing industry. So much media lip service was paid to the potential for mass collapse of the industry. From late 1973 to the late 1970s, there were many calls for help from the Australian manufacturing sector, including Mr Huyer, but these calls would fall on deaf ears. The fears had by the local industry were certainly quickly realised overnight as the local manufacturing at Astor and other indigenous manufacturers ceased.

The local electronics industry was decimated by 1980, with not a single factory still survived by Astor or any subsidiary of EIL/Philips by the end of the 1970s.

After the local production of Astor TV and Radio units vanished along with other local manufacturing, the speaker factories went out of business also.

Plessey-Rola, the producer of locally manufactured speakers became a victim of the chain and link effect and closed its doors in 1975.

"As engineering manager I was saddened, disappointed and devastated to witness the closure of the loudspeaker manufacturing division such an icon in the Australian audio and manufacturing industry. Plessey / Rola ceased production of loudspeakers in Australia in 1975. Tariff protection had been significantly reduced in 1973 with the result local manufacture of audio products and customers diminished, car manufactures opted for cheaper imported loudspeakers demand for local manufactured speakers diminished making speaker production on the grand scale we were accustomed to was no longer viable overnight" - Rola Employee Statement.

Sources Cited;

Newspapers.com/archives

https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/ceh/WP201604.pdf

Local Manufacturing of Radio, TV, Washing Machines, Tumble Dryers, Clock radios all came to a halt by 1973 in Clayton. Some Alarm Clocks and Transistor Radios bearing the Astor logo appeared in the late 1970s but were all produced in low wage countries like Hong Kong and ultimately it was decided to drop the subsidiary trademarks like Astor sometime around 1982 as Philips streamlined its product offerings.

Television

The Astor radio corporation was a major manufacturer of early monochrome television sets in Australia, commencing production in 1956 in anticipation of services in Melbourne and Sydney. Between 1969 and 1971, Electronic Industries engineers, Willem Sparrius and Ian Maskiel, developed an early domestic colour television set under the Astor brand. ~400 units were produced for training purposes.

Some early Astor television sets featured a rotary dial that located the available channels adjacent to each other, rather than in numerical order, especially for the capital cities which were allocated channels 2, 7 and 9.

Channel 0 was not included, possibly because the tuner mechanism could only accommodate 12 places. As a result, in Melbourne 1964 (and later in Brisbane), service technicians were required to convert the place marker for either channel 10 or 8 to receive Channel 0, which is evidence of the significant problems that ATV0 had at its commencement. Channel 10 could not be used in Melbourne at the time because that would have resulted in interference with the regional station (GLV10). Brisbane had a similar problem a year later with a nearby regional station in Toowoomba DDQ10. That was not a problem in Sydney or Adelaide, where the channel 10 frequency was used by the 0/10 Network.

The company sponsored an early Australian television series, The Astor Show, which aired in Melbourne during 1958, and also sponsored a Sydney television series, Astor Showcase, from 1957 to 1959.

Television models produced include:

• Astor TV - Model TD 059

See also

• Astor Records
• The Astor Show
• Astor Showcase