[1] It extended ABC's award-winning coverage of current affairs, which had begun in the early 1960s with its flagship weekly program Four Corners.
His first move was to second ABC Drama producer Storry Walton with a brief to identify reporters and on-air talent for a Sydney-based program with the working title of Tonight.
Bill Peach was Walton's early nomination for compere, while Willesee, then Press Gallery reporter for the Perth Daily News was immediately hired after an impressive performance while being interviewed on the second night the program went to air.
The appointment of additional staff, obtaining and scheduling film and studio resources and setting the style and shape of the program along the lines he envisaged were further requirements.
Watts had met Martin and knew that he had worked as a producer/director for eight years in London for Associated-Rediffusion Television, and he was well aware of the BBC Tonight program.
Having been assured by Watts that on-air staff had been identified, Martin proposed a start of six weeks after his arrival in Australia in late February 1967, and although confronted by a lack of facilities was able to meet that deadline.
One notable example of its occasionally controversial editorial approach was a musical comedy sketch that satirised the actions of then-NSW Premier Robert Askin, who was reported to have ordered his driver to "run over the bastards" when anti-war demonstrators threw themselves in the front the car in which he and visiting U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson were travelling.
TDT also ran annual April Fool's Day stories, including the "Dial-O-Fish" (an electronic device attached to a fishing rod that could be set to catch any desired species), a story alleging that the Sydney Opera House was sinking into the harbour, and a bogus report about the supposed abolition of the 24-hour clock and the introduction of a metric (or decimal) time system.