The () is an
Australia n
Television Network . It has the distinction of owning stations with a combined population coverage greater than any other free to air network in Australia. Its parent company and namesake has, in recent years, grown into a diversified media company. Seven's main shareholder is
Kerry Stokes , who also owns Australian Capital Equity and subsidiaries such as heavy equipment supplier
Westrac .
The network's headquarters are in
Pyrmont in Sydney. Its news headquarters is in Martin Place, Sydney and its major production facility is at
Epping in Sydney's northern suburbs. The broadcast signal for the network arises from the digital broadcast centre in the
Melbourne docklands.
For all of its history, Seven has been in constant rivalry with the
Nine Network and shall continue to be into the foreseeable future.
The network originated as an alliance of stations owned and operated by
Fairfax (in Sydney) and
The Herald And Weekly Times Ltd (in Melbourne).
The Melbourne station was sold to Fairfax following Murdoch's takeover of H&WT; Fairfax in turn relinquished ownership of the Sydney and Melbourne flagships through the disastrous privatisation by Warwick Fairfax Jr.
The buyer was the
Qintex group, controlled by colourful entrepreneur
Christopher Skase , a former
Australian Financial Review journalist who had leveraged ownership of a small mining company to acquire specialist retail assets (eg the upmarket jeweller Hardy Bros) and then move into property development, notably the three Mirage resorts in Queensland and Hawaii.
Qintex had a
Station in Brisbane, which was sold in order to acquire the Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane stations. After that, it purchased the stations in Adelaide & Perth.
Qintex collapsed ingloriously after an unsuccessful takeover of MGM/UA, the Hollywood studio that has been recurrently bought and sold by Kirk Kerkorian.
While originally focusing on running a television network, Seven has recently diversified into a range of other media areas over the past decade. Below are some of the businesses it has run, or is involved with:
Seven has traditionally been the #2 television network in Australia, trailing
Channel Nine but above
Network Ten . In 2005 Seven has had a ratings resurgence after a disastrous 2004 with assistance from the following American programs:
Oddly enough, Seven won back market share on the back of ''Desperate Housewives'' and ''Lost'', the same shows
ABC used in America to gain back a top slot in the ratings.
Seven is also renowned for producing top rating Australian productions, some of which include:
''For full list of Seven programs see:''
The Seven Network was once a major player in Australian sports broadcasting. In
2001 the network ended a 40-year run as
AFL football broadcaster when Nine and Ten jointly won the television rights.
On
January 5 2006 , the Australian Football League conditionally accepted a bid from Seven and Ten to broadcast AFL games from 2007 - 2011. The success of the bid depends on Seven and Ten meeting the strict demands of the AFL set in the Nine Network's original bid. This may be rather more difficult than many people understand as it involves Seven and Ten finding a Pay TV partner.
ESPN had been brought up as a Pay-TV partner in the Seven-Ten deal, however whether if they expressed interest is unclear. Due to the fact that PBL (Nine Network) owns 25% of Foxtel, it will be rather difficult for a deal to occur which would satisy both companies. They have until
4 May 2006 , otherwise the AFL will award the rights back to Nine.
Channel Seven holds the broadcast rights to the following events:
The Seven Network's news service is called ''
Seven News ''. ''Seven News'' produces the following bulletins/programs:
Seven News also assist in production of:
Callsigns for Seven Network stations in the capital cities:
The Seven Network also owns
Seven Queensland , which covers the Regional
Queensland market. This market covers the east coast of the state, except for
South East Queensland .
Seven Network programming is also carried by the following affiliate networks:
- Seven Darwin - Darwin
- Seven Central - Remote Central and Eastern Australia
- Southern Cross Television - Tasmania (non-exclusive)
- Central - Spencer Gulf (non-exclusive)
- Central - Remote South Australia (non-exclusive)
- Central - Broken Hill (non-exclusive)
- Prime - Northern New South Wales
- Prime - Southern New South Wales
- Prime - Victoria
- GWN - Western Australia
- Prime - Griffith (WIN owns both commercial broadcasters in Griffith - one carries their own programming, the other is a feed from Prime Television)
- 1972: "Looking Good"
- 1975: "Seven Colours Your World"
- 1980: "You're on 7"
- 1981: "A Part of You"
- 1983: "Watch Us Now" (based on NBC's promo slogan "Just Watch Us Now")
- 1984: "Be There" (again, based on NBC's one)
- 1985: " Let's All Be There " (borrowed from NBC slogan)
- 1989: "Only the Best on 7"
- 1994: "Discover It All"
- 1997: "Everyone's Home"
- 1999: "The One to Watch"
- 2005: "Gotta Love It"
