Seven Network

The Seven Network () is an Australian 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 a converted warehouse at Jones Bay Wharf in Pyrmont, Sydney. Its news headquarters is in Martin Place, Sydney and its major production facility is at Epping in Sydney's northern suburbs. In 2009, Seven will move their production facilities from Epping to a purpose built site at the Australian Technology Park in Redfern. The broadcast signal for the network arises from the digital broadcast centre in the Melbourne docklands.

History

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.

Court Convictions

Convictions have been recorded against the Seven Network for broadcasting an inflammatory story on the nightly news, Today Tonight, and Sunrise programs. The network breached the law by broadcasting a story about a boy they said was trying to divorce his parents, in which they identified the individual despite repeated warnings from Government authorities and the head of the Children's Court.^*

Television presenters David Koch, Melissa Doyle, Naomi Robson and Jennifer Keyte were cleared of responsibility when it was decided that they were not in control of what was broadcasted but the executive producer was responsible. Magistrate Lisa Hannan imposed convictions against the network but not the individual news directors and editors due to their previous good character.

The Magistrate put the corporations on a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered them to donate $50,000 to charities for homeless people although Seven have indicated that they will appeal against the conviction.Seven news boss claims show trial in contempt case, The Australian, May 17, 2006

Assets

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:

Current

It owns a third of Sky News Australia, a subscription TV channel. The other equal partners are PBL (Nine) and BSkyB (Sky Television UK).
It owns a magazine publishing business, Pacific Magazines, which publishes the following magazines in Australia and NZ:
It operates the Austext teletext service.
It owns C7 Sports, which had a number of subscription sport channels and is continuing its efforts to find carriage again. The service was originally available on Optus Vision and Austar plus Foxtel during the Olympic Games in Sydney
Seven owns a 33% share in mobile solutions enabler m.Net Corporation, making it a major shareholder along with Telstra and Alcatel.
Seven owns a 50% share in Yahoo! 7, with Yahoo! Australia owning the other 50%.

Past

It owned a large stake in the Telstra Dome (previously Colonial Stadium) stadium in Melbourne.
It was a former stakeholder in the Optus Vision consortium.
It owned a part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - Once during the Christopher Skase ownership through Qintex in 1989 and again with Kerry Stokes in 1997.
It was a former partner in the AOL7 Internet joint venture with America Online and Telecom New Zealand subsidiary AAPT. This venture is now owned by Primus Telecom and has been renamed "Primus-AOL", but Seven continues to supply it with content.
It owned Ticketmaster7, a ticketing company.
It owned a majority stake in B Mobile, a mobile phone retailer but has now sold out.
It owned the (now defunct) i7 portal.
It was a partner in Sports Vision, a company that ran the now defunct Sports Australia channels.
It owned Australia Television (now ABC Asia Pacific), a FTA satellite service broadcasting to Asia and the Pacific.
It and Granada Television each owned half of the Red Heart production company. The two companies retain close ties.

On Air

Entertainment

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 many American programs. For the 2006 season, Seven renewed many of those same shows, but also brought in some new ones. Seven's current primetime American programs include:

Later this year, Seven Network will debut Australia's Got Talent, an Australian adaptation of the American show America's Got Talent. A host and judges have not been named yet.

Oddly enough, Seven won back market share on the back of Desperate Housewives, Lost and Grey's Anatomy, 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:

List of Seven Network programs

Sport

News

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

Callsigns for Seven Network stations in the capital cities:

ATN-7, Sydney
HSV-7, Melbourne
BTQ-7, Brisbane
SAS-7, Adelaide (originally SAS-10, transferred frequency and network affiliation to Seven in 1987)
TVW-7, Perth

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.

Affiliates

Seven Network programming is also carried by the following affiliate networks:

Southern Cross

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

Prime - Northern New South Wales
Prime - Southern New South Wales
Prime - Victoria
GWN - Western Australia

WIN Television

Prime - Griffith (WIN owns both commercial broadcasters in Griffith - one carries their own programming, the other is a feed from Prime Television)

Slogans

1960: "Seven is..." (ATN-7)
1970: "The Seven Revolution" (HSV-7/ATN-7)
1971-72: "Looking Good"
1973-74: "Something Special"
1975: "Seven Color Television" (March-August 1975)
1975: "Seven Colors Your World" (September-December 1975)
1976-79: "The Color Machine"
1977: "Lucky Seven" (HSV-7/ATN-7)
1977: "21 Years of Television" (HSV-7) (jingle was the first being borrowed from NBC, this case from "50 Years")
1977/78: "Summer Fever" (HSV-7)
1978-85: "All The Best" (first known slogan borrowed from NBC)
1979: "Seven's Reaching for the Stars"
1980: "Channel 7's Proud in Sydney" (ATN-7) (borrowed elements from NBC's "Proud as a Peacock")
1980: "You're on Seven" (HSV-7) (borrowed elements from NBC's "NBC Us")
1980-81: "A Part of You" (HSV-7)
1980/81: "Summer is the Time" (ATN-7)
1981/82: "Summer is a Part of You" (HSV-7)
1982: "Take a Bow" (HSV-7)
1982: "Our Pride is Showing" (ATN-7) (based on NBC's similarly named promo slogan)
1983: "Just Watch Us Now!" (ATN-7/BTQ-7) (based on NBC's promo slogan "Just Watch Us Now")
1983: "Be There" (HSV-7/ATN-7) (again, based on NBC's)
1983: "You Can See It All on 7" (TVW-7)
1984: "All the Best - Adelaide" (ADS-7)
1984: "Sevensational" (HSV-7)
1984: "We're With You" (TVW-7)
1984-88: "Love You Perth/Brisbane" (TVW-7/BTQ-7 from 1985-87)
1985: "Adelaide is Seven" (ADS-7)
1985-88: "Let's All Be There" (ATN-7/BTQ-7) (borrowed from NBC slogan)
1985-86, 1988: "Hello Melbourne" (HSV-7)
1987: "Say Hello!" (HSV-7/ADS-7/TVW-7)
1988: "Let's Celebrate '88" (borrowed elements from "Come Home to NBC")
1989: "Only the Best on 7" (borrowed from NBC's "Come Home to the Best, Only on NBC")
1990: "The Place to Be" (once again, from NBC)
1991: "In the Mood"/"Yeah!"
1992: "Good Vibrations"
1993: "Handmade Television"
1993-94: "It Has To Be"
1995-96: "Discover It All"
1997-98: "Everyone's Home"
1999-2003: "The One to Watch"
2003/04: "Lucky Seven"
2005-: "GOTTA LOVE IT"
2005 (Aug. 28): "Melbourne is Seven" (HSV-7)
2005 (Nov. 4): Our 50th Begins!" (HSV-7)

References

- "National" refers to the main five metropolitan markets. Shares represents free to air audience share from 6:00pm to 12:00am. Data gathered and published by OzTAM. OZTam

External links

Media companies of Australia | Australian television networks | Companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange | Seven (企業) | Seven Network

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