TVW-7
Encyclopedia
TVW is a television station broadcasting in Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

, wholly owned by the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

. It was the first television station in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, commencing service on 16 October 1959. It broadcasts analogue on VHF 7 and digital on VHF 6 from Bickley located in the Perth Hills. The TVW callsign stands for Television Western Australia.

It is a member of the Seven Network, whose principal shareholder is Perth-born Kerry Stokes
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes AC is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. He is most widely known as the chairman of the Seven Network, one of the largest broadcasting...

.

History

On 13 October 1958, the first commercial television license in Perth was granted by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to TVW Limited, and they commenced broadcasting a little over a year later. The then Governor of Western Australia
Governor of Western Australia
The Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...

, Sir Charles Gairdner
Charles Gairdner
General Sir Charles Henry Gairdner, GBE, KCMG, KCVO, CB was a British Army general during World War II and was Governor of Western Australia from 1951 to 1963, and Governor of Tasmania from 1963 to 1968.-Early life:...

 opened the station at 7.30pm on 16 October 1959. Some of the first programs included Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver
Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive but often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood...

, Sea Hunt
Sea Hunt
Sea Hunt was an American adventure television series that was aired in syndication by Ziv Television Programs from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced...

, Father Knows Best
Father Knows Best
Father Knows Best is an American radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s.-Radio:...

, Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

, Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...

, The Epilogue and a local show called Spotlight which featured Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

.

The original owner of TVW was West Australian Newspapers (WAN), which publishes the Perth daily newspaper, The West Australian
The West Australian
The West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed Seven West Media . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...

. Coincidentally, the Seven Network bought a 15% share in WAN in 2006.

TVW-7 did not have a rival commercial television station until 1965 when STW-9
STW-9
STW is an Australian television station owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Perth, Australia.Based in Dianella, Western Australia, STW broadcasts with a transmitter mast located in Walliston...

 commenced broadcasting. However the presence of a rival did not have a large negative impact on TVW, at least in the early years. In fact a survey by its rival found that more people agreed with a statement that "TVW fulfilled their viewing needs, and it would be a matter of indifference to them if the new station were to cease transmissions" www.mcc.murdoch.edu.au. The six years TVW had as sole commercial operator flowed through for many more years to come, some would even argue that it is still present today considering how well Seven performs in the market compared to Nine, which for nearly two decades until the mid 00's, generally won comfortably nationally.

After STW-9 entered the market, a 'cartel' was formed between the two stations for the duty of buying from both Australian and overseas production sources. The two stations set up a separate company, TV Facilities, (50%/50% partners). This allowed the stations to purchase programs cheaper than if they were two separate entities, which would bid on shows and subsequently raise prices. This partnership was disliked by Eastern States stations who could not increase their charges to the extent which they would have liked. Allocation of programs was decided by a coin toss, which would allow the winner to pick first and then alternate the picking of programs. However TVW would always be in a more dominant position as it had the rights to continuing shows from the previous six years as well as half of the new programs.

In 1971 TVW Enterprises purchased the Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

 station, SAS-10, now SAS-7
SAS-7
SAS is a television station in Adelaide, South Australia. It is part of the Australian Seven Network.SAS-7 was originally known as SAS-10, commencing broadcasting on 26 July 1965. On 27 December 1987, SAS-10 and ADS-7 switched broadcast channels, ADS moving to channel 10, SAS moving to channel 7...

. 1982 saw TVW (and SAS) purchased by Perth based businessman Robert Holmes à Court
Robert Holmes à Court
Michael Robert Hamilton Holmes à Court was an entrepreneur who became Australia's first businessman worth over a billion dollars before dying suddenly of a heart attack in 1990.Holmes à Court was one of the world's most feared corporate raiders through the 1980s, having built his empire...

’s Bell Group
Bell Group
-Introduction:The Bell Group is a group of companies, service industries and educational institutions in India founded in 1952, by Mr.A.Chelladhurai...

. In 1988 a third commercial station entered the Perth market; it was aligned with Network Ten
Network Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...

 so for the first time in its history TVW took up an affiliation, aligning with the other Seven stations in the country. 1988 also saw the station change hands when the Christopher Skase
Christopher Skase
Christopher Charles Skase was an Australian businessman who later became one of his country's most wanted fugitives, after his business empire crashed spectacularly and he fled to Majorca in Spain.-Early life:...

 led Qintex
Qintex
Qintex Ltd. was an Australian company that came to prominence during the 1980s, until its collapse in 1989. Its main shareholder and Managing Director was Christopher Skase....

 group purchased the station. Qintex collapsed a year later, leaving TVW in the hands of receivers. In 1991 the station was combined with the other Seven stations to become the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

, this was floated on the stock exchange and by 1995 Perth-born Kerry Stokes
Kerry Stokes
Kerry Matthew Stokes AC is an Australian businessman. He holds business interests in a diverse range of industries including electronic and print media, property, mining, and construction equipment. He is most widely known as the chairman of the Seven Network, one of the largest broadcasting...

 was in charge of both TVW and the rest of the network. By then it was all unstoppable. TVW's success as Perth's Number One TV station would be in recent years translate into the Seven Network's nationwide successes from 2008 onward.

Programming

Seven Perth for the most part follows the programming of the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

.

Locally produced programs, which can also be seen in regional Western Australia on GWN7 include:
  • Go Racing: News/discussion about the racing scene in both Perth and the Eastern States
  • Have a Go TV: Features segments on travel, finance and investment, sport and recreation, health and wellbeing. Hosted by Tod Johnston.
  • Home In WA: Lifestyle, building and renovation
  • Fishing Western Australia: Explores fishing in WA.
  • Our WA: A long-running series of specials which highlight a specific aspect of WA life


Locally produced programs, which can also be seen around Australia through the Seven Network and affiliates include:
  • The Force: Behind the Line
    The Force: Behind the Line
    Episodes of The Force consist of three to four individual stories featuring police officers going about every day duties, including burglaries, drug-related cases, traffic cases and murder investigations. The choice of stories is usually balanced to include action-oriented stories as well as...

    : Observational documentary about the Western Australia Police
    Western Australia Police
    The Western Australia Police services an area of 2.5 million square kilometres, the world's largest non-federated area of jurisdiction. In 2008, its 7,526 employees included 5,647 police officers.-History:-Early history:...


Filmed at Dianella

Studio 1

Current
  • Seven News
  • Today Tonight (Perth Edition)


Past
  • Telethon
  • The Early Bird Show
  • A*mazing - Previously filmed at BTQ-7 from 1993-96.
  • Time Masters
  • Fat Cat's Funtime Show
  • Good Morning Perth
  • Scratch and Win Telespin
  • The Adventures of Bush Patrol
  • Family Feud
  • In Perth Tonight
  • Rothman's World of Football
  • The Underground Video Show
  • The Late Late Breakfast Show
  • Reach for the Stars
  • Turpie Tonight
  • $50,000 Letter Box
  • Spellbound


Studio 2 (Past)
  • Brooksey's Footy Show/The Footy Club/Basil's Footy Show
  • It's Academic
  • Perth at 5
  • FMTV
  • What A Week
  • Today

Studio 3: News
  • Channel 7 News/Seven National News/Seven Nightly News/Seven News: 1959-2010
  • State Affair: 1984-1989
  • Today Tonight: 1995-2010
  • Susannah Carr's Land Down Under/World Around Us: 1985-1999
  • Sports Centre Seven: 1980s

Seven News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...

Seven News Perth is broadcast live every night at 6pm, presented on weeknights by Rick Ardon
Rick Ardon
Rick Ardon , is a news presenter on Seven News in Perth, Western Australia. In 2005, Ardon and Susannah Carr, celebrated their 20th consecutive year reading the news together on Seven Perth.-Education:...

 and Susannah Carr
Susannah Carr
Susannah Carr is an Western Australian television news presenter. Since 1985, Carr has co-presented Seven News in Perth with Rick Ardon...

 with sport presented by Basil Zempilas
Basil Zempilas
Basil Zempilas is a sports presenter and commentator on radio and television in Perth, Western Australia. He currently appears on Seven News, and radio stations 1116 SEN and 92.9. Zempilas has commentated on the Olympics and several other major sporting events.-Early life:As a child Zempilas...

. Ardon and Carr have anchored the 6pm bulletin since 1985, making them the longest serving TV news presenting team in Australia.

Weekend editions are presented regularly by Emmy Kubainski
Emmy Kubainski
Emmy Kubainski is an Australian journalist and news presenter and reporter for Seven News in Perth.She was born in Queensland and moved to Western Australia after securing a national cadetship with the ABC in 2005...

 or Sally Bowrey with sport by former West Coast Eagles
West Coast Eagles
The West Coast Eagles are an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League. The club is based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 and played its first games in the 1987 season. Its current home ground is Subiaco Oval...

 player Adrian Barich
Adrian Barich
Adrian "Barra" Barich is a sports presenter for television and radio, and a former Australian rules footballer and rugby league player...

. Chris Mainwaring
Chris Mainwaring
Chris Douglas Mainwaring was an Australian rules footballer. He played for the West Coast Eagles in the Victorian Football League/Australian Football League and East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League...

 was the weekend sport presenter until his unexpected death in October 2007.

Former political reporter Reece Whitby frequently filled in as weekend news presenter before running for the Labor Party in the 2008 state election. After failing to win the seat of Morley, he returned to TVW as a behind-the-scenes producer. Seven News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...

stalwart Geof Parry is the current state political reporter. TVW's current news director is Howard Gretton. Seven News Perth
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...

has had the highest ratings on average for almost two decades, it attracts almost double the ratings of rival Nine News Perth.

Long standing weather presenter Jeff Newman
Jeff Newman (TV personality)
Jeff Newman OAM was the Seven Network's weather presenter in Perth from 1991 to 2009.He has won five Logie Awards for the state's most popular male television personality....

 retired from his role on Monday 10 August 2009 and has been replaced by former Nine News weather presenter Natalia Cooper
Natalia Cooper
Natalia Cooper is an Australian television weather presenter for Channel Seven.-Biography:Cooper's career began at GWN where she started out as a cadet journalist after finishing her degree in Journalism at Curtin University. Cooper then worked for Channel Nine as WIN newsreader and Channel Nine...

, who began her new role in September. Sally Bowrey is the fill-in weather presenter.

Other news programming produced by the network includes the morning news program Sunrise
Sunrise (TV program)
Sunrise is an Australian breakfast television program, broadcast on the Seven Network. On weekdays the programme follows Seven Early News, and runs from 6am through to 9am.-History:...

, Seven Morning News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...

, Seven 4.30 News
Seven News
Seven News is the television news service of the Seven Network in Australia.National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while flagship 6pm bulletins are produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The network also produces Seven...

, Weekend Sunrise
Weekend Sunrise
Weekend Sunrise is an Australian breakfast television program, broadcast on the Seven Network. On Saturdays, it runs from 7am to 9am whilst on Sundays it runs from 7am to 10am.-History:...

and Sunday Night
Sunday Night (Australian TV program)
Sunday Night is an Australian news and current affairs program produced and broadcast by the Seven Network. The program airs on Sunday nights at 6:30 pm, and is presented by Seven News Sydney presenter Chris Bath.-Overview:...

. Late news updates are also provided from the Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 newsroom.

Today Tonight
Today Tonight
Today Tonight is a controversial Australian News and Current Affairs program, produced by the Seven Network and shown weeknightly at in direct competition with rival Nine Network program A Current Affair....

The nightly news is followed by a locally produced edition of current affairs program Today Tonight
Today Tonight
Today Tonight is a controversial Australian News and Current Affairs program, produced by the Seven Network and shown weeknightly at in direct competition with rival Nine Network program A Current Affair....

hosted by Monika Kos
Monika Kos
Monika Kos, , is an Australian journalist and the current presenter of the Western Australian version of Today Tonight, a current affairs program which screens weeknights on Channel Seven Perth....

. The program uses a mixture of reports from its sister programs on the east coast
Eastern states of Australia
In Australia, the term eastern states refers to the states adjoining the east coast of Australia. These are the mainland states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory, while not states, are also included. The term usually includes the...

 and in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

 as well as reports from locally based reporters. Like Seven News Perth, the program is very successful ratings wise, consistently beating its rival A Current Affair. Mario D'Orazio is the programme's producer.

Mascot

Seven Perth has long been the home of Fat Cat
Fat Cat and Friends
Fat Cat and Friends was an Australian childrens television show starring Fat Cat , an orange anthropomorphic cat who wears red braces, a blue bow tie and a green bowler hat. The show was similar in concept to Here's Humphrey featuring Humphrey B. Bear...

, the name standing for Francis Aloysius Thomas Cat. Fat Cat is "put to bed" every night at 7.30pm signalling the end of programs suitable for children. Fat Cat, along with GWN's
Golden West Network
GWN7 is an Australian television network owned by the Prime Media Group that is based in Bunbury, Western Australia. The Golden West Network launched on 10 March 1967 as BTW-3 in Bunbury, and has since expanded to cover regional and remote Western Australia, servicing all areas except metropolitan...

 Doopa Dog, are the last WA television mascots to survive. Longtime rival STW
STW
-Mathematics:*The Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture, a generalization of Fermat's last theorem.-Music:*Stop the War Coalition, an anti-war group in the United Kingdom*Salt the Wound, a deathcore band-Other:...

-9 used a large elephant, Flapper, as its mascot and NEW-10 used Kenny Kidna from the Kangaroo Creek Gang
Kangaroo Creek Gang
Kangaroo Creek Gang was an Australian children's television cartoon series which first screened on the Nine Network in 2002. It was produced by Southern Star Group and was based on a set of reading books created from 1981 that follow the adventures of a group of Australian bush...

 as its mascot.

Fat Cat is now mainly used for things to do with Telethon; Fat Cat doll
Doll
A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...

s are sold through Friendlies Chemists for $19.95 to raise money for Telethon.

Seven also has a cartoon-like TV character as a popular mascot.

Telethon

TVW also produces an annual Telethon for the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children
Princess Margaret Hospital for Children
Princess Margaret Hospital for Children is a centre for paediatric research and care. The hospital is located on Roberts Road in Subiaco, Western Australia. It is the state's only specialist children's hospital...

, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
Established in 1990 by former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley, the Telethon Institute of Child Health Research in Western Australia is a multidisciplinary research centre with more than 500 staff, post-graduate students and visiting scholars, working collaboratively to improve the...

 and the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre. Since 1968 it has raised over $100 million (as of 2010 total). Although the fundraising takes place 365 days a year through the community, it culminates in a 26 hour live broadcast from Perth Convention Exhibition Centre in the heart of Perth over a weekend late in the year. Seven network personalities fly into Perth for the weekend to help raise money, as do a lot of Aussie artists. Many international stars have also been part of Telethon over the years, including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion and Harry Connick Jnr. The show is simulcasted around the state on Network affiliate GWN7.


Christmas Pageant

The station organises an annual Christmas parade through the streets of the Perth CBD. It is claimed to be the largest Christmas parade in the southern hemisphere. More than 600 floats and 60,000 participants have taken part in the procession in the history of the parade, which commenced in 1972.

Broadcasting details

Analogue frequency: VHF 7

Digital frequency: VHF 6
Digital Channels
LCN Name Service Resolution Bit rate
07 7 SD
Standard-definition television
Sorete-definition television is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either enhanced-definition television or high-definition television . The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as...

720x576i 6.5mbit video, 256kbit MP2 audio
72 7 Two SD
Standard-definition television
Sorete-definition television is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either enhanced-definition television or high-definition television . The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as...

720x576i 6.5mbit video, 256kbit MP2 audio
73 7 Mate HD
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

1440x1080i 10.77mbit video, 256kbit MP2, 384kbit AC3 audio

Station slogans

  • 1980: "21 Years of Television" (used to celebrate 21 Years of TVW7)
  • 1982: "Channel 7, We're With You"
  • 1984: "Channel 7, We're With You for 25 Silver Years" (used to celebrate 25 Years of TVW7)
  • 1984-85: "You Can See It All on 7"
  • 1985-1988: "Love You Perth!"
  • 1986: "Say Hello!"
  • Summer 1986/87: "The Heat Is On!" (based on the Glen Frey song
    The Heat Is On (Glenn Frey song)
    "The Heat is On" is a song written by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey and recorded by Glenn Frey, from Faltermeyer and Forsey's soundtrack of the popular 1984 film Beverly Hills Cop.-History:...

    )
  • 1999: "Perth - 40 Years" (used to celebrate 40 Years of TVW7)
  • July-August 2009: "Still Love You Perth!" (used to celebrate 50 Years of TVW7)

See also

  • Seven Network
    Seven Network
    The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

  • STW
    STW
    -Mathematics:*The Shimura-Taniyama-Weil conjecture, a generalization of Fermat's last theorem.-Music:*Stop the War Coalition, an anti-war group in the United Kingdom*Salt the Wound, a deathcore band-Other:...

  • NEW (TV station)
  • Television broadcasting in Australia

Sources


External links



The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK