ATN-7
ATN
Seven Network logo.svg
Sydney, New South Wales
Branding Seven
Slogan GOTTALOVEIT
Channels Analog: 7 (VHF)
Digital: 6 (VHF)
Translators 72 brand new! affiliations = Seven (O&O)
Network Seven
Owner Seven Media Group Pty Ltd
(Channel Seven Sydney Pty Ltd)
First air date December 2, 1956
Call letters’ meaning Amalgamated
Television
New South Wales
Transmitter Power 200 kW (analog)
50 kW (digital)
Height 246 m (analog)
248 m (digital)[1]
Transmitter Coordinates 33°48′20″S 151°10′51″E / 33.80556°S 151.18083°E / -33.80556; 151.18083
Website www.yahoo7.com.au/tv
This article is about the Australian television station. For other uses, see ATN (disambiguation).

ATN is the Sydney flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The license, issued to a company named Amalgamated Television Services, a subsidiary of Fairfax, was one of the first four licenses (two in Sydney, two in Melbourne) to be issued for commercial television stations in Australia. It began broadcasting on 2 December 1956.

The station formed an affiliation with GTV-9 Melbourne in 1957, in order to share content. In 1963, Frank Packer ended up owning both GTV-9 and TCN-9, so as a result the stations switched their previous affiliations. ATN-7 and HSV-7 joined to create the Australian Television Network, which later became the Seven Network.

Contents

The studios and transmission tower

The station opened in 1956 with principal offices and studios located at Mobbs Lane, Epping (a suburb about 12 kilometres north west of Sydney). The initial black and white cameras and other equipment was supplied by the Marconi Company of England. Conversion to PAL colour occurred on 1 March 1975. Digital DVB-T commenced on January 1, 2001.

The initial transmission tower in 1956 was located near the ABC tower at Gore Hill, Sydney. This was eventually demolished after ATN was invited to share a new site at Artarmon which was built by a new 3rd, commercial broadcaster TEN-10.

Digital and analog broadcasts

ATN's Sydney transmissions - both DVB-T terrestrial digital and analog PAL - are on VHF RF Channels 6 and 7 respectively and are broadcast from masts operated by Transmitters Australia (TXA) at Artarmon and/or Willoughby. Retransmission translators to UHF channels service Sydney viewers from Kings Cross and North Head at Manly and north of Sydney at Bouddi, Gosford and Forresters Beach (see the Digital Broadcast Australia) web site.

The on-air programs are sent by digital link from the Seven Network's national program play-out centre at Docklands in Melbourne.

Epping site satellite links

In 1983, one of the first full-time commercial TV satellite links was established between Los Angeles and Sydney using the mid-Pacific Intelsat satellite. This was unique for what was known as a half transponder link, as it carried 2 NTSC-M TV programs each with stereo sound and data. (Comsat pretested this at their Clarksberg MA center). The video was multiplexed using Thomson "Vidiplex", and the audio and data equipment was from Wegener. The various news and other programs were fed out of Seven's News Bureau at Century City in Los Angeles and then north to a Comsat satellite earth station at Santa Paula.

Because in 1983 the satellite power was very limited, a receive satellite dish (TVRO) for east-coast Australia needed to be in the order of 18 metres diameter. An alternative of two 12 metre dishes ("C-band" with Gregorian feed-horn from Andrews), were installed at the Epping site. The signals received from the two dishes were electronically combined so that the signal was equivalent to an 18 metre dish's reception. Later when replacement satellites with higher powers were placed in orbit, the two dishes were used independently on different satellites. Other innovations such as analogue video noise reduction were also used to improve the signal.

One of the TV programs carried was CNN. This was the first international transmission of CNN outside North America. In 1984 TV Asahi in Tokyo contracted to also receive CNN via the Iberaki earth station operated by Japan's KDD Corporation (Kokusai Denshin Denwa - now (KDDI). After ATN's engineering staff assisted KDD and TV Asahi with the special receiving adaptors, CNN was distributed on Japan Cable TV which mainly served the Roppongi district of Tokyo, including many foreign consolates and embassies. This first international distribution of CNN was formally opened by Ted Turner, CNN's then owner.

Subsequently, in 1986, a 13 metre Vertex "Ku-band" dish was added for Australian Television Network program distribution via the new Aussat satellite.

Program production

The Epping facilities were expanded to provide five operational studios and the centre became the largest producer of Australian produced TV content, including Wheel of Fortune, Sons and Daughters, A Country Practice, Hey Dad..!, All Saints and Home and Away.

News and live telecast programs are filmed and broadcast from the Martin Place studios. Nationwide program promos for the network and Home and Away are produced and filmed from the Epping studios.

The Epping studios are expected to close in 2010 when new studio facilities currently under construction open at the Australian Technology Park in Redfern.[2][3]

RaceCam

ATN's engineering staff received two Emmy Awards - making ATN the first Australian company to receive such an award - for the technology, invention and further development of RaceCam, live mobile point-of-view TV cameras which were initially developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s for the station's coverage of touring car races at Mount Panorama in Bathurst, New South Wales. Visiting commentators from the United States organised for ATN staff to supply the camera and transmission systems for CBS' coverage of NASCAR races.

A variant of RaceCam was also developed for yachts in the America's Cup off the coast of Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1985. Later in the mid 1980s, the American Broadcasting Company asked ATN staff to develop aerofoil-designed cameras suitable for Formula One cars, and these were subsequently used at the Indianapolis 500.

Relocation

In 2004 the station was included with the shift of the Seven Network corporate offices and sales department into new premises in a "heritage" building at Pirrama Road, Pyrmont, close to the Sydney CBD, while the news department shifted into a street level location in Sydney's Martin Place. In June 2006, the network announced that the Epping studio site will close and facilities would be relocated to purpose-built studios at the Australian Technology Park in Redfern by 2010.

Seven Martin Place

The set used for Seven News

The Seven Network's Martin Place studios, referred to on-air as News Central and based on the first five floors of The Colonial Building in Sydney are the main news presentation studios from where national news bulletins, Seven News Sydney, Sunrise, Weekend Sunrise, The Morning Show and Today Tonight are broadcast. Comprising of 3,000 square metres, viewers and tourists can see programs being broadcast from the street level studio. The network claims that the Martin Place facilities are one of the most technologically advanced digital television centres in the world.

Seven News

Further information: Seven News

Seven News Sydney is presented from the network's national television studios at Martin Place, by Ian Ross from Sundays to Wednseday and Chris Bath from Thursday to Saturday. Alex Cullen and Sara Groen present weekday sport and weather, while Kylie Gillies and Johanna Griggs are rotating weekend sport presenters

News updates for Sydney are presented by either Ian Ross or Chris Bath throughout the afternoon and the early evening, with updates during the night being shown nationally.

At the end of 2003, a year before all of Channel 7's news and current affairs moved to Martin Place, the ill-fated dual presenter format of Ross Symonds and Ann Sanders was abandoned after the pair failed to make an impact in the Sydney market, losing viewers to competition winner National Nine News Sydney, which had led in the ratings for decades. After Ian Ross took over from both Symonds and Sanders in 2003, Seven News Sydney became the 6pm ratings leader from February 2005 onwards.

Ross presented his final bulletin for Seven News Sydney on Friday 27 November 2009 with Bath taking over as main weeknight anchor on Monday 30 November 2009. Former Nine News anchor Mark Ferguson will take over from Bath as weekend news anchor from Saturday 28 November 2009.


Presenters

Currently, the Seven News Sydney on-air team consists of the following:

Main anchors

  • Chris Bath (Weeknights)
  • Mark Ferguson (Weekends)

Sports presenters

  • Alex Cullen (Weeknights)
  • Johanna Griggs (Weekends)

Weather presenters

  • Sara Groen (Weeknights)
  • Monique Wright (Weekends)

Fill-in presenters

News

  • Chris Reason
  • Samantha Armytage
  • Jessica Rowe

Sport

  • Kylie Gillies

Weather

  • Fifi Box
  • Sarah Cummings

Programming

Current productions produced in Martin Place

Current productions produced in Epping

Former Sydney productions

Logo guide

  • 'ATN Channel 7': 1956 - 1965.
  • 'Spearhead' Logo: 1965 - 1969.
  • 'Revolution' Logo: 1969 - October 1974.
  • 'Rainbow' Logo: October 1974 - 1988.
  • 'Split' Logo: 1989 - 1999.
  • 'Ribbon' Logo: 2000 - 13 September, 2003.
  • 'Red 7' Logo: 14 September, 2003-?

Pre-network logos

ATN-7 used many logos throughout its pre-network history.

ATN7 1956-59.png
1956 - 1965

Note: Post-network logos can be found at the following article; Seven Network.

Station slogans

  • 1956: "This is ATN Channel 7, Sydney"
  • 1968: "Seven is..."
  • 1974: "Looking Better than Ever"
  • Summer 1978/79: "Seven Summer"
  • 1979: "Seven's Reaching for the Stars"
  • 1980: "Channel 7's Proud in Sydney!" (borrowed elements from NBC's "Proud as a Peacock")
  • 1981-82: "All The Best!" (based on NBC's 1976 slogan)
  • 1983: "Just Watch Us Now" (based on NBC's "Just Watch Us Now")
  • 1984: "Be There" (based on NBC's 1983 slogan)
  • 1985-87: "Let's All Be There" (borrowed from NBC, even though NBC changed slogans in '86)
  • 1986: "Sydney CBD" (used alongside "Let's All Be There")
  • 1986 (Nov.): "Thirty Years Together, Channel 7 and You" (based on WTTG's 1985 ID "Forty Years Together, Channel 5 and You")
  • 1980's: "Sail On"
  • Summer 1986/87: "Summer is the Time, Seven is the Place" (based on ABC (US)'s "Now is the Time, ABC is the Place")
  • 1987: "You're Invited on a Journey"
  • 2006: "Celebrating 50 Years of Television in Sydney" (50th Anniversary slogan)

See also

External links

Television in Australia portal

References

  1. ^ HAAT estimated from http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/ using EHAAT.
  2. ^ New Channel Seven Studios in Redfern Architecture Australia, accessed 27 December 2008.
  3. ^ Cummins, C. Redfern to rival Pyrmont as a hub for media Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2008.
v • d • e
Seven Media Group
Television
Other
Other
Assets
See also
v • d • e
Television in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory
Sydney
ABN (ABC) · ATN (Seven) · TCN (Nine) · TEN (Ten) · SBS · TSN (TVS) · Digital Forty Four
Northern NSW
ABN (ABC) · NEN (Prime) · NBN (NBN) · NRN (SC Ten) · SBS · TSN (TVS)
Southern NSW and ACT
ABN/ABC (ABC) · CBN (Prime) · WIN (WIN) · CTC (SC Ten) · SBS · TSN (TVS)
Griffith and MIA
ABGN (ABC) · AMN (Prime) · MTN (WIN) · SBS · TSN (TVS)
Broken Hill
ABLN (ABC) · BKN (SC TV) · SCN (SC Ten) · SBS
Remote areas
ABN (ABC) · IMP (Imparja) · QQQ (SC TV) · SBS
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATN"

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