This article is divided into the following sections:

Constituent stations Programming and Marketing Strategy History On air campaigns Related links

Constituent stations

• ATN7 Sydney
• HSV7 Melbourne
• BTQ7 Brisbane
• SAS7 Adelaide (formerly SAS10 prior to the 7-10 Adelaide frequency swap of 1987)
• TVW7 Perth
• Seven regional Queensland

Programming and Marketing Strategy

While Seven has in recent years diversified into a range of other media businesses, its primary business is still operating television stations. Nationally, the network has traditionally rated second behind the Nine Network however recent years saw ratings decline in favour of the Ten Network. The decline attributed to the loss of Australian Football League telecast rights in 2001 and a shift in programming strategy to attempt to gain younger viewers. To fix the decline, Seven employed former Nine CEO David Leckie to head the network and hence began a string of executive defections from Nine to Seven. The first sign of improvement in Seven's fortunes came with the revamp of breakfast program Sunrise which challenged the long time dominance of Nine's Today Show. Then came the surprise hit of 2004, Dancing With The Stars, an adaptation of a British format, featuring the return of Daryl Somers to TV after five years absense. Seven also gained on Nine's dominance in early evenings with Deal Or No Deal challenging Nine's The Price Is Right and, in Sydney, a rework of Seven News with former Nine newsreader Ian Ross has seen ratings climb locally in the 6pm timeslot.

Then in 2005, Seven premiered major US imports Desperate Housewives and Lost, re-launched another import The Amazing Race in prime time, and ran with a second series of Dancing With The Stars. This burst of popular programming, plus renewed interest in local soap Home And Away, has seen Seven once again become a strong force against the Nine Network and rating #1 for most of the early part of 2005, though as the hit shows wound up through the year, Nine re-gained its dominance.

It has a strategy of targeting females. This is one reason why it has more drama and less sport than the other networks. It also has more UK content than the other commercial networks (but much less than the ABC and SBS).

Most of its inhouse and commissioned programs have near exact copies on the Nine Network, due to copying by both sides. Nine's version almost always wins.

On December 9, 2005 the Seven Network announced their new partnership with Yahoo! Australia and launched the new website Yahoo!7 on January 30.

History

The network's origins come from the Australian Television Network formed in 1962 with the affiliation of ATN-7 Sydney, HSV-7 Melbourne, BTQ-7 Brisbane and ADS-7 Adelaide.

In 1987, ADS-7 switched to ADS-10 and hence joined the Ten Network, while SAS-10 switched to SAS-7 and the Seven Network. TVW-7 Perth joined the network in 1988.

The Seven Network also owns 7 Queensland, which covers the Queensland regional aggregated market.

On air campaigns

Several Australian networks adapted on-air graphics, music, and promotional campaigns originally used by networks in the United States of America. Up until the early '90s, Seven borrowed from NBC, sometimes even slipping up and retaining NBC's peacock logo and three-note jingle in their own promos!

The promos in question for the Seven network (amongst other Oz networks) from the mid to late '80s were designed between American TV graphic designer and former head of ABC (America) and NBC's advertising Harry Marks and Pacific Data Images of Palo Alto, California. (Later responsible for many of DreamWorks' computer animated films.)

Later in 1989, the network adopted a new logo which lasted throughout most of the 90s. It was a unique streamlined design of a circled 7 using one continuous line; however, the design itself wasn't completely new. ABC's (America) Washington, DC affiliate WJLA-TV Channel 7 used a near identical design to Seven's 1990s logo for nearly 25 years starting in the mid-70s, and just recently disposed of the logo. With the exception of some rounded out edges on the DC model (as opposed to the sharper edges on Seven Network's), even the keenest of observers can't tell the difference between the logos.

On 1st January 2000, Seven made a controversial move and did away with the circle logo. In its place is a free-flowing ribbon along with the slogan 'The One to Watch' which had been in use since 1999. In 2003, Seven dumped the slogan.

Since then there have been such slogans as 'Lucky Seven' (2004) and 'Gottaloveit!' (2005).

Related Links

Official:
http://www.seven.com.au - Seven site