TVW


TVW is a television station broadcasting in Perth, Western Australia, wholly owned by the Seven Network, whose principal owner is Perth-born Kerry Stokes. It was the first television station in Western Australia, commencing service on 16 October 1959. It broadcasts a modulated 64-QAM signal of five DVB channels . The primary channel was available as a PAL-B modulated simulcast on VHF channel 7 at 182.25 MHz before being discontinued in the first half of 2013, which was the station's primary signal since its inception. The TVW callsign stands for Television Western Australia.

History

On 13 October 1958, the first commercial television licence in Perth was granted by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to TVW Limited, a subsidiary of West Australian Newspapers, publisher of Perth's daily newspaper, The West Australian. Under the then founding general manager of the station Sir James Cruthers, TVW commenced broadcasting on 16 October 1959. The then Governor of Western Australia, Sir Charles Gairdner opened the station at 7.30pm that night. Some of the first programs included Leave It to Beaver, Sea Hunt, Father Knows Best, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, The Epilogue and a local show called Spotlight which featured Rolf Harris.
The signal was broadcast from the station's transmitter site at Bickley in the Darling Ranges.
TVW-7 did not have a rival commercial television station until 1965 when STW-9 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". The advantage TVW built up in its six years 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-2000s, 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. 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 SAS-10 in Adelaide, now SAS-7. Eight years later, TVW finally took on an affiliation, aligning with the Seven stations in the East. 1982 saw TVW purchased by Perth-based businessman Robert Holmes à Court's Bell Group. This soon posed a problem for SAS, since Network Ten officials were unwilling to discuss network plans with Bell given that it owned a Seven affiliate. To solve this problem, SAS swapped affiliations and frequencies with Adelaide's original Ten affiliate, ADS, in 1987.
In 1988, Perth finally got full network service when NEW signed on and aligned with Ten. 1988 also saw the station change hands when the Christopher Skase led Qintex group purchased the station. Qintex collapsed a year later, leaving TVW in the hands of receivers. In 1991 the network was floated on the stock exchange and, by 1995, Kerry Stokes was in charge of both TVW and the rest of the network. Since then, the station has continued to enjoy a dominant share of television ratings in the Perth market.
TVW commenced digital television transmission in January 2001, broadcasting on VHF Channel 6 while maintaining analogue transmission on VHF Channel 7.
The analogue signal for TVW was shut off at 9.00am WST, Tuesday, 16 April 2013.
Stokes bought a 15 percent stake in West Australian newspapers in 2006. In 2011, West Australian Newspapers bought the Seven Network to form Seven West Media, thus fully reuniting TVW with its founding owner. In February 2015, TVW moved from their original broadcasting facility in Gay Street, Dianella to a new HD broadcast centre in Osborne Park located within West Australian Newspapers.

Programming

Seven Perth for the most part follows the programming of the Seven Network.
Locally produced programs, which can also be seen in regional Western Australia on GWN7 include:
Locally produced programs, which can also be seen around Australia through the Seven Network and affiliates include:
Studio 1
Until February 2015
Past broadcasts form Dianella Studios

Seven News

Seven News Perth broadcasts live each night at 6pm with an afternoon bulletin also airing on weekdays at 4:00pm. The main evening program is presented on weeknights by Rick Ardon and Susannah Carr with sport presented by Basil Zempilas and weather presented by Samantha Jolly. Ardon and Carr have anchored the 6pm bulletin for over thirty years, making them the longest serving TV news presenting team in Australia and the world.
Angela Tsun and Tim McMillan presents the weekend news with sport by former West Coast Eagles player Adrian Barich. Chris Mainwaring was the weekend sport presenter until his unexpected death in October 2007.
Seven News stalwart Geof Parry is the current state political reporter. TVW's news director is David Cooper. Even when Seven News was struggling nationally, Seven News Perth still maintains the highest ratings on average for almost two decades, attracting almost double the ratings of rival Nine News Perth.
Long standing Seven News Perth presenter Jeff Newman announced his retirement from television on 1 July 2009, and retired from his role on Monday 10 August 2009. He was replaced by former Nine News Perth weather presenter Natalia Cooper, who began her new role during September 2009.
On Monday 2 April 2012, TVW launched a local edition of the network's 4:30pm news bulletin on weekdays, presented by Natalia Cooper. Cooper resigned from Seven Perth at the end of 2012 with ex-Nine weather presenter Angela Tsun taking over as her replacement for the 4:30pm news and 6pm weather forecasts, while Cooper returned to Nine, though this time in the higher-rating Sydney market. The 4:30pm bulletin evolved into an hour news bulletin on Monday 31st July 2017, with Samantha Jolly as the presenter.
Other news programming produced by the network's Sydney-based national news centre includes the morning news program Sunrise, Seven Morning News, Weekend Sunrise and Sunday Night. On Seven, 7TWO & 7mate, National news updates are also produced from the Sydney newsroom throughout the afternoon and evening.

Today Tonight

Between 1995 and 2019, the nightly news was followed by a locally produced edition of current affairs program Today Tonight hosted by Monika Kos. The program used a mixture of reports from its sister program in Adelaide as well as reports from locally based reporters. Like Seven News Perth, the program was very successful ratings wise, consistently beating its rival A Current Affair.
On 29 November 2019, the show along with its Adelaide counterpart was axed. This followed the axings of the combined Sydney and Melbourne edition, as well as the Queensland edition, in 2014.

Mascot

Seven Perth has long been the home of Fat Cat, 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 Doopa Dog, are the last WA television mascots to survive. Longtime rival STW-9 used a large elephant, Flapper, as its mascot and NEW-10 used Kenny Kidna from the Kangaroo Creek Gang as its mascot.
Fat Cat is now mainly used for things to do with Telethon; Fat Cat dolls are sold through Friendlies Chemists & Bendigo Bank for $19.95 to raise money for Telethon.
Seven also has an anthropomorphic TV character "TV Man" as a popular mascot used in on air promos nationally.

Telethon

TVW also produces an annual Telethon for the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, the Telethon Kids Institute and around forty other beneficiaries spread throughout the Western Australian community. Since 1968 it has raised over $268 million. Although the fundraising takes place 365 days a year through the community, it culminates in a 26-hour live broadcast from Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre in the heart of Perth city over a weekend, usually in October. Seven network personalities fly to 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 Jr. The show is simulcasted around the state of Western Australia on Network affiliate GWN7. This Telethon is regarded as the highest fundraising Telethon in the world. In 2017 Channel 7 celebrated its milestone 50th Perth Telethon, raising $36.4m and distributed this to over forty beneficiaries throughout Western Australia. It is broadcast on TVW7 across Perth metro area and across Western Australia by GWN7.

Christmas Pageant

The station organises an annual Christmas parade through the streets of the Perth CBD, traditionally on the first Saturday of December. 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. Each year several thousand people line the route to watch the parade. It was cancelled once in 2015 due to inclement weather.

Broadcasting details

Digital transport frequency: VHF-6 @ 177.5 MHz
LCNServiceImage QualityCompression QualityAlt Image QualityAlt Compression Quality
771440x1080i 16:9 HD LiteH.262 video @ 10770 kbit/s
Dolby Digital audio @ 384 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s		720x576i 16:9 SDH.262 video @ 6500 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s
727TWO720x576i 16:9 SDH.262 video @ 6500 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s		--
737mate1440x1080i 16:9 HD LiteH.262 video @ 10770 kbit/s
Dolby Digital audio @ 384 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s		720x576i 16:9 SDH.262 video @ 6500 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s
767flix720x576i 16:9 SDH.262 video @ 6500 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s		--
--720x576i 16:9 SDH.262 video @ 6500 kbit/s
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II @ 256 kbit/s		--

Note: HD quality switches between 7 and 7mate due to sporting events. Only one channel broadcasts HD at any one time.