STQ is an Australian
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
, licensed to, and serving the
regional
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
areas of
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
. The station is
owned and operated
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by the
Seven Network
The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...
from studios located in
Maroochydore
Maroochydore ( ) is a coastal town in the Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia.
The town was subdivided from the Cotton Tree reserve by Surveyor Thomas O'Connor in 1903. The land was acquired from William Pettigrew who had a timber de ...
on the
Sunshine Coast. The callsign STQ stands for ''Sunshine Television, Queensland''.
History
The station began in the 1960s as two different operators:
*WBQ-8
Wide Bay/
Maryborough, starting on 10 April 1965
*MVQ-6
Mackay Mackay may refer to:
*Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives
Mackay may also refer to:
Places Australia
* Mackay Region, a local government area
** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region
*** Mackay Airpor ...
, starting on 9 August 1968
The licence to operate the commercial television service for the
Wide Bay-Burnett
WIDE or Wide may refer to:
* Wide (cricket)
* Wide and narrow data, terms used to describe two different presentations for tabular data
* WIDE Project, Widely Integrated Distributed Environment
* Wide-angle Infinity Display Equipment
* WIDE-LP, a ...
region, was awarded to Wide Bay-Burnett Television in October 1962. The company's shareholders included local radio and print media outlets as well as theatre owners
Birch, Carroll and Coyle.
The station premises in the Maryborough suburb of Granville housed three studios plus an outdoor space for special presentations. At the time of its launch, WBQ-8 scheduled around 36 hours of programming a week and within two years this had increased to 45 hours per week including extended hours on Wednesday afternoons.
Although MVQ-6 was launched on 9 August 1968, its history dates back to March 1960, when Mackay Television Development Pty Ltd was formed. Maitland Low, general manager of local radio station
4MK, was appointed company manager.
Mackay Television Development Pty Ltd was granted the licence in September 1963. The Mackay licence was one of twenty commercial licences granted as part of the fourth stage of the nationwide rollout of commercial television.
The station was based at studios in Victoria Street, Mackay, and incorporated into new premises planned for radio 4MK. MVQ-6 made its first test pattern transmissions on the evening of Friday, 2 August 1968, giving the station's engineers and local viewers a week to make sure all was working before the official opening a week later.
WBQ changed its callsign in 1977 to SEQ (as in ''South East Queensland''), and its on-air name to "SEQ Sunshine Television", with its slogan ''Leading the Way''. MVQ also changed its on-air name in 1982 to "Tropical Television". The stations were long time broadcaster of
Seven Network
The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...
programs, as well as of Brisbane's
Seven News
''7NEWS'' is the television news service of the Seven Network and, as of 2021, the highest-rating in Australia.
National bulletins are presented from Seven's high-definition television, high definition studios in Martin Place, Sydney, while f ...
edition on
BTQ.
In 1987, after earlier buying SEQ-8,
Christopher Skase‘s
Qintex Limited, made an offer to buy MVQ-6 which was accepted by the MVQ shareholders. Skase was in the process of selling
TVQ-0 in Brisbane as he had also just bought the Seven Network stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. This gave MVQ-6 and its new sister station, SEQ-8, access to the Seven Network.
When the regional Queensland television market was aggregated at the end of 1990, SEQ-8 and MVQ-6 operationally merged to become the Sunshine Television Network, and thus became the regional Queensland affiliate of the Seven Network. Sunshine changed the call sign to STQ and adopted its new slogan ''Love You Queensland'' with a matching jingle that was based on BTQ's ''Love You Brisbane'' from the 1980s. Sunshine also reformated its news service to match its partner network and a new logo also debuted with the on-air presentation similar to Seven's.
The collapse of
Christopher Skase's Qintex empire then saw Sunshine Television Network transfer ownership to Gosford Communications in 1992 before being bought into the Seven Network in 1995 — leading to Sunshine Television Network changing its name to Seven Queensland and taking on the same logo and on-air look as the Seven Network.
With a few exceptions, its schedule since then has been virtually identical to that of its metropolitan counterpart, BTQ in
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
. Seven Queensland won the annual audience ratings for the first time in 1998 against WIN and Southern Cross Ten and has consistently dominated the ratings since.
Prior to August 2017, Seven Queensland was the only regional broadcaster to broadcast
7flix
7flix is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel, which was launched by the Seven Network on 28 February 2016.
7flix targets a variety of viewers and offers drama, comedy, reality, docusoap, and movies.
History
On 18 Decembe ...
. This was due to
Seven West Media owning the network.
On 26 November 2018, STQ switched the main channel from SD to MPEG-2 HD.
News
''Seven News'' bulletins are broadcast each weeknight at 6pm in all seven sub-markets of Aggregated Market A (regional Queensland):
Cairns
Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...
,
Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
,
Mackay Mackay may refer to:
*Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives
Mackay may also refer to:
Places Australia
* Mackay Region, a local government area
** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region
*** Mackay Airpor ...
,
Rockhampton
Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...
,
Wide Bay,
Toowoomba
Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...
, the
Sunshine Coast. They are followed by an edited 30 minute version of ''Seven News Brisbane''. The bulletins were repeated on a half-hour delay on
7two at 6.30pm, however since July 2020 they are now available on Seven's BVOD service
7plus
7plus (stylised as 7+) is a video on demand, catch-up TV service run by the Seven Network. The service became available on 27 November 2017. 7plus also offers online live streaming of Channel 7, 7two, 7mate, 7flix, Racing.com and 7Sport.
7p ...
.
The bulletins are presented by
Rob Brough
Robert Edward Brough (born 1955) is an Australian journalist, television presenter and rugby league coach.
Media career Radio
Brough began his media career in radio in the 1970s as an announcer at radio station 4VL in Charleville, Queensland. He ...
, with Joanne Desmond co-anchoring the Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton and Toowoomba editions. Nathan Spurling presents sport with Livio Regano presenting weather for all seven sub-regions. Fill-in presenters are Ben Murphy (for Rob Brough), Dannielle DePinto (for Joanne Desmond), Luke McGarry (for Nathan Spurling), and Rosanna Natoli (for Livio Regano).
News bulletins had always been broadcast in the heritage markets of Wide Bay/Sunshine Coast and Mackay from Aggregation in 1990.
In early 2004, ''Seven News'' was launched in the Cairns and Townsville sub-markets as a result of regulations regarding local content on regional television introduced by the
Australian Broadcasting Authority
The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) was an Australian government agency whose main roles were to regulate broadcasting, radiocommunications and telecommunications. The Authority took over the functions of the Australian Broadcasting Trib ...
(now the
Australian Communications and Media Authority).
On 22 November 2010, ''Seven Local News'' launched a sixth edition for the Rockhampton/Gladstone and Central Queensland region.
A seventh edition for Toowoomba and the Darling Downs was introduced on 2 November 2015, making Seven the only television network to provide a full-scale local news service for every part of regional Queensland, since the axing of WIN News in Mackay in May 2015 and Wide Bay in June 2019.
The most successful edition of ''Seven News'' is broadcast on the
Sunshine Coast. In early 1998,
WIN Television
WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single television station covering the Wollongong region. The WIN Netw ...
launched a competing service, publicly stating that it would beat Seven in the ratings within six months. At the end of the 1998 ratings season, after a new station head (Laurie Patton) had overseen a comprehensive revamp of the program and its external promotions, ''Seven Local News'' had actually increased its audience share by six ratings points.
Reporters and camera crews are based at newsrooms in each of the seven regions with studio presentation for the Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Wide Bay and Toowoomba bulletins pre-recorded at studios in
Maroochydore
Maroochydore ( ) is a coastal town in the Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia.
The town was subdivided from the Cotton Tree reserve by Surveyor Thomas O'Connor in 1903. The land was acquired from William Pettigrew who had a timber de ...
. The Sunshine Coast edition of ''Seven News'' is broadcast live. News editing is undertaken by the local newsrooms, and sent to the main Maroochydore studios for transmission.
On 5 March 2007, ''Seven News'' bulletins commenced production and broadcasts in a
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
standard-definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...
digital format. ''Seven News'' was the first regional news service in regional
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
to convert to widescreen.
Main Transmitters
Notes:
*1.
height above average terrain
Height above average terrain (HAAT), or (less popularly) effective height above average terrain (EHAAT), is the vertical position of an antenna site is above the surrounding landscape. HAAT is used extensively in FM radio and television, as it i ...
*2. The Mackay station was an independent station with the callsign MVQ from its 1968 sign-on until aggregation in 1990.
*3. The Wide Bay station was an independent station with the callsign WBQ from its 1968 sign-on until 1978, and then SEQ until aggregation in 1990.
*4. Analogue transmissions ceased on 6 December 2011, as part of the national shutdown of analogue television.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stq
Television stations in Queensland
Seven Network