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| Channels | |
| Branding | Seven Queensland |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | Seven(O&O) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | 10 April 1965; 59 years ago (10 April 1965) |
Former call signs | WBQ-8 (Wide Bay/Burnett) MVQ-6 (Mackay) SEQ-8 (Wide Bay/Burnett) |
| Independent (1965–1990) | |
Call sign meaning | Sunshine Television Queensland |
| Technical information | |
Licensing authority | Australian Communications and Media Authority |
| ERP | see table below |
| HAAT | see table below |
| Transmitter coordinates | see table below |
| Links | |
| Website | 7plus |
STQ is an Australiantelevision station, licensed to, and serving theregional areas ofQueensland. The station isowned and operated by theSeven Network from studios located inMaroochydore on theSunshine Coast. The callsignSTQ stands forSunshineTelevision,Queensland.
The station began in the 1960s as two different operators:
The licence to operate the commercial television service for theWide Bay-Burnett 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 ownersBirch, Carroll and Coyle.
The station's studios 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.[2]
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 station4MK, 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 aired 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.[3]
WBQ changed its callsign in 1977 toSEQ (as inSouthEastQueensland), and its on-air name to "SEQ Sunshine Television", with its sloganLeading the Way.MVQ also changed its on-air name in 1982 to "Tropical Television". The stations were long time broadcaster ofSeven Network programs, as well as of Brisbane'sSeven News edition onBTQ.
In 1987, after earlier buying SEQ-8,Christopher Skase‘sQintex Limited, made an offer to buy MVQ-6 which was accepted by the MVQ shareholders. Skase was in the process of sellingTVQ-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 theSunshine Television Network, and thus became the regional Queensland affiliate of the Seven Network. Sunshine changed the call sign toSTQ and adopted its new sloganLove You Queensland with a matching jingle that was based on BTQ'sLove You Brisbane from the 1980s. Sunshine also reformatted 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 ofChristopher Skase's Qintex empire then saw Sunshine Television Network transfer ownership to Gosford Communications in 1992. In 1995, Reg Grundy's RG Capital lodged an initial $89million bid for the company which was rejected by Sunshine's board. A revised offer of $105 million was lodged and backed by Sunshine's chairman Trevor Kennedy, however RG Capital's plans were halted whenNews Corp then purchased a 15% stake in Sunshine Television.[4] Another Seven affiliate,Prime Television, then snapped up 19.9% of Sunshine Television before the Seven Network made a full offer which was successful.[5] This led to Sunshine Television Network changing its name toSeven 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 inBrisbane. 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.[citation needed]
Prior to August 2017, Seven Queensland was the only regional broadcaster to broadcast7flix. This was due toSeven West Media owning the network.
On 26 November 2018, STQ switched the main channel from SD to MPEG-2 HD.
Seven News broadcast local bulletins each weeknight at 6 pm, in all seven regional areas:Cairns,Townsville,Mackay,Wide Bay,Toowoomba, theSunshine Coast andRockhampton. They are followed by a shortened 30-minute version ofSeven News Brisbane.
The bulletins are presented byRob Brough, with Joanne Desmond co-anchoring the Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton and Toowoomba editions. Sport is presented by Nathan Spurling and weather is presented by Livio Regano. Fill-in presenters include Luke McGarry (sport), TBD (weather).
Reporters and camera crews are based at newsrooms in each of the seven regions with studio presentation for the Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Darling Downs, Rockhampton and Wide Bay bulletins pre-recorded inMaroochydore. The Sunshine Coast edition ofSeven News is broadcast live, but may also exchange it to any of the six pre-recorded regions at certain circumstances (e.g., cyclone coverage in the nearest region of immediate concern). News editing is undertaken by the local newsrooms, and sent to the main Maroochydore studios for transmission.
The most successful edition ofSeven Local News is broadcast on theSunshine Coast. In early 1998,WIN Television 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 re-vamping of the program and its external promotions,Seven Local News had actually increased its audience share by six ratings points.
In early 2004,Seven Local News was re-introduced in the Townsville and Cairns sub-markets as a result of regulations regarding local content on regional television introduced by theAustralian Broadcasting Authority.
On 5 March 2007,Seven Local News bulletins commenced production and broadcasts in awidescreenstandard-definitiondigital format.Seven Local News was the first regional news service in regionalQueensland to convert to widescreen.
On 22 November 2010,Seven Local News launched a sixth edition for the Rockhampton/Gladstone and Central Queensland region.
On 2 November 2015,Seven Local News launched a seventh edition for the Toowoomba and the Darling Downs region. With the said launch, Seven News became the only news service to cover all regional centres of Queensland since the axing of WIN News in the Mackay region in May 2015. This lasted until July 2017, when rivalNine News began to roll out local composite bulletins for their statewide affiliateSouthern Cross Television (which carried Nine programming from July 2016 until July 2021). When the composite Nine News bulletins for Mackay and Toowoomba/Darling Downs were axed on 15 February 2019, Seven News once again became the only news service to cover all regional centres of Queensland.
From 11 July 2016, these editions are consolidated with theSeven News branding, though the openers of these editions remained to address asSeven Local News. TheLocal News branding was completely phased out on 5 September 2016 in favour of theSeven News brand.
Formerly, there were two bureaus located in Hervey Bay and Gladstone covering their respective regions, but they were closed due to budget reasons.
Fill-in Weather PresenterRosanna Natoli left the Seven Network after getting elected Mayor ofSunshine Coast Region on 16 March 2024.
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