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Australian broadcast television network
the Australian network

The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free to air television network. It is owned by Seven West Media Limited, and is one of the five main free to air television networks in Australia. The network's headquarters are located in Sydney. As of 2014, it is the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach. The Seven Network shows various nonfiction shows—such as news broadcasts (Seven News) and sports programming—as well as fiction shows. In 2011, the network won all 40 out of 40 weeks of the ratings season for total viewers, being the first to achieve this since the introduction of the OzTAM ratings system in 2001. As of 2023, the Seven Network is the highest rated television network nationally, in Australia, ahead of the Nine Network, ABC TV, Network 10 and SBS.

Seven's administration headquarters are in Eveleigh, Sydney, completed in 2003. National news and current affairs programming are based between flagship station ATN 7 in Sydney and HSV 7 in Melbourne. In 2009, Seven moved its Sydney based production operations from Epping to a purpose built high definition television production facility at the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh.

The present Seven Network began as a group of independent stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. HSV 7 Melbourne, licensed to The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd (owners of two local papers at the time, The Herald and The Sun), was launched on 4 November 1956, the first television station in the country to use the VHF7 frequency. The two stations did not immediately share resources, and instead formed content sharing partnerships with their VHF9 counterparts by 1957: ATN 7 partnered with Melbourne's GTV 9, while HSV 7 paired up with Sydney's TCN 9. The new grouping was soon joined by other capital city channel 7 stations, ADS 7 Adelaide and BTQ 7 Brisbane. The new network began to produce and screen higher budget programs to attract viewers, most notably Homicide, a series which would continue for another 12 years to become the nation's longest running drama series. Colour television was introduced across the network in 1975, when a new colour logo was adopted. Rupert Murdoch made an unsuccessful bid for the Herald and Weekly Times, owners of HSV 7, in 1979, later going on to gain control of rival ATV 10. Fairfax, however, successfully bought a 14.9% share of the company later in the same year. Wheel of Fortune began its 25 year run in July 1981, produced from ADS 7's studios in Adelaide. The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were shown live on the network the year before. The network was listed on the stock exchange in 1993, soon after the entry of subscription television provider Australis. One of Seven's most popular series, A Country Practice, ended in 1993 after 1058 episodes. 1993 saw the introduction of Blue Heelers, which after a number of timeslot changes, was moved in 1998 to Wednesdays. This was to make room for a new series, medical drama All Saints. Both dramas rated quite highly, and along with new lifestyle shows Better Homes and Gardens and The Great Outdoors, resulted in a stronger ratings position for the network. In 1995, Sunshine Television, a Seven Network affiliate in regional Queensland, was purchased by the network's parent company, Seven Network Limited. Sunshine Television's regional stations effectively became a part of the Seven Network, identical in appearance and programming to the rest of the business' stations. Australian Gladiators Series 1 and Series 2 in 1995 1996 filmed in Brisbane, and Series 3 filmed in Sydney proved popular. Seven Queensland won the annual audience ratings for the first time in 1998. Between 1995 and April 2001, Alan Jackson of Nylex was the non executive director of Seven, after being asked by Stokes to lead the company. A successful $1.3 billion bid for United Artists was made in conjunction with Kirk Kerkorian in 1996; the network sold its stake two years later for $US389 million. Seven took control of Australia Television, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Asian satellite channel, in 1997. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation still maintained a share in the network, and continued to produce news and current affairs programming for it.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, a state of the art high definition national broadcast facility was constructed in Docklands, Melbourne, replacing the previous facility in Epping, Sydney. This new facility would also house HSV 7's Melbourne offices and studios. The year 2000 saw former Nine executive David Leckie appointed as head of television operations, re launching the network with an updated logo, and a new advertising campaign timed expressly for the network's coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The opening ceremony was one of the highest ever rating television programmes in the country, with 6.5 million viewers, contributing to the network winning the ratings year for the first time in twenty two years. Digital television was introduced to most of the network's coverage area on 1 January 2001. This was soon followed by the gradual introduction of wide screen and high definition programming. In January 2006, the Seven Network, Pacific Magazines and online portal Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand combined in a joint venture to form Yahoo!7, representing all three companies' online assets. 7HD was officially announced on 15 September 2007, with the Seven Media Group announcing their intention to start a high definition multichannel, that was initially expected to launch in December 2007. However, 7HD became the first free to air commercial television channel introduced to metropolitan areas since 1988, when it launched prior on 15 October 2007, with 25th Hour being the first programme broadcast at 10:30 pm. On 14 February 2008, the Seven Media Group and Foxtel officially signed an agreement allowing Seven's digital signal to be transmitted via Foxtel's cable and satellite services. Seven became available on Foxtel in early 2009. On 25 September 2009, Seven announced its new digital channel, 7two, which officially launched on 1 November 2009.

Always Greener, launched in 2001, received two million viewers in its Sunday timeslot, however, it was axed after its second season due to declining audience numbers. In 2004, Seven launched the internationally well known game show Deal or No Deal hosted by Andrew O'Keefe, to the 5.30 pm weekday timeslot as a lead in to the networks' struggling flagship news bulletin replacing the network's long running and ever popular Wheel Of Fortune as the show moves to 5pm weekdays, and later in the year Dancing with the Stars, based on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, was also launched. The following year, a number of new programmes premiered, from the United States network ABC, including Desperate Housewives and Lost. At the same time, Seven's news and public affairs ratings began to increase in viewers, with Today Tonight beginning to challenge rival A Current Affair, with the new format of Sunrise leading to increased competition with its rival, the Nine Network's Today. Seven's evening news bulletins also started to take the lead with successes in most cities. The network launched a number of new series in 2006, including Heroes, Prison Break, Dancing with the Stars spin off It Takes Two, How I Met Your Mother, and My Name Is Earl, and saw long running series Blue Heelers ending its 13th season run after declining ratings since late 2003. Despite the ongoing success of these programmes, Seven still finished second behind the Nine Network for the fifth time in six years, primarily due to Nine's coverage of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but the year after, defeated Nine by a significant margin, winning 38 weeks compared to Nine's 2, to become the number one network in Australia. In 2008, Seven launched new local drama Packed to the Rafters which became the year's top rating show with an average of 1.938 million viewers. In 2009, a new weekly public affairs show Sunday Night launched in the Sunday 6:30 position to a shaky start but by the end of the year was easily winning its slot and rating up to 250,000 more than rival Nine Network's long running 60 Minutes. In 2010, Seven launched new AFL and NRL based entertainment shows in an effort to take on Nine's The AFL Footy Show and The NRL Footy Show and provide a bargaining chip in negotiations for AFL and NRL broadcast rights. The AFL based series was called The Bounce, hosted by Peter Helliar, however, was pulled from the air after just five episodes. An NRL based series called The Matty Johns Show, hosted by former Footy Show host Matthew Johns, lasted one season. In 2011, Seven put Packed to the Rafters on hiatus and put new Melbourne drama Winners and Losers in its place, the show won the highest ratings for the night. In 2013, the Seven Network launched its fifth new drama A Place to Call Home, it also achieved high ratings. In September 2015, the network began The Chase Australia which is a spinoff of the UK series, The Chase, with Chasers Anne Hegerty (from the UK series), Brydon Coverdale (winner of $307,000 on Million Dollar Minute), Matt Parkinson and Issa Schultz, In 2016, Mark Labbett made his debut as one of the Chasers, joining fellow UK Chaser, Anne Hegerty and in 2018, Shaun Wallace made his debut as its sixth chaser, joining fellow UK chasers Anne Hegerty and Mark Labbett. Seven also launched 800 Words starring Erik Thomson to high ratings, making it the highest rating drama of 2015. In June 2020, Big Brother Australia made a return on the Seven Network with a rebooted pre recorded program. It was also announced in 2020, that Seven had acquired the reality series The Voice Australia in 2021 as well as a reboot of Australian Idol. Seven confirmed in December 2020 it had commissioned a return to a new "all stars" event version of Dancing With The Stars. The Australian Idol reboot would return to the screens of Seven in 2023.

Due to Seven's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee awarded Seven the 'Golden Rings' award for "Best Olympic Programme". The award is given for the best overall Olympic coverage. At the 2018 Sport Australia media awards, Seven won the "Best coverage of a sporting event" award for the coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. The Seven Network's ground breaking coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games saw them win three awards (gold, silver and bronze) at the International Olympic Committee's coveted Golden Rings Awards.