ATN (PatrZDZ's vision)

**ATN** is the Sydney flagship television station of the Seven Network in Australia. The licence, issued to a company named **Amalgamated Television Services**, a subsidiary of John Fairfax & Sons, was one of the first four licences (two in Sydney, two in Melbourne) to be issued for commercial television stations in Australia. The station formed an affiliation with GTV-9 Melbourne in 1957, in order to share content. In 1963, Frank Packer ended up owning both GTV-9 and TCN-9, so as a result the stations switched their previous affiliations. ATN-7 and HSV-7 joined to create the Australian Television Network, which later became the Seven Network. ATN-7 is the home of the national level Seven News bulletins.

## History

ATN-7 began broadcasting on 2 December 1956 and became the third television station in New South Wales and Sydney to begin regular transmissions.

The station opened in 1956 with principal offices and studios located at Mobbs Lane, Epping. The initial black and white cameras and other equipment was supplied by the Marconi Company of England. Conversion to PAL colour occurred on 1 March 1975. Digital DVB-T commenced on 1 January 2001.

The initial transmission tower in 1956 was located near the ABC tower at Gore Hill, Sydney. This was eventually demolished after ATN was invited to share a new site at Artarmon which was built by a new 3rd, commercial broadcaster TEN-10.

ATN-7 commenced digital television transmissions on 1 January 2001, broadcasting on VHF Channel 6 while maintaining analogue transmission on VHF Channel 7.

ATN-7's Sydney transmissions – both DVB-T terrestrial digital PAL – are broadcast from masts operated by Transmitters Australia (TXA) at Artarmon and/or Willoughby. Retransmission translators to UHF channels service Sydney viewers from Kings Cross and North Head at Manly and north of Sydney at Bouddi, Gosford and Forresters Beach (see the Digital Broadcast Australia) web site.

Beginning in the early 2000s, on-air programs were sent by digital link from the Seven Network's national program play-out centre at Docklands in Melbourne where the Master Control Room was located for all metropolitan and regional feeds to be controlled. Programming line-up, advertisement output, feed switching, time zone monitoring and national transmission output was previously delivered here. All Seven Network owned and operated studios used to have their live signals relayed here: for instance, ATN's output was fed to HSV and then transmitted via satellite or fibre optics to the towers around metropolitan Sydney. In 2019 however, this function was transferred to a new play-out centre in Sydney as part of a joint venture with the Nine Network.

The analogue signal for ATN-7 was turned off at 9:00 am on 3 December 2013 by using a special five-minute retrospective clip of the local station and the song "My City of Sydney" by Tommy Leonetti, used for the first time in 30 years, combined with the old "Mother kangaroo putting her baby joey to bed" animation, which was played during the channel closedown sequence until the network began 24-hour service in 1993.

## Program production

The Epping facilities were expanded to provide five operational studios and the centre became the largest producer of Australian produced TV content, including *Wheel of Fortune*, *Sons and Daughters*, *A Country Practice*, *Hey Dad..!*, *All Saints*, *Terry Willesee Tonight* and *Home & Away*.

The Epping studios closed in early 2010 when new studio facilities serviced by Global Television, opened at the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh.

News and live telecast programs are presently broadcast from the Martin Place studios.

## RaceCam

ATN's engineering staff received two Emmy Awards – making ATN the first Australian company to receive such an award – for the technology, invention and further development of RaceCam, live mobile point-of-view TV cameras which were initially developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s for the station's coverage of the Bathurst 1000. Visiting commentators from the United States organised for ATN staff to supply the camera and transmission systems for CBS' coverage of NASCAR races.

A variant of RaceCam was also developed for yachts in the 1987 America's Cup off the coast of Fremantle. Later in the mid-1980s, the American Broadcasting Company asked ATN staff to develop aerofoil-designed cameras suitable for Formula One cars, and these were subsequently used at the Indianapolis 500.

## Seven’s Martin Place Studios

The Seven Network's Martin Place studios, referred to on-air as *News Central* and based on the first five floors of The Colonial Building in Sydney are the main news presentation studios for, *Seven News Sydney*, *Sunrise*, *Weekend Sunrise*, and *The Morning Show*. Comprising 3,000 square metres, viewers and tourists can see programs being broadcast from the street level studio. The network claims that the Martin Place facilities are one of the most technologically advanced digital television centres in the world.

Eliminations for the fifth season of *The Mole* in 2005 were also held at the Martin Place studios; the set was configured for each elimination episode including the final episode in which the winner and the Mole were revealed live. This meant that guests could watch outside the studio as the eliminations were being carried out live. Notable guests included contestants from previous seasons.

In March 2021, it was announced that the Seven Network would move out of Martin Place to Eveleigh by the end of 2022 after almost two decades. The decision is understood to be a cost-saving move away from CBD property leasing.