The story
Amalgamated Television Services was created in 1954 with plans to implement a television station equipped with what was considered to be the latest technology available as well as providing Australia's most extensive facilities made specifically for a television station.
ATN-7 began broadcasting on 2 December 1956 and became the third television station in Sydney to begin regular transmissions. Its principal offices and studios were located at Mobbs Lane, Epping. The initial black and white cameras and other equipment was supplied by the Marconi Company of England. At the time of opening, only Studio B, which housed the opening night, was operational, as well as a shortage of equipment. Its launch night was almost hampered by a thunderstorm, which ultimately did not affect the transmitter. On its second day of operations (3 December 1956), it aired the first current affairs programme on Australian television, At Seven Tonight, presented by Howard Craven. Later that evening saw the airing of Australia's first late show, Sydney Tonight, hosted by Keith Walsh. The nightly closedown featured an animation of a kangaroo putting her joey to bed, forming it out of the inscription "ATN CHANNEL 7". The animation remained in use for a long time. For many years, this was preceded by Tommy Leonetti's "My City of Sydney". Leonetti hosted The Tommy Leonetti Show, produced at the station, in 1969; he was the co-writer of the station's closedown theme.
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, third commercial broadcaster TEN-10.
In 1963, ATN began producing the local edition of the American Romper Room format, which would remain on air until 1988.
Conversion to PAL colour occurred on 1 March 1975. By that time, ATN was now housed in a six-studio complex which produced some of the most-watched Australian productions of the time. ATN engineers developed the RaceCam technology which was later employed around the world. Following the production of Rafferty's Rules, ATN's studios were now being increasingly used by other production companies. Successful shows of the late 80s and 90s taped at the ATN studios include Home and Away (which by 1996 had claimed a global audience of 65 million viewers; 11.5 million of which in the UK alone) and the infotainment format Beyond 2000.
Digital DVB-T commenced on 1 January 2001, broadcasting on VHF channel 6 while maintaining analogue transmission on VHF channel 7 until 2013.
ATN-7's Sydney transmissions 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.
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.
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The analogue signal for ATN-7 was turned off at 9:00 a.m. 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. The Good Night curtain at the end of the animation was tweaked to Goodbye and the TV mascot appeared for the final time to turn the analogue picture into a small white dot which slowly went away before going completely black, before the analogue signal itself was completely switched off.
In June 2023, 7NEWS moved their operations from Martin Place to their new purpose built studios in Eveleigh. In July 2023, Sunrise hosted its very first broadcast at its new studios. The first edition went to air live at 5:30 a.m. on 24 July 2023, with hosts Natalie Barr and Matt Shirvington, newsreader Edwina Bartholomew and sports presenter Mark Beretta, followed by The Morning Show's Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies. Joining 7NEWS, 7NEWS Spotlight, The Latest and 7NEWS.com.au, for the first time in more than 40 years, the entire Seven Sydney operation and all broadcast and operational staff (across all departments) are now under one roof. The new space cover two floors of Seven's head office and are five times larger than the previous Martin Place location, with permanent sets for all programs. It brought to an end 19 years of Sunrise and Seven News, and 16 years of The Morning Show broadcasting at Martin Place.
From Wikipedia’s article on ATN, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4