BTQ

This article is about the Australian television station. For other uses, see BTQ (disambiguation).

BTQ
Channels
BrandingSeven
Programming
AffiliationsSeven (O&O)
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
1 November 1959; 65 years ago (1959-11-01)
Former channel number(s)
Analog: 7 (VHF) (1959–2013)
Call sign meaning
Brisbane
Television
Queensland
Technical information
Licensing authority
Australian Communications and Media Authority
ERP200 kW (analog)
50 kW (digital)
HAAT337 m (analog)
335 m (digital)[1]
Transmitter coordinates27°27′59″S 152°56′36″E / 27.46639°S 152.94333°E / -27.46639; 152.94333
Links
Website7plus.com.au

BTQ is the Brisbane television station of the Seven Network in Australia. BTQ was the second television station to launch in Brisbane, going to air on 1 November 1959, after QTQ (station of the Nine Network) launched three months earlier and before ABQ (station of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) launched just 1 day after BTQ's launch.

Along with other Australian television channels, BTQ began broadcasting on digital television on 1 January 2001.

In the early eighties, Seven National News became the first Brisbane-based bulletin to be relayed throughout a string of independent Queensland telecasters[citation needed]. Within the same decade, BTQ was also a major production house for children's television – hosting popular shows as Wombat, Now You See It, Family Feud, Play Your Cards Right and Seven's Super Saturday featuring Agro (puppet). In the 1980s and 1990s, the channel regularly opened its facilities to the Brisbane public – at Open Days. In the 1970s, BTQ also held annual telethons for the Children's Hospital, featuring network personalities.

In 1995, BTQ also produced "Tourist TV", a tourist information channel which could be viewed at various Gold Coast hotels and resorts, including Sea World Nara Resort.

Until 2007, BTQ was the key station of the national Austext teletext service. The service was later largely automated out of ATN-7 Sydney until it was decommissioned in September 2009.

In July 2018, deconstruction of the BTQ transmission tower began after nearly 60 years of service. On 21 July 2018 the top half of tower which contained its broadcasting elements, no longer in use by the station, was removed in stages by a destruction crew via helicopter.[2]

  1. ^ HAAT estimated from http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/ using EHAAT.
  2. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Top of BTQ 7 tower removed - news report". YouTube.