regional Queensland | |
---|---|
Branding | WIN Television |
Slogan | Turn on WIN |
Channels |
Analog: see table below Digital: see table below |
Affiliations | Ten |
Owner |
WIN Corporation Pty Ltd (WIN QLD Pty. Ltd) |
First air date | 7 September 1963 |
Call letters' meaning |
Rockhampton Television Queensland |
Former affiliations | independent (1963-1990) Nine Network (1990-2016) |
Transmitter power | see table below |
Height | see table below |
Transmitter coordinates | see table below |
Website | www.wintv.com.au |
RTQ is an Australian television station broadcasting in regional Queensland in Australia. The network was owned by Star Television, before being purchased by the WIN Corporation on 5 October 1988.
WIN Television Queensland started out as Darling Downs Television Limited in 1959, which was launched as a television network in 1962 as Queensland's first regional TV station, DDQ-10, broadcasting to the Darling Downs area for the first time. SDQ-4 for the Southern Downs soon launched in 1964, and DDQ-5 was next to air later (it would later be renamed as DDQ-5a) for Toowoomba viewers.
Rockhampton station, RTQ-7, was launched by Rockhampton Television Ltd on 7 September 1963 to serve viewers in Rockhampton and its suburbs. Between 1968 and 1971, RTQ's viewing audience across Central Queensland considerably increased with the installation of transmitters at Cracow, Blackwater and Gladstone. RTQ-7 began colour transmissions on 1 March 1975. Prior to aggregation, RTQ-7 produced a considerable amount of local content with programs such as The Morning Show, Feminime Touch, Claire's Corner, Wedmaier's Walkabout, Seven Days, Holiday Fun & Games, Racing Roundup and its local news service all being presented from the studio in North Rockhampton. The other programming aired by RTQ-7 was "cherry-picked" by station management from all three metropolitan networks.
Until the 1980s, Darling Downs TV sometimes supported the Nine Network and QTQ-9, its Brisbane station, by broadcasting its newscasts on relay. However, the station switched sympathies to Network Ten and TVQ-0 in the early part of the decade, supporting its programs and broadcasting TVQ-0's Eyewitness News on relay. It was part of the Great Eastland Television network in 1975-1987, together with NRN NRTV 11-8 Television and NEN 9-10 Television (both in New South Wales) as GET 10-4-5a. In 1976, Darling Downs TV became the first regional TV network in Australia to switch to videotape recordings for its news service within a year after it became a color station. This was the same case for RTQ during those years as after having been a Nine News broadcaster, switched news affiliations with the Seven Network and BTQ's local newscasts via satellite relay since they share the same channel number.