Origins Seven Regional WA began life as a group of smaller, independent stations: • 10 March 1967: BTW–3
Bunbury • 23 August 1968: GSW–9
Mount Barker – relay • 29 August 1974: GSW–10
Albany – relay • 18 June 1971: VEW–8
Kalgoorlie • 29 November 1971: VEW–3
Kambalda – relay • 21 January 1977: GTW–11
Geraldton Prior to these stations signing on, remote Western Australia had been one of the few areas of Australia without local television; the only television outlets in the area were relays of
ABC Television out of
Perth.
Jack Bendat purchased South West Telecasters (owner of BTW/GSW) in 1979, and changed the company's name to Golden West Network (GWN). GWN applied to broadcast an additional service on 31 October 1984, when the
Australian Broadcasting Tribunal called for applications to broadcast to
Christmas Island and the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands via
satellite as part of the Remote Commercial Television License (RCTS) scheme. GWN was granted the Remote Commercial Television License (RCTS) in June 1985 and the service went to air on 18 October 1986 using the call-sign
WAW. Not long after, GWN continued to expand within Western Australia, acquiring Mid-Western Television (owner of VEW-8 Kalgoorlie) in December 1985 for 7 million, and Geraldton Telecasters (owner of GTW-11) in March 1987 for an undisclosed amount. The takeovers gave GWN a monopoly over all commercial television services in regional Western Australia. In 1987, Bendat and
Kerry Stokes merged their media interests into joint company BDC Investments. Later that year, Northern Star Holdings purchased BDC for 206 million. Northern Star were forced to sell GWN to satisfy existing media regulations. GWN was sold back to Stokes in December 1988 for 54 million, who upgraded equipment across GWN. In April 1990, the callsigns BTW and GSW were merged, to become
SSW. During the late 1980s, GWN was promoted as
GWN Satellite Television and aired programs from mostly the Nine Network plus a few from Seven and Ten with STW's Channel Nine (later National Nine) News (from Perth) providing the national news link.
1990s to the 2000s Kerry Stokes gained control of the
Seven Network in 1995, and attempted to sell GWN to Seven in return for more shares. Seven Network shareholders agreed to the trade in April 1996 – a deal which would have seen Seven acquire GWN for 72.8 million thus becoming the regional network affiliate for Western Australia. The arrangement was called off when the
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission found that a 15-year exclusive programming deal GWN made with the
Nine Network was anti competitive and opposed the acquisition. The Seven Network subsequently dropped their plans to purchase GWN. And as a result, GWN soon ended its programming deal with Nine for exclusive broadcast of its shows in regional areas of the state.
Prime Television purchased GWN in November 1996 from Stokes for 71 million. Remote Western Australia was one of the few areas of regional Australia that was not aggregated, given its small population. This ended in 1997, when
WIN Television was granted the rights to a second television license in regional Western Australia, ending GWN's monopoly of all three Australian commercial channels. In March 1999, GWN opted to become a sole Seven Network affiliate, in-line with its eastern sister, Prime Television. As a result,
WIN Television WA picked up both the
Nine Network and
Network 10 affiliations. GWN's transmission operations were moved from Bunbury to
Prime Media Group's digital broadcast facility in
Canberra in April 2005. Programming was delivered to regional Western Australia via a satellite feed. A proposal for a third television station – a joint venture between GWN's parent company Prime Media Group and WIN Corporation – was submitted to the
Australian Communications & Media Authority in 2006. Similar to
Mildura Digital Television, the new channel will operate under a
Section 38B licence, as a
Network 10 affiliate named
Ten West.
2010 and beyond The new decade saw the introduction of digital television, with the
Central Wheatbelt,
Kalgoorlie,
Karratha and
Mingenew digital transmitters launching on 10 June 2010. The broadcasters shared a single digital transmitter for GWN, WIN WA and the new Ten West in standard definition. On 15 January 2011, Prime Media Group reported that GWN and Prime were to rebrand to GWN7 and
Prime7 respectively, in connection to their strong relations with the metropolitan stations of the Seven Network. Their news bulletins were quickly renamed as
GWN7 News and
Prime7 News. These bulletins were relaunched on 16 January 2011 at 5:57pm. Digital transmitter upgrades continued on 28 July 2011, with
Bunbury and surrounds being introduced to the full suite of digital channels for the first time, including
7two and
7mate. On 30 July 2011, the regional networks began broadcasting on the
Viewer Access Satellite Television platform. On 12 February 2018, GWN7's master control facilities (transmission and technical operations) were transferred to Prime Media's national playout centre in
Canberra, with the WA facilities beamed through satellite and microwave links. Playout of GWN7's programming was later transferred to Mediahub located in the
Sydney suburb of
Ingleburn (which houses playout for
ABC Television and
WIN Television), before once again transferred to a facility operated by Australia's telco provider
Telstra (shared with hybrid-funded broadcaster
SBS Television).
2021: Merger with Seven On 1 November 2021,
Seven West Media announced that it would acquire all the shares and subsidiaries of Prime Media Group. This was SWM's second attempt at purchasing Prime Media, after its previous attempt in 2019 was thwarted by
Australian Community Media boss Antony Catalano and rival
WIN Corporation owner
Bruce Gordon, citing Seven's debt problems at the time and its poor ratings performance as the reason for their refusal. Prime shareholders approved the deal on 23 December, with the sale completed on 31 December. Prior to Seven’s ownership, GWN7 (alongside its sister Prime7 stations) was the only commercial affiliate not carrying full metro network branding on-air, in contrast to WOW's owner WIN which carried Nine Network branding full-time since its return to carrying Nine's programming in 2021. On 23 May 2022, Seven West Media announced that the on-air branding would be unified under Seven Network branding; the GWN7 name was retired on 25 July 2022. ==Programming==