Editing STQ (section)

==History==
The station began in the 1960s as two different operators:
*'''WBQ-8''' [[Wide Bay-Burnett|Wide Bay]]/[[Maryborough, Queensland|Maryborough]], starting on 10 April 1965
*'''MVQ-6''' [[Mackay, Queensland|Mackay]], starting on 9 August 1968

The licence to operate the commercial television service for the [[Wide Bay–Burnett|Wide Bay-Burnett]] region, was awarded to Wide Bay-Burnett Television in October 1962. The company's shareholders included local radio and print media outlets as well as theatre owners [[Birch Carroll and Coyle|Birch, Carroll and Coyle]].

The station's studios in the Maryborough suburb of Granville housed three studios plus an outdoor space for special presentations. At the time of its launch, WBQ-8 scheduled around 36 hours of programming a week and within two years this had increased to 45 hours per week, including extended hours on Wednesday afternoons.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2015-04-10|title=Seven Queensland turns 50|url=https://televisionau.com/2015/04/seven-queensland-turns-50.html|access-date=2020-07-18|website=Television.AU|language=en-AU}}</ref>

Although MVQ-6 was launched on 9 August 1968, its history dates back to March 1960, when Mackay Television Development Pty Ltd was formed. Maitland Low, general manager of local radio station [[4MK]], was appointed company manager.

Mackay Television Development Pty Ltd was granted the licence in September 1963. The Mackay licence was one of twenty commercial licences granted as part of the fourth stage of the nationwide rollout of commercial television.

The station was based at studios in Victoria Street, Mackay, and incorporated into new premises planned for radio 4MK. MVQ-6 aired its first test pattern transmissions on the evening of Friday 2 August 1968, giving the station's engineers and local viewers a week to make sure all was working before the official opening a week later.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2013-08-09|title=Seven Mackay turns 45|url=https://televisionau.com/2013/08/seven-mackay-turns-45.html|access-date=2020-07-18|website=Television.AU|language=en-AU}}</ref>

'''WBQ''' changed its callsign in 1977 to '''SEQ''' (as in '''''S'''outh '''E'''ast '''Q'''ueensland''), and its on-air name to "'''SEQ Sunshine Television'''", with its slogan ''Leading the Way''. '''MVQ''' also changed its on-air name in 1982 to "'''Tropical Television'''". The stations were long time broadcaster of [[Seven Network]] programs, as well as of Brisbane's [[Seven News]] edition on [[BTQ]].

In 1987, after earlier buying SEQ-8, [[Christopher Skase]]‘s [[Qintex|Qintex Limited]], made an offer to buy MVQ-6 which was accepted by the MVQ shareholders. Skase was in the process of selling [[TVQ|TVQ-0]] in Brisbane as he had also just bought the Seven Network stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. This gave MVQ-6 and its new sister station, SEQ-8, access to the Seven Network.

When the regional Queensland television market was aggregated at the end of 1990, SEQ-8 and MVQ-6 operationally merged to become the '''Sunshine Television Network''', and thus became the regional Queensland affiliate of the Seven Network. Sunshine changed the call sign to '''STQ''' and adopted its new slogan ''Love You Queensland'' with a matching jingle that was based on BTQ's ''Love You Brisbane'' from the 1980s. Sunshine also reformatted its news service to match its partner network and a new logo also debuted with the on-air presentation similar to Seven's.

The collapse of [[Christopher Skase]]'s Qintex empire then saw Sunshine Television Network transfer ownership to Gosford Communications in 1992. In 1995, Reg Grundy's RG Capital lodged an initial $89million bid for the company which was rejected by Sunshine's board. A revised offer of $105 million was lodged and backed by Sunshine's chairman Trevor Kennedy, however RG Capital's plans were halted when [[News Corp Australia|News Corp]] then purchased a 15% stake in Sunshine Television.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1995-07-17 |title=RG to drop Sunshine sell-off |url=https://www.afr.com/politics/rg-to-drop-sunshine-sell-off-19950717-k6hd1 |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=Australian Financial Review |language=en}}</ref> Another Seven affiliate, [[Prime Television]], then snapped up 19.9% of Sunshine Television before the Seven Network made a full offer which was successful.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Turner |first=Geoff |date=1996 |title=News media chronicle: July 1995 to June 1996 |url=https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:11187/UQ11187_OA.pdf |journal=Australian Studies in Journalism |issue=5 |pages=305–306 |issn=1038-6130}}</ref> This led to Sunshine Television Network changing its name to '''Seven Queensland''' and taking on the same logo and on-air look as the Seven Network.

With a few exceptions, its schedule since then has been virtually identical to that of its metropolitan counterpart, BTQ in [[Brisbane]]. Seven Queensland won the annual audience ratings for the first time in 1998 against WIN and Southern Cross Ten and has consistently dominated the ratings since.{{cn|date=June 2023}}

Prior to August 2017, Seven Queensland was the only regional broadcaster to broadcast [[7flix]]. This was due to [[Seven West Media]] owning the network.

On 26 November 2018, STQ switched the main channel from SD to MPEG-2 HD.