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Sunrise, Morning Show, 7News to relocate studios

Exclusive: Seven Sydney will farewell Martin Place and move to Eveleigh by late 2022.

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EXCLUSIVE: Production at Seven’s entire Martin Place studios will relocate to Eveleigh next year.

CEO James Warburton has announced Sunrise, The Morning Show and Seven News will relocate by the end of 2022, bringing all of Seven’s Sydney teams under one roof.

The decision is understood to be a cost-saving move away from CBD property leasing.

Seven West Media Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, James Warburton said: “For the first time in 40 years, all divisions of Seven Sydney are being brought together in one place.

“From December 2022, all of Seven Sydney will be located in a refurbished version of the existing Eveleigh office, refitted and significantly expanded. Seven Eveleigh will span seven floors and include new, purpose-built, state-of-the-art studios and facilities for our news and public affairs shows and people.

“The expansion of Seven Eveleigh means we will be leaving Martin Place over the next 21 months.”

Martin Place has been home to Seven News and Sunrise for 17 years.

“Martin Place has been an incredible location for Seven’s Sydney news and public affairs operation over the past 17 years. However, our responsibility to deliver cutting-edge, market-leading news and public affairs content has outgrown our current location.”

Seven moved its headquarter from Jones Bay to Eveleigh in 2018.

18 Responses

  1. This studio is apart of Sunrise. It’s what made it the juggernaut it is today and what makes them different. It’s the point of difference between the brekkie shows. It’s going to be a big loss. Now it’s just going to be another show in a studio. Everleigh is a terrible location to get to if they ever do live concerts etc. It’s so out of the way. I get its a cost cutting measure but yeah guess this is where television is headed.

  4. It might be cheaper and it’s possible to use a generic studio, but it would be missing the vibe of being broadcast from Sydney CBD, especially when you can see the traffic and people in the background. It’s live and not prerecorded scenery. You don’t see that on most other morning shows. The least they could do would be to have a live view through the window or on-screen in the background of the railway tracks and trains passing Eveleigh.

    Also when you could vaguely see ABC visitors strolling past in the background of ABC news broadcasts, that also gave a lively vibe.

  5. Seven obviously are looking at cutting costs. Next will be presenters using home internet and cameras. Covid proved that was possible…

  6. Whatever way they wish to spin this it seems like a massive loss to me mainly for Sunrise. It’s part of that shows DNA and has always been a strong benefit for the live performances.

  11. Surely one of Sunrise’s (and their other news and lifestyle shows) points of differences with rival shows is the Martin Place location. Now they will just have the same generic studio set as all the rest.
    I can’t imagine NBC’s Today show so casually throwing away their iconic Rockefeller Centre location in New York, and ditto for ABC’s Times Square location for their flagship Good Morning America program.
    Channel seven’s decision to go back to a generic studio in the backblocks of Redfern seems like a gift to their rival networks.

    1. I get that and I kinda agree but does a nice backdrop add any viewers to Sunrise? Probably not. This move will save money and not affect the content. So I guess from 7’s point of view its a no brainer.

    3. Sunrise is a national show … Martin Place may well have some meaning to those who live in Sydney, but means nothing to the rest of the country. A very sensible move.

    4. All they have to do is record footage of Martin Place over a few days / seasons and replay it as a backdrop whenever they choose, if they really want to keep that look. I doubt they will.

      The one great thing about Martin Place was the Seven Shop which sadly only lasted about six months. Oh, and of course, their studios were well-placed to witness the shocking events of the Lindt cafe hostage crisis directly opposite them.

  12. This is preposterous. I appreciate that Seven is in a grim financial context and are cutting a dollar everywhere feasible, but what was the point of the existing purpose-built news hub in Martin Place which cost $20M to build for it to no longer have a purpose? Furthermore, Sunrise presently has an advantage of passer-by in the backdrop and the on-air talent intermingling with them at the end of the show. Of all the judgments Mr Warburton has made in his eighteen months in the job, this is senseless, and I am disapproving him even more by the hour.

    1. Back in the early 2000s (after they had already moved to MP) they had the chance to take over the remaining floors in the building from the existing tenants (stockbrokers/legal firms etc) as leases expired for whole floors and thus have the whole network HQ together, but passed on that and moved the non-news operations to Pyrmont.

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