Prime Television launched on 17 March 1962 as CBN-8 in Orange, and later expanded to cover regional New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.

CBN and CWN were both licensed to Country Television Services (also the owner of radio station 2GZ in Orange).

The two stations merged in 1971 as the Riverina and North East Victoria Television Service Pty Ltd with the callsign RVN/AMV on air.

[2] Colour television was introduced at the same time as the rest of the country, on 1 March 1975 – one of the single most expensive processes undertaken by CBN to date.

[2] Midstate produced a number of local programs, including the Weekend Report, Early Shift, Rural Roundup and Around the Schools.

[2] From 1968, CBN was able to access a Postmaster-General's Department microwave link for national news bulletins and major events.

Similarly, the Mildura licence area remained separate from the remainder of Victoria, albeit with a single station, STV-8, later bought out by WIN Television in 1996.

[3] Although advertising revenue increased post-aggregation, local programming declined as a result of the costs incurred by the network's expansion – an estimated $45 million had been spent by Ramcorp during and in the lead-up to aggregation.

[3] The network began to expand into New Zealand in 1997, when a number of licences were purchased from United Christian Broadcasters for an estimated $3.6 million.

[8] Prime Television New Zealand began broadcasting on 30 August 1998, with a nightly local news program in both Waikato and Christchurch.

[9] The renamed Argentine network Azul Televisión was sold for $108 million in early 2000 due to lower-than-expected performance.

[10] During the same year, Prime benefited greatly from its affiliation with the Seven Network throughout its carriage of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

The network's relationship with Seven was further developed throughout the early 2000s, leading to the introduction of 7onPrime promotional branding for Seven Network-produced programs on 11 February 2001.

[11][12] Local news bulletins for Newcastle, the Gold Coast, Canberra, and Wollongong were axed on 9 June 2001 due to falling ratings and the anticipated costs of the switch to digital television.

[13][14] This, and the closure of a number of news bulletins by Southern Cross Broadcasting, prompted the Australian Broadcasting Authority to investigate the adequacy of regional news services[15] The ABA later mandated that stations broadcast a minimum level of local content, based on a points system – two points per minute for local news, and one point per minute for other local content, excluding paid advertisements.

[16] Prime formed a partnership with the Nine Network (affiliated in Australia to competitor WIN Television), giving its owner, PBL Media the option to purchase a 50% share of Prime Television New Zealand in return for access to original programming, and cross-promotion in PBL's New Zealand magazine titles.

Network officials noted that its existing Canberra facilities cannot be upgraded with technological advancements, causing Prime7 to be incapable of relaunching its HD simulcast as well as introducing 7flix to its viewers.

This was Seven West Media's second attempt at purchasing Prime, after its previous attempt in 2019 was thwarted by Australian Community Media boss Antony Catalano and rival WIN Corporation owner Bruce Gordon, who cited Seven's debt problems at the time and its poor ratings performance as their reason for their refusal.

[36] Prime's programming schedule was almost identical to those of Seven Network metropolitan counterparts ATN in Sydney and HSV in Melbourne, with some differences.

Since the Prime network's inception it featured a broad range of original local programming, which included children's program Possum's Club with Madelaine Collignon and station mascot Prime Possum as well as community service segment Prime7 InfoNet, a series of short updates listing local community events.

PTV was an Australian television station licensed to, and serving the regions surrounding Mildura, Victoria.

[2] Aggregation occurred across the network on 31 March 1989, along with the introduction of a green logo featuring the word Prime with the letter i dotted with a stylised globe, introduced in December 1988.