Australia's Seven, Nine and Ten not leaping to add new digital channels
by Darren Murph 
posted Jan 3rd 2009 at 3:33PM
Australia's Seven, Nine and Ten -- the three free-to-air networks in the country -- are now free to launch new digital channels to supplement their current offerings, but on the whole, there's not much excitement about doing so. Thus far, the only one that has even announced plans to launch a new channel with distinct programming is Ten, which hopes to debut a 24-hour HD sports channel dubbed One. If everyone would follow suit, the commercial networks alone could offer a total of nine stations with unique programming. Sadly, the networks have known about this opportunity for two years now, but it seems to us that everyone might be waiting around for another to seriously approach the opportunity before they follow suit. Monkey see, monkey do, right?
Filed under: OTA, Sports, New content
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gargravarr @ Jan 3rd 2009 5:07PM
Yeah, this sucks. but I would be happy if they would just broadcast the same HD stream in the city and regional areas. At present, you have to be careful when recording a show because you might just end up with an hour of ducks swimming on a lake (as a filler).
Ruprecht @ Jan 3rd 2009 7:29PM
@gargravarr
It will suck even more when those ducks swimming on a lake become pixelated ducks swimming on blocks as each network rams another stream onto an already overcompressed mux.
Akin to NBC with their useless weather stations and PBS with their sub streams.
"New" digital channels (ie repeated standard definition crap) = death of HDTV in Australia
CAM @ Jan 3rd 2009 7:39PM
What TEN are not telling you is their dirty little secret, that normal TEN HD programming will disappear to make way for the 24hr ONE HD Sport Channel. That's right, all the normal TEN HD programs are GONE. No more drama, comedy, variety shows in HD, because there is only enough bandwidth for 1 x HD channel and 1 x SD channel. Sqeezing in another SD channel will rob quality from the other two, but that's what they're planning to do. The fact is, HD on free-to-air TV in Australia NOW looks the best it's ever going to be, but when the new channels start, say goodbye to the quality, and say hello to low bitrate HD which will be a pixellated mess.
tone @ Jan 3rd 2009 11:36PM
That may not be the case now re the HD channels, as the government has just modified (late december) the HD channel rules to allow 2 HD channels for each existing free to air network.
By the way there are 5 free to air network divisions, all 5 have been allocated 2 HD channels now, 3 of the networks are commercial.
1) ABC and ABC 2
2) SBS, SBS News, SBS 2
3) Ten SD and Ten HD
4) Nine SD and Nine HD
5) Seven SD and Seven HD
The other channels are on Fox/Austar and Optus networks. (Cable/Satellite)
CAM @ Jan 4th 2009 12:49AM
tone,
I would love to believe this news. Do you have a link to confirm this info about 2 x HD channels for each network? And whether they have to squeeze it into their existing bandwidth, or whether they get allocated more bandwidth on another frequency?