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October 4th: All systems GO!

What else does GO! have planned after its full launch? The Vampire Diairies, stunt programming, marathons, personalities, and a place on the Foxtel platform as Channel 129.

vampire-diariesGO! will become a fully fledged channel on Sunday October 4th.

It follows the digital channel’s “soft launch” by Nine on August 9th.

As part of the completion of the channel, GO! will premiere the new US series The Vampire Diaries from writer Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson’s Creek). The teen drama from the CW Network stars Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder. An airdate is yet to be confirmed.

Since its August debut, the channel has been considered a ‘work in progress’ by Nine. But already it is attracting numbers to smile about. On its first night of separate ratings, GO! took a 2.8% share levelling out to 1.7% by week’s end. By comparison, ABC2 had 1.4%, ONE had 1.1% and SBS ONE 0.4%. In its target demographic of 16-39 year olds it rose to a 3.2% share.

From October 4th GO! will also be able to provide breakout commercials in separate markets -it is currently airing national ads.

GO! still has more ideas up its sleeve to cement its place with younger viewers. Further encore screenings of favourite titles will emerge in late night slots. Currently The ARIA Music Show is filling the 1-7am block in one hour loops. It will make room for repeats of other GO! shows, while a more substantial ARIA show will unfold. Another ARIA show is also planned for Nine.

In true multi-channelling style, events such as the ARIA Awards will air on Nine while the Red Carpet will air on GO!

GO! has scaled back its two CSI nights to one, allowing for movies on Friday nights, most of which will have limited and brief commercial breaks. It will also introduce ‘stunt’ programming for special occasions such as public holidays and look at Pay-TV style marathons.

The channel is also looking to introduce new personalities as channel identities. These will be separate from Nine personalities, though they could graduate to Nine if their ‘off-Broadway’ tryout proves successful. Locally produced Interstitials will appear around youth-based interests such as fashion, bars, beach reports etc. GO! is also in discussions with producers for a locally-produced series, likely to be in lifestyle or reality, to add to its international content.

Around late October GO! will also be added to the Foxtel platform as Channel 129. At this stage, Nine was unable to confirm if it would only be to cable subscribers.

Other shows coming to GO! include the fifth and final series of The Wire, Weeds and Curb Your Enthusiasm. GO! is currently considering airing the upcoming Survivor: Samoa series following the Gabon series, which would leave Toncantins to air later.

While Nine is looking to separate its premium channel from GO!, it removed Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. But The Big Bang Theory and shortly, Drop Dead Diva, will air on both.

Les Sampson, Nine’s Director of Acquisitions, even boldly indicated while shows may have to move timeslots if they were head to head with a competitor’s audience, he wasn’t looking to remove them from the channel.

43 Responses

  1. I love Go! I love watching Just Shoot Me repeats late at night ( I hope they show the next seasons considering there’s no dvds releases) and of course Survivor! Keep up the good work guys, you can only get better. This is my fave channel.

  2. Go! and ABC2 now make up the majority of my viewing – Junkyard Wars, Torchwood, Survivor, Terminator:SCC, Fringe and Eleventh Hour compared to some 10 news at 5, The Amazing Race and Friday Night Football (sometimes)

  3. GO! shows are great but very disappointed because not many shows have closed captions for hearing imparied. I think they should consider put the captions on or otherwise the ratings could go down!

  4. @Paul: You make an excellent point, these new channels are foxtel replacements for me. I have no need to be envious of foxtel viewers because GO! and One have all the shows that were missing from FTA.
    The only thing I wish nine would do is increase the bit rate of GO!, it’s so blocky at the moment, worse than some D44 channels.

  5. GO! as a channel is fantastic, yeah there’s some terrible shows (i.e. Mondays and Tuesdays) but I really like Big Bang, Aliens in America and who can go past Seinfeld. As much as I like ABC2 and SBS Two, there are very few shows that I actually like on these channels.

  6. I like what I hear. I like what I hear a lot.

    I’d like to see some marathons overnight. Maybe have them one night a week where they run half a series back-to-back from 10:30 until 6:30 the following morning, or a full series of movies.

    It’s also good that they are trying some local programmes. It’ll give riskier (but cheaper to produce) reality/lifestyle shows a platform to stand on (unlike one said Nine reality show – Australia’s Perfect Couple).

  7. This is definitely a step in the right direction. I like that they’re looking for some new talent to front the channel rather than just sticking in Jules Lund. I especially love the decision to separate the Red Carpet and the ARIA Awards. 😀

  8. Well done GO!…..It has been a regular channel watched in my house hold since it started and sounds like that will be continued…..keep up the good work guys 🙂

  9. @Kuttsywood, the morning cartoon block is simply part of the daily AM repeat of yesterday’s PM programmes. There is, however a different selection of cartoons on Saturday and Sunday mornings, hosted too. Even these kids programmes seem to be following the trend that they are better than their counterparts on Nine…

  10. I am so happy with the multichannel’s its not funny. I find them more entertaining then the main channels. I can honestly say since GO! and One HD have launched they have been my primary veiwing. One is by far the best bascially because of NBA, Football, Slamball and Top priority Forumla 1. One started off like GO!. Looking very cheap and having very little ads (not that u want ads, but more ads mean more viewers, which i see as a good thing). Now One Looks like a fully fledged channel, in only afew months. I can’t why people aren’t happy with the channels. Lets have a quick think afew months ago, no just over a year ago before One was announced. I would have put my money on cheap old programming. Like a country practice, home and away reruns, old neighbours, and just crappy late night re runs. They have definitely beaten all my expectations. Its kinda of like the networks are working as a team. The other day i saw a ad for foxtel on the TV. They advertised sport channels, lifestyle and documentry channels, movie channels and a childrens channel with no ads. I thought to myself;
    Sports channel = One HD
    Kids channel with no ads = ABC3
    Lifestyle channel = Most likely 7SD2
    and just to compete with FOX8/MTV = GO!
    I went out to my family room and said to my parents. Did you just see that ad for foxtel? FTA now has pretty much everything there advertising to draw people in. I then said i now forgive you for all the years i asked for Foxtel and you denied me it. lol

    i would love to see a foxtel ad, followed by a freeview ad. I think that would just be gold. If anyone see’s that. please put it on youtube
    :]

  11. Well done GO! But to take it to the next level I really believe we need to see some orginal Aussie youth programming. It was commisioning orignal programming that made Fox8 really evolved from a wasteland of us sitcom into a channel with cred and it’s own personailty. Unless GO! Takes
    this step quickly I can see it losing traction ver quickly.

  12. Great story David.
    I wish Go! the best of success.
    To be getting a 3.2% share at launch is nothing short of amazing.
    Considering there was almost no marketing and publicity for the new network, and it is available in only 50% of homes – that would be considered a very successful start. By 2013 when Go is in 100% of homes (or close to) we should be seeing shares around the 10% mark.

  13. Why October 4… Other than the start of Daylight Saving, and the NRL Grand Final, what importance does Nine put on this date…

    As for new programming, GO should spin-off the two “blocks” of cartoons (currently the same ep’s morning and afternoon) on weekdays into separate “programs”, with the weekday morning block expanded, and becoming a hosted “program” with the development of a viewer contest to name the program, and select the presenters, while the afternoon block would be expanded to 5:30, with a rerun of The Shak (starting from Season 1, possibly viewer voted) being added, and a completely different cartoon lineup than the morning.

  14. Thanks for all the news David, for a moment there I thought VD was to air Oct 4, I hope they fast track it… interesting changes, good move with CSI. So Drop Dead will still be on Mondays on Nine.

    Thanks god we have you to help keep track of the changes.

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