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Movie Networks are no more…

Foxtel has now realigned its Movie Channels as Movie Networks disappears.

2013-01-01_1835As of yesterday Movie Networks were no longer available on Foxtel.

Movie One, Movie Two, FMC (Family Movie Channel), Movie Extra, Movie Greats and StarPics 1 & 2 folded on December 31st after Time Warner, Disney, MGM & Village Roadshow ended their joint venture of 12 years.

Foxtel has now realigned its Movie Channels, although in some locations on its own website it erroneously indicates these still comprise part of its Movies packages.

The new channels come as part of the Platinum packs, starting at $122 per month, however you can still build your own as separate add-ons.

Movie Basic Showcase: $16
Premiere (+2), Showcase (+2), Action / Adventure, Comedy, Drama / Romance, World Movies.

Movie Basic Family: $16
Premiere (+2), Family,  Thriller / Crime, Masterpiece, World Movies.

If you have any feedback on the new structure or new programming, let’s hear it please…

43 Responses

  1. @Jakerz, I still have OptusTV (since the nineties) and it looks like they are back in business, see link…
    optus.com.au/shop/broadband/digitaltv

    I had a chap come to my door last Friday saying he was from Foxtel and telling me Optus were going to stop supplying and wanting me to change over to Foxtel. Pretty sure Optus wouldn’t be offering packages on their site if they were going out of the business of PayTV.

  2. Typical Foxtel, they destroyed C7 Sport, so they could shut ot any competition to their Fox Sports Channels. Years down the track now it’s movies. Destroy any or all competition. And take full control. I love my pay tv, but $130 per month, for HD channels and really compare to the rest of the world, hardly any channel for my hard earned $$$.

  3. Pay television in Australia is outrageous. How could the ACCC simply let this slide? Foxtel have simply bought out one of two major movie providers and forced the other into closure. Just as both networks were starting to up their home grown content. The media industry in Australia is a joke, and continues to dwindle while foreign content is growing.

    Take Canada for example, there were fears that the booming US media industry would render Canadian content obsolete, so the government spent billions on funding local media sources like Corus, GlobeMedia and Astral. All of this appears to have paid off, the ABC imports a significant amount of content from each of these companies.

    Not to mention all of Canada’s major telecommunications companies offer their own cable/satellite television services. And because the telecommunication companies buy channels from these media companies, content is usually universal and not constricted by network ownership.

    We could learn a thing or two from Canada, they seem to have the right idea. Their content is not only affordable, but it doesn’t look cheap (remember the branding for W and 111hits? It looked like something done on paint). We need stronger brand identity Down Under, and it shouldn’t all be labelled under Foxtel either!

    What happened to Optus tv? At least if they hadn’t died out, there may still be someone keeping Foxtel in line…

  4. Am sure the movie studio suppliers have long lasting memories and will tell Foxtel to go away when the NBN gets deep penetration when supply contracts come up for renewal. To go from 2 premiere movie channels down to 1 is not in the best interests of the paying customers, especially if the pricing stays the same. There will be few, if any independent content suppliers to the ACCC sanctioned Foxtel monopoly at this rate. Go and profit in the short term Foxtel, as your long term outlook is very grim indeed!

  5. I just cut off movies, there is no 2 tiers on their website, but without the other studios movies, I can’t see the value either way, especially with the movie library online and of course ‘other means.’

  6. I was checking this out. rogers.com/web/Rogers.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PTV_PROG_LANDING Will foxtel ever offfer things like this (a la carte, especially with the nbn. I don’t subsribe to the movie channels by if I could choose the movie channels, would be great. Time to move to Canada.

  7. What they mean is that Foxtel is the only STV game in town. So the studios will have to do a deal with Foxtel if they want to get money for their movies from STV. So all the movies will end up on Foxtel, the same as they already do.

    If you want to flick around there will be a couple of less options to choose from. But if you use on demand or an IQ to watch what you want, when you want, then it won’t make any difference.

    But this has nothing to do with what consumers want. And there won’t and discount, not in the long term (even if they throw a few dollars away placating this controversy in the short term).

    Foxtel has failed to get its penetration past 25%. Less customers are taking expensive premium packages, they will loose their data business with the NBN and face competition. To make money they will have to focus on being a premium service for the rich.

  8. This is the disaster that was always going to happen if Foxtel were systematically allowed to dismantle the independent channel providers in Showtime and Movie Network. Why anyone thought it would be good to ‘trust’ Foxtel to act in subscribers best interests to better their movie service I don’t know. They’ve shown now what I suspected then, that this is all about a better return to Foxtel financially. Does anyone think they’re paying the studios the same $$ for their titles now they’ve got them singularly and direct? No way. It was reported they were given them all a 40% haircut. So where is the savings for the subscriber? Supposed new pricing in the New Year?

  9. Foxtel has really done it this time . The new movie line up is a rip off . Charging us more for less. Now we have nine movie channels before we had 15. Now at any one time we have less movies to choose from as we only have nine movie channels and two repat channels. The movie network was a far superior movie package as opposed to showtime . Now we have no new movies . Premiere shows movies that are over two years old . This is crap we are being charged the same and getting less. All foxtel can say is but you can get a q box and buy movies on demand movies these all cost more .so we will end up having to pay more for movies on demand and for their PVR box . Such a con such a scam.. I will be removing my movie package . I only watch english premier league and movies on foxtel. The rest of the channels are unwatchable . Too many adds more adds than free to air tv and too many repeats of repeats. Basically all rubbish channels.if it wasnt for the english premier leauge i wouldnt even have foxtel.

  10. A a person who has Austar for over 13 years I have seen the evolution of the channels over the years. Back when I first had it, they had a lot more shows with personality like Tim from the Doug Anthony All Stars used to host things on the Comedy Channel and remember Tabitha on Arena who used to host old horror movies. I miss the old cable days.

    Now all there is, is reality shows and for the movie channels there has never been a real choice. Now that Foxtel have made this move with the movie channels, it seems less choice than ever.

    I normally only put the movie channels on around this time of year due to there being nothing on. I normally turn them of in Feb. But now that if I decide to reinstate it will cost $32.00 a month, I very much doubt I will be putting the movie channels on again.

  11. “He said once Foxtel had finalised movie deals with Disney and MGM, subscribers would be the winners.”

    Can it be implied that the “missing” channels will be purely the above studios plus timeshifts? iirc Sky has/had an MGM HD channel at some point (albeit I’m led to believe not an A1 product) and with Disney a big player now, Foxtel need to save face here. Disposable income isn’t as easy these days to justify if value is missing. I’m prepared to take them on face value, but as a Premium subscriber, I also expect deals in the coming weeks to be inked or a credit on my account.

  12. It’s also exposing the deep problems inside Foxtel – they don’t understand their customers or the content they are supposed to be aggregating. Maybe that’s the real reason why STV penetration in Australia has stagnated at 25%. After absorbing Austar, Showtime and MNC who/what can they blame? Anti-siphoning of course! Wonder what happens if subscription levels actually fall?

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