Getting a Clearer View
TV Tonight meets with Freeview CEO Robin Parkes to find out how a brand can re-build after a bungled start. And what did she think of the YouTube parody anyway?
- Published by David Knox
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It’s been labelled everything from over-hyped to an outright scam. There was no clear start-up date, viewers felt misled about 15 “new” digital channels, regional viewers screamed about being ignored, ad-skipping technology was shunned and they came down hard on that YouTube parody that summed up what we were all feeling anyway.
Could Freeview have had a worse start in this country if it tried?
Now as media, several manufacturers and indeed many viewers, are already offside -how can Freeview ever refresh its brand?
TV Tonight spoke to the woman who is frequently quoted on all things Freeview, CEO Robin Parkes, to ask whether it feels like it’s getting a fair go.
Parkes acknowledges confusion in the marketplace, pointing out that the first campaign was aimed at the masses. The objective of Freeview, she says, is to transition the wider audience from analogue to digital television. That effectively means early adopters and tech-savvy viewers are likely to remain frustrated in the immediate future.
“We’re talking about analogue people who are looking at their TV Week guide for programming because they’ve never seen an electronic programme guide. They’ve got TVs that are very old. They’re the ones who we really need to get,” she said.
“‘Digital people’ have always been there. They’ve been there for 6 or 7 years and I understand they’re very disillusioned, because if you adopted early you haven’t really seen much. And you’re probably not really seeing much for the next couple of years. But if you’re still on analogue and you make the switch then you think ‘oh there is more for me there for free.'”
One of the biggest critcisms of Freeview has been confusion over the start-up dates of the promised extra channels. So far only ONE has been added -and only to viewers in TEN’s metropolitan markets.
“Where networks stood on the 24th of November when they announced to the world ‘Freeview is coming, stay tuned’ was a very different picture by the time they came back to work post Christmas. Global financial crisis was not hitting in November and everyone had much bigger plans. Seven were saying ‘we’ll be on air by the 31st of March.’ But everything changed.”
Parkes says Seven and Nine are not deliberately holding back. Even though they knew it would be five years before they saw a return on their investment they are constrained by expense in a changing economic landscape.
“When they went to air in November promising everything was coming, in their minds it was all going to be around the same time as ONE was.”
Now as the marketplace views Freeview with confusion and scepticism, media articles are far more negative than positive. One article even scared its readers with false information that their TV sets would no longer keep working. As CEO of a potentially tainted brand, Parkes says the success of Freeview will be decided by its target audience: the masses.
“The success of Freeview won’t be decided by the technologists and bloggers and journalists. It will be decided by the people at home,” she said.
Specifically, that is the audience who is convinced to switch from 5 analogue channels to (ultimately) 15 digital channels. And presumably to do so without straying over to a world of pay television instead.
“They’re the ones that will decide the success or otherwise. At the moment those people are confused. They say, ‘there’s lots of channels, but where is it, I don’t get it?’ But our biggest threat is apathy -people that say ‘I’m quite happy with 5 channels, my picture’s good enough.'”
As for negative articles by technology journalists, Parkes is candid.
“That’s not going to make or break us. The consumers aren’t always going to be reading the technology press. The TV press –they’re the ones that we need. They’re the ones reaching the consumers.”
Pressed on the refusal to embrace ad-skipping technology on Freeview branded equipment, Parkes says there has been no hiding the fact it is supported by Free to Air networks.
“It’s funded by ads. Someone has to pay. Either you pay for Foxtel or you pay by ads. It’s just a commercial reality.”
Last week Freeview also welcomed community television to the future EPG. She was upbeat that it would help community TV’s case before the government to switch to digital. It is in Freeview’s interests to offer as much content as it can for free. Community TV fits right into that brief.
Parkes says angry regional viewers who have applied pressure to politicians to bring ONE to their TVs, have forced regional broadcasters, including Prime and WIN, to advance their infrastructure upgrades. Once a mid year target is met for ONE, extra channels will be able to follow suit via the same technology.
A second stage advertising campaign and an updated website will begin on April 26th.
The first advertisement became the target of a now-infamous YouTube parody, which was shut down by Freeview, further creating disharmony in the marketplace. What happened to having a good ol’ Aussie sense of humour?
“In hindsight we would have dealt with it differently”, acknowledges Parkes. “The lawyers tried to do the right thing, protecting the trademark, a little bit over-zealous maybe. In hindsight we would have been less precious, I guess. As soon as we saw it went back up and the passion behind it we said ‘just leave it.’
“I think we should ask for royalties from their show because they got a lot of publicity!” she laughs.
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34 Responses
I recently disconnected my digital set top box and when back to analouge as the picture quality is more stable,
On digital channel 10 at 5.00pm everynight breaks up and a no signal message is displayed. This lasts for about 45mins. Channel 7 is virtually unwatchable for a couple of hours after 8.30. Not to mention the problems of pixalation when it rains.
This is just spin spin spin. Freeview is the fta attempt to stop us progressing into the 21st century. When in doubt…update your website – great plan.
Thank you for trying to shed some light on the whole Freeview story David but i don’t quite understand – in one sentence Ms Parkes is dismissing the influence of “bloggers and journalists” but then says they need the support of “the TV press”. This is the 21st century, the line separating the “bloggers and journalists” from “the TV press” is now blurred. I think Ms Parkes’ comments further perpetuate the feeling that our TV industry (particularly the commercial sector) is too far stuck in the 20th century and not interested in tackling the 21st.
And, scarily, the Government’s digital TV campaign (while it’s not perfect) seems to be making more sense of the digital TV transition than Freeview ever could. At least the government is not promoting a non-existent “15 channels”!
I have found the whole freeview branding and advertising an absolute joke from the start its dopey CEO has just strengthened my view.
What i find equally as bizare is regional australia. I am currently holidaying in outback NSW and watch southern cross which is a rebroadcast of 10 sydney and they are talking about whas is on One, but on what should be One is a wonderful HD test channel showing great HD scenary. What a waste of bandwidth. Similarly on 9HD they show HD content on a part time basis and the bulk of the time it is the wonderful HD scenary. Pull your finger our WIN and SC and get HD content out their full time and OneHd out there. Given WIN are showing some HD content, surely it can’t be a technical reason and just must be apathy on the part of WIN,
Not impressed with their answer on the regional situation. The infrastructure is there, it’s just they can’t put their own ads in yet. Plain stupid and frustrating for regional viewers.
@Richard W: It’s not exactly like the brand tivo, which has it’s own branded recorder, rather it’s a body that represents the FTA networks in the PVR and epg industry.
Why people are worried about the future of pvrs is that the current epg broadcast on epg capable equipment may be disabled from non-freeview branded products in the near future, meaning anyone who wants an epg must by a freeview endorsed recorder.
I don’t see why people are getting in such a huff.
From my understanding, Freeview is just a brand who will eventually sell products much like the TIVO.
Unless there are special features that make us want to buy Freeview branded stuff, then stick with a common ad skipping PVR and the HD TV that you have now!
People please be aware that a program listed as ‘HD aka High Definition’, isn’t necessarily HD – more often than not the program has been arc’d up from SD to HD. Alas it is a slightly better picture, just no where near as good as authentic HD and pretty much the only place you will see this is when you watch sport and it has specifically been shot in HD.
Didn’t realise their were other “regional” commercial broadcasters other than (SC10) WIN and Prime.
A lot of false advertising going on with Freeview…when will the Fed Government hold them accountable?
If they were doing what they promise they would have no “angry” regional viewers to begin with.
SC10 are certainly tarnishing the TEN brand.
This will be the perfect example for students in business and marketing in what not to do for years to come.
Freeview….what a disgraceful debacle.
You have ads on Foxtel because subsciption alone is not enough to run the amount of channels and services they offer.
@franc your absolutely right the reason why fta tv has ads is bccause it’s free, but with paytv your paying so there should be no reason for ads, and i cant imagine foxtel would even make that much money from advertising anyway.
re: “It’s funded by ads. Someone has to pay. Either you pay for Foxtel or you pay by ads. It’s just a commercial reality.”
It sounds like there’s a choice here – so why are there so many advdertisements on Pay TV? It sounds more like “There’s Pay TV with ads, or commercial TV with ads”…..There doesnt seem to be an alternative for Australian TV to survive without advertisements. As such, shouldnt the price of Pay TV be reduced, seeing there’s a monopoly in the market?
On a second note, I reside in inner city Melbourne and have recently purchased a HD set-top box, only to lose both channels 10 (which means no ONE either) and ABC, so i have to go back to my poor reception analogue antenna! Please remind me why I’m making this switch again?
7hd did advertise their channel when it first launched. They just waited until they actually launched it before they advertised it. They had many ads about a series(dont remember what it was) that would only be avaliable on 7hd. It was following lost. Also, at the bottom of the screen, a pop up comes up with ‘avaliable on 7hd’ at the start of each program. This is opposed to 9 which has this tiny orange square with little writing ‘hd’, next to the classification when they’re programs start. and thank god ch9 have no unique programming on their hd channel. They’re dam watermark is in the centre of the screen, rather then off to the right, and its so bright it get really annoying.
As for Freeview, its crap. The goverment ads are enough to inform people to make the switch. the labels make it easier for people to buy compatible tv’s and set top boxes. If anything freeview would confuse a buyer, who would try looking for a freeview label aswell. Maybe Freeview should consider slowly melting into the background. Come back in a year or so, when this ‘changing economic landscape’ has finished changing. Or dont come back at all, no biggy!!
I’m still not happy about lack of ad skip. I just hope they don’t ban an epg from running on existing equipment or future non-freeview branded recorders.
re: Financial markets being an excuse for not getting on with extra channels: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t 7 the profitable of the 3 commercials at the moment? And CanWest, the owner of 10 about to go into receivership? Yet – 10 already has a channel running, 9’s is announced, what about 7? Their excuse?
Meh. I’ll stick with TV from the internet. No empty promises there.
good point bindi other than channel ten the fta barley even advertise the hd multi-channels, i saw a channel for 9hd only once(even though i watch nine almost everyday) where they where listing all the shows on 9hd and most of them where shows already on nine anyway. and what where seven thinking when they launched sevenhd late at night with out even telling anyone (compared this to ten which made it very clear when the launch was)
But even the “masses” who know nothing of digital will notice there is not 15 channels when they change over – won’t they?
These people who still get their TV guides from print media would be the most frustrated as programming changes ensure printed guides are never accurate – so why would they place their trust any further? And those who have never used an EPG will quickly learn, that during prime time, 8.30 is really 8.35, 11.30 is sometimes 11.20, etc.
They should all get together, sort out all of these issues then launch FreeView rather than wasting advertising time over something that is nowhere near ready for the masses.
Wow, what a bunch of airhead responses. So basically, she doesn’t care what people think on TV blogs or forums, its about getting new people across to DTV by misleading them into thinking they are going to get something similar to Pay TV.
The fact that they couldn’t even put the right information on their website is proof that they hadn’t put much thought into the whole process.
Well I currently live in a National Park 50Km outside of Alice Springs, I very much doubt I will have any access to any digital station in this location. It would be good just to receive the 5 channels that majority of Australians can access, let alone the 15 promised from freeview. The Government needs to make sure everybody in this country has the same access to TV, internet and mobiles as they do in the major cities, if they want to try and encourage people to live in these areas. The problem is that the few thousand votes that they get out this way, really has no effect on who governs this nation, which in my view consists of only the capital cities of each major state. I think we should be looking at making Australia a unified country, where everyone is treated equally.
Ha royalties from our show… good on her… if she want’s to pay for some of the debts too be my guest
So still no date for 7 or 9’s extra channels, and by her reasoning with the economic situation far from over they won’t be arriving anytime soon – shouldn’t they just be advertising 13 new channels until they have something to talk about?
It amazes me how they could get such a fantastic proposition as Freeview so wrong, particularly when they stole most of the elements from the UK’s successful version.
Like the FTA’s half hearted attempts at marketing digital and HD, you can’t help feeling that they don’t really want Freeview to work.
It’s hard to feel sorry for them as they are meant to be professional and will be getting lots of moolah.
But now Kev’s people have confused it even more with their current ads about going digital. All the details but of course, not a mention of Freeview.
As someone who lives where the ABC simply dropped off the side of a hill after 6 years of watching it in digital, i am one of those who had to jump shipp to pay tv just to get what should be free, the ABC. After writing to the ABC and explaining that we had a technician come out to check everything out and that there was simply no signal, their response was, to get a technician to come out and check everything out. Not only have they got the programming and setup of their stations wrong, they have also forgot about the delivery of the signal.
Pay TV for me
the biggest incentive for people to change to digital is not empty promises, it is offering actual content. most people do not care about picture quality, they just want to watch the shows they like, so if 7 and 9 start new channels that feature awesome shows and they advertise to let people know what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t upgrade then a whole lot of people will bite the bullet. 10 must have been the biggest driving force for people to upgrade so far, first with 10HD and then with ONE, both of which were advertised. 7 lauched 7HD in the middle of the night without a word to anyone and didn’t offer much worth viewing, and 9HD has never advertised anything, the SD station doesn’t even mention the HD one at all and most people would not even realise there is anything different on. the biggest selling point these stations have is what they actually air, yet this seems to be what they are most secretive about.