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Southern Cross adds ONE HD from July 2

TEN's 24 hour sports channel moves into regional Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria from July 2nd. And TV Tonight confirms Tasmania will join them.

oneid1Regional viewers of Southern Cross 10 will finally see ONE HD in Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria from 7pm July 2nd, it was announced today.

The addition of the channel follows months of complaints that that regional viewers could not access the 24 hour sports channel at the same time as metropolitan viewers, who have been accessing it since March.

Macquarie Southern Cross Media (MSCM) says it will launch ONE HD on Channel 50 to viewers who receive its HD service in three states, subject to digital coverage. Viewers will require a HD set top box or television to receive ONE HD.

TV Tonight can also confirm that Tasmanian viewers will also receive the channel from July 2nd.

Macquarie Southern Cross Media’s Chief Executive Officer, Rhys Holleran, said “We are thrilled to be able to bring ONE HD to our regional viewers who currently receive our HD service in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the ACT.

“The launch of this channel follows the significant investment program which was required to enable the broadcasting of HD television across 25 markets we have in these regions in Eastern Australia ranging from Far North Queensland down to Southern Victoria.”

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy said: “Digital television means better pictures, improved sound quality and new content. I welcome the continued
rollout of additional digital television services and congratulate Macquarie Southern Cross Media for the further expansion of ONE HD.”

TV Tonight has previously made available maps of the four key regional markets, which will all receive ONE HD: in Queensland (Aggregate market A), Northern NSW (Aggregate market B), Southern NSW (Aggregate market C) and Victoria (Aggregate market D).

An official statement is expected on the Tasmanian market imminently following a board meeting today.

Greg Dodgson, Chief Operating Officer for Macquarie Southern Cross Media, told TV Tonight: “A Press Release will be coming out on Tasmania as soon as possible.

“It will come in at the same time:  2nd of July at 7:00,” he confirmed.

Darwin, Central Australia and regional South Australia, which are digital areas, will still miss out on receiving ONE HD.

“There’s no requirement for high definition broadcast in Central Australia and South Australia. Our Darwin component, because it’s a joint venture company with the Nine Network, hasn’t come to any landing yet on providing it into that area. We’re still working with our joint venture company, the Nine Network,” Dodgson said.

SC 10 indicates sport highlights will include:

AFL – the 2009 NAB Cup, home and away season, and finals including the Grand Final returning to the network in 2009
Netball – ANZ Championship Competition and all Test matches featuring the Australian Netball Diamonds,
exclusively for the next five years
Commonwealth Games – 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games
Formula 1 – every round of the F1 World Championship scope
Moto GP – extensive coverage of every round of the World Championship
NASCAR – live coverage of the Daytona 500 and other major Sprint Cup races, live coverage of the Nationwide Series, as well as Sprint Cup qualifying
Australian Rally Championship – exclusive coverage of every round
National Football League (NFL) – three games per week live, including the flagship Sunday and Monday night games, as well as live coverage of play-offs and the Super Bowl
Major League Baseball (MLB) – five games per week live, including prime time coverage of play-offs and
World Series National Basketball Association (NBA) – three games per week live
Golf – US Masters, US Open, World Golf Championships including the Accenture MatchPlay Championship, the CA Championship, the Bridgestone Invitational and the World Cup, Australian PGA, Ladies Masters, 2010 Ryder Cup, and 15 additional international and domestic events including the Johnnie Walker Classic, and the Asian tour’s flagship event the Singapore Open and the tour’s season ending Volvo Masters of Asia.
U.S. College sports – American football and basketball
Tennis – ATP and WTA tennis, details to be confirmed, approximately 11 tournaments during 2009.
Swimming – HD ONE is the exclusive broadcaster for Swimming Australia. This includes coverage of the
Australian Swimming Championships, Pan Pacific Championships, Australian Short Course Championships, FINA World Short Course, Swimmer of the Year – a minimum 109 hours per year for the next eight years.

For additional information on ONE HD please refer to the Network TEN website: http://ten.com.au/one-hd.htm

85 Responses

  1. Oh, just fantastic. MSCM get the ball rolling on even more services for eastern state markets. Meanwhile, Western, Central and South Australia don’t even have basic digital services yet. Freeview is non-existant in 2/3rds of the country!

    David, your article states that these markets are “digital ready” – you couldn’t be any further away from the truth.

  2. Still can not understand why SC10 was not able to relay the ONE-HD dirty feed from Sydney until they were able to get their own HD play-out system operational to insert local ad spots?

  3. about time! glad my TV is HD otherwise I’d be pretty pi**ed off! Surely it would be dead simple for SC10 to run ONE SD on Channel 55, where that MyTalk waste of space used to be. Maybe they should have ran ONE SD from launch day on 55 to keep everybody happy while they worked on getting the HD facilities setup.

    Although my PVR is SD so i won’t be able to record anything.

  4. Dame it so we get ONE HD but we can’t record it unless we have a much more expensive HD recorder (or HD tuner to the old one) good going SC10! Who the hell is going to sit up at 3am to watch some of the live sports we will now get?

    I guess we won’t get much use out of this service for now, good thing I’m moving at the end of the year closer to Brisbane and getting TEN and not SC10!

  5. @Ryan: Check your setup but if you have an HD tuner, this should still work on a SD TV but it just means you won’t see the picture in high-definition. You can even plug in an HD tuner into an old-fashioned tube TV and watch in SD.

  6. Ryan – It does not matter if your plasma is only SD, if you have a HD decoder, you can get HD from that to your tv by using HDMI/RGB/Comp leads. So you CAN have HD, no problems, and the most it will cost you is a few bucks for an AV lead.

    Gremlin – Austar cannot do anything about HD Mystar until the new Optus D3 sat is in the sky, and that is not scheduled for at least mid August. I believe the box is nearing completion of of development so its a waiting game for the new sat now…

  7. My plasma is like 5 years old so is only SD 🙁 my set top box is HD but I don’t have the money to upgrade right now; so with no HD complient TV I’m still in the same boat I was in before; which means I’m still stuck without ONE……WTF?!?

  8. Same with 9’s SD.

    Keep your eyes on Kids WB. Inbetween Omnitrixes and Scooby Doo, they have teased a announcement of a upcoming program involving the Kids WB team on a unknown new channel.

  9. About time
    no requirement for central australia or regional sa pathetic that
    now for seven to announce a start date for their second sd channel

  10. David is there anything about retransmitting ONE on 55 as well, so those with SD only (the poor buggers) will get it, and thus Austar will be able to put it on their MyStar’s as well like they have in other regions that have it on SD?

  11. Greg Dodgson said: “There’s no requirement for high definition broadcast in Central Australia and South Australia.” That’s silly. MSCM should immediately apply for additional digital channels in the regions, and the Federal Government must grant the additional spectrums so the channels can start ASAP. Central Australia, the northern part of SA and western Queensland has been missing out on Channel Ten programming since Imparja became a Nine affiliate in February 2008.

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