Australia gets to GO!
Update: GO! is on the air with its first night of programming and national advertisements.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
When the new series of Wipeout airs tonight at 6:30pm, Australia will officially have another new channel.
GO! is Nine’s new digital channel aimed fair and square at eyeballs between the ages of 14-39 years old. With titles including Survivor, Gossip Girl, Fringe, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Moonlight and TMZ, there are certainly some alluring shows on offer. Compared to 20 to 1, Australia’s Perfect Couple and Commercial Breakdown Adults Only, GO! is practically worthy of an Emmy.
Those of us licking our lips for new episodes of Weeds and The Wire will have to wait just a little big longer. The Vampire Diaries is also due in October.
Like ONE HD does for TEN, GO! will add to Nine’s overall evening share. Programmes that are unique to secondary channels are tallied by OzTAM ratings.
This week when Nine turned on GO!, an SD channel, some viewers with digital TV tuners found Nine went blank as soon as they picked it up. Nine said it did everything it could to warn people of the technical issues, via newspaper ads and offering a helpline on 1300 152 231.
Promos branding GO! have so far seemed cheap and nasty, not much better than regional TV you might see when stuck in a 3 star motel somewhere. Hopefully when it launches tonight it will have a more professional appearance.
GO! also means 9HD breakout programming is no more, which is being particularly felt by AFL fans in Sydney and Brisbane. The AFL Footy Show no longer screens at 9:30pm on 9HD due to the technical limitations of having three channels, and instead screens later to Sydney and Brisbane, just as the NRL Footy Show is later in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine has moved Footy Classified to appease its northern AFL fans.
With GO! now on offer, attention turns to Channel Seven, as the final network to offer its new Freeview contribution.
Despite rushing 7HD to market, with poor programming ever since, Seven will be the last network to offer a new channel. Believed to be watching where its competitiors moved, Seven has kept everyone guessing. Even executives at TEN and Nine are still in the dark as to which way Seven will move.
Despite the fact that the network was reported to make an announcement by March, none has been forthcoming. Seven has previously indicated it has settled on its plans.
After GO! makes its fanfare, it will surely be time for Seven to hijack the limelight.
GO! airs on Channel 99 in metro cities and on 88 on WIN / NBN and will be added to Foxtel further down the track.
Update: GO! opened with a montage of its programming accompanied by an uptempo song. The first commercial break during Wipeout featured ads for KFC, Commonwealth Bank, Ford, and channel promos including Miranda Kerr saying “I’m ready to GO!”
169 Responses
“national advertisements” my backside, NBN are running one feed for its whole area, so Newcastle are getting Coffs Harbour ads as well!
hahaha it started late
In True Channel Nine Style, the first show started 5 minutes late, haha. Oh well, I think in terms of show choice this channel is good. Looking forward to some of the classics such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Seinfeld.
Im watching go, and the picture is shocking, what are they broadcasting in. The lead up was bad too, what is the issue.
The bitrate must be really low – artefacts everywhere…
1Mbps?
David, just wondering if you know if or when Foxtel will take Go! ? Looking forward to it starting in 10 minutes.
Gerry, my PVR uses the IceTV program guide. And thanks to Nine – and only Nine – and their ridiculous lawsuit against Ice, they cannot supply a program guide for GO! until either Nine has advertised the shows on-air or they’ve aired a week of programming that Ice can then “predict”.
All Nine has to do is let Ice licence the program guide like they do everyone else. But ohhhh no, they’re at war. Still.
If you can find anything “positive” in that, then be my guest. I’d love to be positive about GO! – but looking at my EPG, I don’t have the faintest clue what’s on, so I won’t be watching. And for that, Nine has only itself and its anti-competitive ways to blame.
No AFL Footy Show?!
My worst nightmare* has come true.
How can they not sort that out? Seems bizarre.
*As far as Nine’s new channel goes.
looking forward to go, particularly the first season of bbt, as i just started watching it since since the 2nd season, on a minor note, if the watermark for 9hd is anything to go by(especially the original one) i wouldn’t be surprised if the watermark for go is large and intrusive, although i hope not, ill guess will know soon though,
@ Deb: GO! has been included in TV Week magazine, and the TV guides of The Age Green Guide and The Sunday Telegraph. It is also included on the online TV guides of ebroadcast, ninemsn and Yahoo7 websites.
David, surely Nine and Foxtel would have somekind of time frame on when Go! will be on Foxtel, this further down the track could be anywhere between 4 weeks and 4 months.
Is it just my TV, but Go! is all out of sync… is anyone else having this problem? how can i fix it?
Simon, Ian: see final sentence.
Does anyone know when this channel is going to be on Foxtel Cable? Very disappointed that it will not be on Foxtel straight up.
Will GO! been seen on Foxtell?
GO! is not coming to Darwin yet. I rescanned my tv, full rescan also, still no sign of LCN 99. NIne cannot put it on their HD, can they? I cannot see that happening today. As for the date of when it will start, it is unknown. At the moment it is still LCN 9 and 90.
I think 7 are waiting for GO! to launch, and in the meantime since March they have been setting all of the channel stuff in concrete until its launch. I wouldn’t expect us to be waiting much longer.
So excited to have GO! starting tonight. ONE is a great addition and GO! will be too with lots of shows I either gave up on on 9 and now just give a wide birth to the whole network. Now GO! comes along and I am filled with hope. Fresh start for 9. How can they miss the venomous feedback they have been getting saying, in a nut shell, quit moving everything around and/or dropping shows after 2 weeks/showing utta crap ect. I hope they can build trust again by letting a show run in a time slot for the whole season. I grew up with 7 and to see the ‘perennial bridesmaid network’ now be the dominant network is fabulous. 7 could not do a thing right for a very long time. They deserve what they have now.
Looking forward to finally getting a new channel that will offer some mainstream entertainment! Bring it on!
I suspect they pushed back the launch from the original 6 to 6.30 so they could plug it in their 6pm news.
For those who want to see “Richie Rich” for the third time in as many weeks it’s on GO next Saturday night again. Nine ran this 3 weeks ago during the school holidays, last night and again next Saturday night. Why? Don’t they have another movie? Oh yes, sorry, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” – that’s getting it’s 3rd run in as many months again tonight.
Lets GO!
@ John,
I agree that the promos are fantastic, and I love them. However David does not bash Nine. He is right when he says that he does talk up Nine heaps. The other readers’ of this site are the Nine bashers. No matter what Nine does, readers’ of this site will continue their arrogance.
@ Neon Kitten (whatever that means), do you ever have anything positive to say? Everytime I read your comments they are always negative. Lighten up a bit.
@ JD,
You’re right – all these shows are American. But you just have to face it: when it comes to TV, America does it the best. I mean, what do we have in Aus (apart from news and reality) that is decent? Two crap soapies come to mind, and a whole lot of crime shows. We don’t even have a decent comedy show. Kath and Kim? please.
It’s not like Nine is going to cancel GO! and time soon so launching on Sunday is no big deal IMO, they had to start somewhere. GO! will fill a market and Nine will add new shows when they come up.
But now it’s time for Seven to step up and announce something, maybe we need to call/email Sunrise to find out what is going on. But they are not likely to answer them on air.