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
Channel seven say they are well underway with plans for a second sd channel, even a theme/format. so now sbs2, 1hd & go! are up and running, abc3 before christmas
i suspect seven may announce an announcement about a further announcement sometime in the future,
pathetic seven just pathetic
Gold Coast here…
Nope, no EPG on Nine’s version of GO! here either. There is now & Next data, for all the use that is (just about none) Over on the NBN (NSW) version of GO! however, there’s a good week’s worth of data. So it’s something sporked at Nine in Qld. Again.
Not exactly news, they were one of the last to offer EPG data in Qld (only SBS was slower) and Nine has always been a bit obsessive about the topic, just look at the court action in the past. Let’s face it, if Nine ran a restaurant, there’d be no menus.
Mind you, they didn’t even manage to get GO! listings up on their very own TV guide website until almost the last moment. They’re certainly not 110 percenting the task…
Australian TV is crap anyway, all I was saying is that you people need to chill – so much negativity. Remember: it’s only tv.
I forgot to mention Go! didn’t even rate a mention on Nine’s news at 6pm… kinda surprising. But they have said it is a ‘soft’ launch, which seems kind of pointless… are they going to have a proper launch later?
Bonus! I only have a standard D, set top box, but I am getting GO on channel 99. I thought you had to have a HD set top box? Wohoo, I now get to see Survivor and Gossip Girl. Now if only I could tape shows from GO on VCR. Does any one know if this is possible, as I know you can tape Foxtel? Can some one please answer this question as i’d really like to know.
Brisbane’s Tv Guide has no mention of the GO Tv Guide, but it’s featured in Sydney’s Tv Guide.
That picture for this article suits the channel very well – grainy and fuzzy
When i was watching wipeout i found that the picture was very pixalated and no other channel was like that.
But with the fairly good lineup it has, i expect ill watch it anyway.
Its just a shame that i wont be able to see survivor in HD.
Bring on MPEG4
Wipeout awesome as usual.
Was cheering for the Cro chick but it as not to be
“GO” Survivor. Hope it rates better than the repeats of 20 to 1 which screens at the same time on their main Channel9.
another hate at 9 rant by Neon, this is so typical….just delete 9 from ur PVR then you wont have to worry about ICE guide and you never have anything good to say about 9 so….
The EIT EPG here in Sydney is fine… has about a week’s worth of programme data in it.
GO = God Ooorfulll. Enough said.
@CatFan: A news channel is a good idea for seven, they could show bulletins from around the English-Speaking world (such as america, england etc) during the day, plus repeat their morning, midday, arvo and night news.
Although another idea would be a doco channel that is simulcast on 7HD (because on an HD tv, SD docos would look no good).
I’ve also noticed a drop in picture quality from Nine, equivilant to LP on a dvd record, very pixelated, although it’s no different ONE Digital.
@robbie, buddy029, i also noticed the picture quality during fast moving images like the little promo that aired just before wipeout, as well as the promo where to go! logo bounces of the walls, unfortunately, this kind of blur can spoil graphics that would that would otherwise look good. over all i think go! is a good channel though, but this something i did noticed.
Good start with Wipeout – great to see it back on TV again. Some of the shows are not that impressive but still, there is something for everyone so I think it has promise.
Well, I’ve detected a minor flaw already – channel 99 is so far away from the current grouping of channels on my tuner, that stumbling upon it when I casually scan the channels is going to be a rare event.
“GO! also means 9HD breakout programming is no more” This is a disappointment, can I assume 7HD I’lll do the same thing when their new station is launched? If so then so much for Freeview’s 15 channels.
neon i’m almost in the same boat as you, my EPG is only showing what is on now and next for GO and nothing further ahead than that- but mine is supplied by channel 9, it is the damn EIT EPG, so i can’t watch GO either, they had better fix this quickly. i’m in QLD, can people from other states please say whether they are getting the proper EIT EPG from channel 99 so we can figure out where the problem is coz it seems like it might just be QLD.
and yes the macroblocking is terrible, they really need to steal a little bit off the other two channels
Deana says:
August 9, 2009 at 7:20 pm,
Er, I thinks you also winge too much, maybe you need to get a life and stop whinging about whether Go is on Foxtel or not, and people who complain that it is not available as yet on foxtel, which, in this technological age, is kind of a joke that they can’t even get this new FTA digital channel on pay in this country- straight up and rather, foxtel viewers, will have to wait up to 6 weeks before it happens.
So what does everyone think Seven should target their new channel at?
I’m thinking a news channel which would compliment the sports channel (ONE) and general entertainment channel (GO). It would be some sort of argument for dumping Foxtel for some people and I’m sure Foxtel would be worried.
GO repeat yourself, yikes. I haven’t seen anything in the guide for Go that I really want to watch this week except for maybe Survivor, maybe !
Deana: It’s a bit hard to watch if it the image is just a bunch of coloured blocks…
Robbie/buddy029: The bitrate is too low.
@Deana, i dont know why people can’t get there head around the simple fact that it is not known when g!o will be on foxtel, and that it is not available in hd lol
Geez, people on here whinge about the smallest things. You should be happy we’re finally getting some FTA choice.
BTW – It’s been mentioned so many times on here about GO on Foxtel. Why don’t you read it and shut up!!!
Is anyone else experiencing terrible quality picture from Go!
and it seems pixilated and horrible to me, is that a broadcasting
problem?