Australia gets to GO!
Update: GO! is on the air with its first night of programming and national advertisements.
- Published by David Knox
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- 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
@Thomas Nine didn’t get another license, it have been government legislation that since the start of the year all FTA commercial channels could have 2 SD channels and 1 HD.
Oh and guys stop complaining it’s free, no one if forcing you to pay for something you don’t want, if you don’t like it don’t watch it!
Why did 9 get a another license? Where’s the competition? For Christ sake!
Please GO! No Really!
How long before GO! stoops and becomes just like its mother network 9? Full of ads and unappealing shows with dumb celebrities hosting it!
What a joke!
You said: “Nine has moved Footy Classified to appease its northern AFL fans.”
Did you mean: “Nine has moved Footy Classified to annoy / alienate its northern AFL fans.” ??? It was appeasing enough where it was… broadcast live at 10:30, along with The Footy Show live at 9:30 Thurs. Both will be missed!
If anyone still wants to watch a live broadcast of an AFL show in NSW & QLD I recommend 1HD (or One) at 7:30pm Mondays for live transmission of their ‘One Week At A Time’ (which is also repeated later). It’s not quite as good as Nine’s ‘Footy Classified’ yet but hey – at least it’s on before midnight! Did I mention it’s live!? Well, it’s live.
There’s also the excellent AFL Game Day on 7HD every Sunday 10am. Oh yeah… that’s also shown live. Channel 9 took away the two best live AFL shows, now there’s nothing AFL on Channel 9 or Channel No!Go! anytime before the wee hours. So stuff ’em! Channel 9 can go!’n’get boned!! We’ll just switch over to 1HD and 7HD. ’nuff said.
Which GO! title excites you most?
* None of them (23%)
Hhahaha
i called the GO helpline and the lady there didn’t even know what an EPG was, after i explained she said they didn’t know anything about this and told me to ring 9, so i called 9 brisbane and they transfered me through to one of the technical people who they thought could help. i only got an answering machine so i left a message about the QLD EPG only being now and next instead of the whole week like it should be and asked them to fix it, lets just hope carl jennings is the right person and they fix it.
here we all are with another TV channel to give us the shits. More of the same crap and not to mention wait for it more bloody ads!!!!!!
GO has go the worst picture quality of the SD channels, I don’t think they thought about the crowd they were trying to attract when they launched…the younger generations are going to expect the best quality possible before they start watching their programs, I’m Gen X and can’t stand s**t house quality TV, sound etc. They’d better get it right soon or else they will lose us.
if 9 pulled 1/2 the garbage off their network they wldnt even need this GO. what a joke!!1 good to c the gov is on its knees handing out licenses to its friends.
Lolz @ CrAig. For someone saying “tastes vary” you are sure unwilling to add “variety” to your menu. I get your point Bob and GO is a great start towards bringing television back to the people. Either way, try d/loading all your stuff Bob. It’s free and fast! TV is only for when you have nothing else to do. Lolz! Ja bless the net but not Stephen Conroy!!
Does anyone know why Go’s picture quality is so low compared to 9 SD and the other SD channels? It’s soo blocky
Craig,
Firstly, the doco and educational recommendation was just one of many other variety genre types available as an alternative to the incessant bombardment of sport on TV. Variety is what we lack. Obviously you’re quite fine with it, hence with what ease you missed my point.
Secondly, we don’t all keep 9-5 work hours to keep this social and economic money machine moving.
Thirdly, I’m not old…just not as brain dead as some.
Lastly, get a clue.
Bob, you old fool. You may not like Sport, but some people also might not like to another educational Hitler documentary.
Also try stilnox, then you’ll be able to sleep through the night and miss the infomercials and religion you so despise.
Tastes vary. Sorry mate
About 80% of that content Go! has on during the evenings after 8pm I have not seen. For me this is a great catch up for the shows that I have missed such as Bing Bang Theory, Terminator and never seen Fringe.
Although that some of the promos were tacky. Give Nine a chance to tweak things a bit.
Everyone beware. GO shows during the day seem to start 5 minutes early like they were on 9HD during the day, making recording or just scheduling time to watch something difficult. And last night the channel started 2 minutes late. This blatent disregard to scehduled times and providing inaccurate EPG information is what drives people away from channel 9 (and 7 do it as well). How hard is it to play a show at the right time? This is not a matter of teething problems or not having enough ads. This is typical channel 9. And if they were really serious about attracting 16-39’s they would at least have an accurate EPG.
GO television is a fresh change to the alternatives. They have some good shows on. I hope this lifts the standard for all the rest.
No “Hooray” here. Australian television needs a serious overhaul. It’s time the people of Australia voiced their opinion and made it count! Starting with the monopoly ownership of public TV rights.
7, 9 & 10 have for far too many years been in remiss of their public TV license obligations. Showing Infomercials & Evangelical TV after midnight every night till morning does count as real TV and does not provide entertainment nor decent television to the public. A review and possible cancellation of their licenses should be an issue raised by all.
Yes GO! seems to be a fair improvement to what is currently offered…finally…but why can’t Channel 9 provide similar decent TV on their regular 9 network? Was it a ruse to provide so much mindless rubbish over the years on 9 network as to force everybody to buy into the Fox Cable TV? Life imprisonment for such abuse of their obligations in my opinion is a light punishment for TV executives.
Stop treating the public like lifeless drones. Sport as a distraction for the masses on every channel and new digital channel (weekends especially) is not the what we yearn for. If we wanted to sit in a state of stagnation for the rest of our existence, we would indulge in staring at the wall instead. Try a new history, documentaries & educational channel.
does any know exactly what these technical difficulties that prevent 9hd from airing alternative programming actually are.
@ Mick: “ABC plans to have ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 (kids), and ABC HD”.
That’s a very good question, and they apparently still have plans for ABC4 (News) on top of that list! How can they do it other than not running HD content on the HD channel?
@ mac: the Aria show is not a countdown at all. Certain clips show their Aria chart position, others say “Home grown” for example, others nothing at all. Seems to be no order. Hopefully there are enough unique 3 hour blocks so you don’t see the same one at the same time every night.
Back in the late 80’s 10 had a nightly video show called Nightshift that you could not watch two nights in a row because their programming blocks ensured you saw the same videos in the same order each week night usually at the same time.
@ Mick: Doesn’t the fact hat ABC HD is only 720p instead of 1080 allow for the extra SD channel without being too low on bit rate?
9HD break aways may return next year, they can’t do it at the moment due to technical difficulties – thta is, they can’t run 3 channels at the same time.
I found the picture quality to be ok. If you look at any of the SD channels closely you will most likely see artificacts! The bitrate is the same as the normal channel 9 so it should be ok. The sound is in MP2 @ 256, which is the standard rate except for when AC3 channel is selected on ABC @ 448. Both MP2 audio and Mpeg2 Video are very much outdated formats, this will most likely change within say, 10 years to at least h.264 and possibly AAC audio like other countries have gone to for certain services or have plans to, which should allow full HD multichannelling with bitrate to spare.
ABC plans to have ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 (kids), and ABC HD, it will be interesting to see how they can have 3 different multichannels plus HD effectively bitrate wise.
The picture quality will improve, some areas (for what ever reason) Nine has reduced the band width for GO! other areas like here in the Wide Bay it no worse than the others.
90HD (and 80HD on WIN) were sacrificed while Nine gets GO! off the ground, I’m sure they will come back with some alt programing at some point.
@ andrewb, i was wondering if aria would be made up of repeated blocks, as i saw at about 12:30 they where already up to 15 on the countdown, plus aria started about 15 minutes early, also the ep of christine was the same that aired on nine last week, enjoyed the bbt though as i haven’t seen the first season.
I’m afraid Go! won’t be changing my viewing habits. Recorded material will still be my main source of television viewing. Arrived home at 11pm to experience Go! for the first time only to find National Lampoons Vacation airing. If I wanted to watch a grainy, poor quality 25 year old movie, I would’ve pulled out the VHS tape containing the very same movie I recorded back in 1985 when it first aired on FTA.
I’m with Neon Kitten. Nine seem to go out of their way to irritate viewers with poor programming, late starts and constant changes. I can’t be bothered trying to keep up so I’ll be passing on Go! unless I’m in desperate need of a nostalgia fix on a weekend afternoon.