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November 22 for 72?

David Leckie is understood to have given OzTAM of 8 weeks notice in the readiness to launch Seven's new digital channel.

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seven 008November 22.

That’s the date being tipped for Seven’s new digital channel after CEO David Leckie gave OzTAM formal notice of the launch last week.

Leckie reportedly sent a letter to OzTAM giving eight weeks’ notice of the launch on November 22 so that ratings would be available for the channel’s first broadcasts. GO! missed out breakout ratings in its first weeks because it failed to provide ample notice of the new channel.

While the signal would be located on channel 72, sources said it would not necessarily be called 72.

Seven’s corporate affairs spokesperson Simon Francis, said yesterday the network still intended to announce its plans for multi-channelling “soon.”

“While we can understand the speculation, we’ll maintain a polite silence until we choose to release our plans,” he said.

Sources said several media buyers had been briefed informally about a general entertainment channel that would feature programs previously shown on Seven, such as Ugly Betty and 24, as well as blocks of younger-skewed programming provided by Disney.

Official demographic details of the channel have not been revealed, but it is expected to program against the other free-to-air channels in a bid to split audiences for their popular shows, with some specualtion it could target a similar audience to GO!

Previous industry rumours have swirled about everything from lifestyle to movies and general entertainment.

Seven is also understood to have registered several names including PLUS7 and 7PLUS, amongst others.

Launching on November 22nd would give Seven just one week of extra audience in the official ratings year, which ends on November 28th.

Source: The Australian

40 Responses

  1. i wanna see prisonbreak season 1, stargate atlantis season 4 and 5, ugly betty, samantha who, reaper, king of the hill and anything else they have the rights to that i can’t think of. do they have the rights to anything else that hasn’t been really announced or advertised? i remember seeing that they had the rights to kyle xy ages ago, if aired on foxtel but maybe they could re-run it?

  3. @ michael – I found it amusing that you seem to think that your comments have had any impact at all on seven’s plans to launch a second channel

    pathetic michael pathetic

  4. I for one liked Michael’s comments, it really is pathetic Seven haven’t launched anything before now. So much for encouraging people to make the digital switch when the country’s most successful commercial net refused for so long to do anything about multichannelling.

  5. @ sammer

    All stations are allowed to carry a digital sub channel, but seeing as the the Seven Media Group are the ones launching and owning this new network, I’d say it will be avail on Seven O&O stations at launch (Queensland, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth.

    Seven affiliates like Prime and Southern Cross stations will likely sign up as affiliates of the new network and carry it too. Perhaps even from day 1 like Go! But that is really an assue for the affiliates, not Seven. I’m sure they’d love it to have national clearance from day 1 though.

  6. Finally a start date for 72,i suppose after waiting all this time another 8 weeks won’t hurt.so long as we get alternative television,i don’t mind lifestyle or something similar to GO’s offering

  10. Well since launching so late in the year that is a pretty reasonable time (6 months ago would have been nice though). They will have all summer to work out any kinks, possibly show some marathons of ugly betty, heroes, lost etc to catch people up with some new content. They can se it as a second tennis channel so people can watch all the games and promote the crap out of it. Launch fully in feb. Thats what i would do anyway.

  11. It seems that you get everything if you have Foxtel cable inc the FTA HD channels, but with satellite, you don’t. Although not mentioned, hoping the new Foxtel channels include making sure they carry all FTA’s where ever possible. Bet ABC3 will be on Foxtel the day it launches though. ABC usually have all this sort of stuff sorted.

  14. “the network still intended to announce its plans for multi-channelling soon.”…… “Yawn” …….

    and industry speculation about chunks of Disney content on the new channel?? So it’s not enough that we’ll have huge blocks of children’s programming on ABC1, ABC2 and ABC3, we’re going to get large blocks of Disney on Seven as well..!?! *More yawn*

  16. Well its about time something happened at 7 great news.
    to all those upset or annoyed at my comments like, pathetic 7 pathetic and so on, bad luck as long as 7 got it loud and clear
    Thank you David for you’re tolerance with my channel 7 comments and thank you on you’re excellent site.
    Michael

  18. what i want to know is if we’ll have to wait months for it to get on foxtel like with go… which according to the people in foxtel i talked to isn’t even coming to foxtel at all… i would love to know who told you about it coming in late october, let alone the exact channel number!

  20. So long as we get a GO! competitor, I’m a happy man… Nine have done a really great thing by showing some decent TV shows on their secondary channel, so the last thing I want is for Seven to go Lifestyle.

  21. i have been thinking that that would be a decent time to launch. everything will be settling down for the year on 7 without anything big to promote so they can really concentrate on the launch. as brodie stated it might be a week earlier than that i’d say for a soft launch, with the full launch next Feb. along with that 3rd channel they were talking about.

  22. Good news for viewers if the go for something like GO! and ABC2 as apposed to ONE HD (which I love for the live F1) This means they can go head to head with Nine, but 8 weeks still puts it in around the end of November, a full 11 months after when they could have had it.

    @JohnTV I don’t see ACA or TT doing that, maybe ABC could?

  23. Whilst individual ratings for “7two” may not be compiled til November 22, the channel could very well launch prior to that date with the figures agregated with the main channel, much the same as Nine did with GO! for it’s first week or two.

  24. Well hurry up with Seven and start giving us some details on what you will actually show. And i for one would be happy with a split of shows that don’t get a good enough run on Seven as well as some some old classics …please Hey Dad, Alf, Blue Heelers, would love to see these kinds of shows on tv. And 24 i missed all of last season so would like to see that again.

    It’s getting really hard with so many shows on tv and i can only record one and watch one. What’s a man to do?

  25. Great ! So basically Seven’s additional digital channel will be offering the same as GO!. So much for diversity in the digital landscape.

    What I want to know is when is ACA or Today Tonight going to run a story exposing the lies of FreeTV campaign.

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