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7TWO to launch November 1st

It's official. Seven's new digital channel 7TWO will be a broad entertainment channel with new seasons of Lost, Ugly Betty, Heroes and 24.

72Channel Seven has unveiled its free-to-air digital channel 7TWO, a broad entertainment channel set to launch on Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 12noon on Channel 72.

Channel Seven’s Director of Programming and Production Tim Worner said, “I am pleased to announce that 7TWO will be the new home for premiere episodes of our international hits including J.J Abrams’ Lost, Ugly Betty, Heroes and 24,” said Worner.

“We’ve been strategic in putting together a program schedule for 7TWO that allows us to grow our audience between our two channels, without sacrificing one for the other. It is a complementary relationship that will go from strength to strength maximising the opportunities for our audience and clients.”

Other titles including The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Murphy Brown will screen on the channel alongside new, primetime episodes of The Jay Leno Show, five nights a week.

7TWO will feature British television including A Touch of Frost, Prime Suspect, Judge John Deed, Rosemary & Thyme and Minder to premiere episodes of motoring hit Fifth Gear, Heartbeat, Holby Blue, Benidorm, Gavin & Stacey and Britain’s Best Dish.

Additional themed nights of programming include Action & Adventure, Lifestyle and Movies with family titles from Disney’s studios.

Cooking programmes include Jamie Oliver, Curtis Stone, Rick Stein, Ainsley Harriott and Gary Rhodes on Monday to Friday afternoons.

There are new and classic programs – including Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Shortland Street, The Martha Stewart Show, Home and Away: The Early Years, Sons and Daughters, Magnum PI and Moonlighting – complete the channel’s daytime schedule.

Channel Seven also announced popular television presenter Tom Williams as the face of 7TWO.

“What I love about 7TWO is the great mix of the new and classic. I’m a big Leno fan so it will be great to be able catch that on a daily basis. And I can’t wait to see how the last season of Lost unravels,” he said.

“It’s fair to say I’ll be booking in some extra time on the couch. I can’t wait for it all to kick off.”

To watch 7TWO, tune into channel 72 on a high definition digital television or on analogue or standard definition digital television connected to a digital set top box.

Website now live: http://au.tv.yahoo.com/seven-two/

With Week 1 Tv Guide http://au.tv.yahoo.com/seven-two/schedule/article/-/article/6373630/

This post updates.

199 Responses

  1. Thanks Michael, but I was referring to everyone in general and just using you as an example. Sorry if I didn’t make that clearer. According to Josh, 7 Two is being launched in Tasmania a month late, but at least that beats the delay for One HD (not that I care about One HD).

  2. crap channel. only good thing will be lost and scrubs. this will not help seven to win weekly ratings as GO! will continue to help the dreadful Nine lineup.

  3. American Gladiators! How good is that! Not much else to see though. ONEHD is still easily the best new channel. GO! probably beats 7TWO at this stage due to having Survivor and Gossip Girl.

  4. Saw the promo for 7Two tonight just before Better Homes & Gardens. Reminds me of Labor’s 1972 federal election campaign, only this time Seven personalities are all there.
    @ Burt: your suggestion of showing NBC Today in full is good, but even better idea will be showing it live from 1am to 5am AEDT (7am to 11am in New York).

  5. Ben says:
    October 23, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    Jeremy – GO! does put on decent movies, case in point that Catwoman is having its Free TV premier tonight on GO! before 9

    You have to be joking about decent movies and the film catwoman in one sentence, there Ben!! Catwoman was a huge pile of crud!! I don’t the accessability as yet for Go, but I hope this is not the quality of films they show on this channel, particulary for premiers!

  6. So after the numerous options out there, the best that Seven can come up with is Go! Lite.

    While Dangermouse and Monster Garage will be awesome – a lot of the shows that are on there are already on Seven, so I can’t see the point.

    Let’s hope Not Going Out will find its way on this channel – that will be a redemption for it.

  7. I also hope they use this for some extra sport, like live tennis during the news (although the anit-siphoning still probhit this) and a couple extra events

  8. Looking forward tot his, Leno in primetime, a other shows i want to watch, plus a few i wouldn’t mind catching on repeat such as What About Brian and giving Six Feet Under a go since i missed it the first time.

  9. @Dakota

    Yes according to the 7TWO will be shown on Foxtel. It will be channel 127. Heres the quote:

    Will it be available on Foxtel ?

    Yes the channel will be re-submitted on Foxtel just like our main channel. It will be Channel 127 available in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

  10. What a rubbish name!

    All they have done is retain the Seven logo & *stolen* the other half from SBS TWO (right down to the font)! What are they paying those people in marketing?

    Anyway, again, they haven’t thought about their regional affiliates keeping the Seven name. They will most likely have to spend money rebranding the same channel ‘PrimeTWO,’ ‘GWN TWO,’ & ‘Southern Cross TWO.’

    Don’t even get me started on the unimaginative programming…

  11. I’m not 100% sure but I thought that once networks launched their new SD channel they could no longer legally provide break-away programs on their High Definition channels. Also, legally, all the channels created are only allowed to be in SD, not HD (unless they take away the standard channels high definition like One HD did).

    I personally can’t wait until they increase the maximum amount of channels from 2 SD channels to 3 (or higher)

  12. OK…..sounds good to me!!!!!!!!!
    I like Jay Leno……and also all the English shows…..even if they are repeats….
    Use to love Coronation Street before it wen to pay TV…..and who in their right mind would pay for TV loaded with ads…..Not me!!!

  13. Good gracious me – Tom Williams the face of this,almost as bad as Jules Lund being the face for Nine or Jackie O fro Ten. aka Kiss of death
    7TWO seems just like a scraps channel for 7.
    Lineup is hardly impressive – old shows and the unseen shows that are plainly not good enough for a normal channel.
    Ten went for sport with One – and scored a winner
    Nine went for Go – and put their best shows there
    Seven went for – err rubbish

  14. Looks interesting!
    Im excited about Home & Away – The Early Years (some old school Dannii – Yah), Sons & daughters & Shortland St (NZ’s very successful soap – I hope they show episodes from this year – the early days are fun but very bad acting).
    Ugly Betty is great but Im already up to date with that.

  15. Is it going to be Lost and 24 repeats or the new seasons fast tracked? I hope it won’t clash with anything on Go! I’d be very pi**ed off because I can’t record. I’m still saving up to buy a PVR….might ask one for Xmas.

  16. I’m actually wishing they had gone for a lifestyle channel. When I was home, I enjoyed the 2pm repeats of The Great Outdoors on 7HD, hazza’s practice, the american docos they sometimes put on, etc.

    I don’t think they will repeat programs because they figure that ‘everyone’ will have a tivo and just record the shows.

    Also, I am disappointed at the lack of separate programming on 9 and 7 HD now. It wouldn’t hurt to use those HD channels to carry both the main and 2nd SD, and just have cross overs when ever’s necessary.

  17. It’s an extremely crap show line up with repeats of old US shows, plus The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Murphy Brown are readily available on Foxtel and DVD (both renting and buying, although Murphy Brown has only had 1 season out, but is now a dated show anyway) after Nine screened them.

    For UK shows, only premiere eps of Fifth Gear, Heartbeat, Holby Blue, Benidorm, Gavin & Stacey and Britain’s Best Dish are decent.

    My request (if Seven are reading), is to put US show Dateline NBC at a more decent time and to screen the full 4 hour version of the NBC Today Show from 2am – 6am, where Seven’s standard channel only shows a shortened version
    (by 30 minutes) of the first 2 hours.

    This channel won’t be helped much by Ugly Betty and Heroes – both are very likely in their last seasons (due to declining US ratings). 24 and Lost are in
    their last seasons. Seven could air the Stargate Universe show on this channel.

  18. I think it’s a smart move by Seven to brand the channel with Seven branding as apposed to a new brand – therefore Everyone knows it is affiliated with Seven and knows they can expect great content.

    As a fan of Heroes and Lost, It’ll be great to see new series at a reasonable hour of 8.30pm as apposed to 11.00 at night and this means Seven can contrast morning with Sunrise on 7 and kids shows on 7TWO. Probably a bad name as 7PLUS would’ve been just as good if not better but I love it,

  19. now one big question is- will it run on time? GO! was running early but now it is pretty much perfect timing or maybe 1 or 2 minutes early. 10 gets away with running late by making sure the EPG is accurate, and because of the fact that they do acknowledge it when they run overtime they have been making more of an effort to stick to the exact time (celeb masterchef always goes 8 mins over though so when they want to be strategic they don’t run on time). I don’t watch ONE but I presume they run to time or have an accurate EPG like 10 do. So lets see how 7TWO scores on the timing issue, 7 is notoriously bad for it.

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