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Brokeback Mountain on GO!

This Friday night GO! features the Free to Air premiere of the Academy Award winning film by director Ang Lee.

brokeback_mountainThis Friday night GO! features the Free to Air premiere of Brokeback Mountain, the Academy Award winning film by director Ang Lee.

Nine had previously slated the film last Boxing Day but it was withdrawn from schedule.

With its dazzling performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal it will air at 8:30pm on Friday night with an M rating.

Shame it isn’t in high definition.

Meanwhile a miniseries with no awards and not much buzz XIII: The Conspiracy, screens on Sunday night on Nine in place of Rescue: Special Ops.

Starring Val Kilmer, USA Today said it was “Poorly cast and performed (including an embarrassing turn by Val Kilmer), XIII is shot so murkily and staged so badly, you can hardly tell where people are, let alone where they’re going.”

Looks like GO! wins this one.

26 Responses

  1. kristy- are you watching both episodes of weeds or switching off after the first and not realising they are screening doubles? I’ve seen each of the 8 episodes of season 3 of weeds that have screened so far. and yes that is just on sundays.

  2. So, just to go off topic for a second, but Go! related – what’s the deal with Weeds? They seem to be skipping episodes…or is there a day other than Sunday that it’s on? What’s going on???????

  3. @ Russell: You haven’t considered the fact that it was pulled from *Boxing Day*. Christmas and Boxing Days are among the lowest rating days of the year. Nine had absolutely nothing to lose from screening BM then (unless of course they’d come to their senses and decided to give it a better timeslot; which evidently, they haven’t). Plus this was to air during the non-ratings period, so it wouldn’t’ve have impacted upon their annual share even if the movie did tank on primetime.

    The film could’ve rated quite well on primetime due to a number of factors…
    * Network premiere
    * It’s not another 2 1/2 Men repeat
    * It’s received numerous awards and praise
    * It stars the late Australian actor Heath Ledger
    * It addresses themes that are generally avoided by mainstream FTA programming
    * It’s a romance
    * It’s a western
    * It’s not another 2 1/2 Men repeat
    * And I’d argue 16-39s are no more likely to be interested in a gay love story than the older demos

    Sure, it probably wouldn’t rate quite as well in repeats, but there is absolutely no other rational reason for *not* giving this a more prolific airing on the main channel. The only reality here is that Nine are afraid of alienating their prized older/conservative/homophobic share of the audience. With all that said, I haven’t watched the film, nor do I intend to, however Nine’s implicit backwards-minded mentality and double standards disgust me. Rant over. 😛

  4. Don’t be so quick to point the finger at homophobia.

    Brokeback Mountain is not exactly mainstream movie fare for a commercial network. Movies that win Oscars are not always a good fit for the masses on network TV.
    A love story set in rural USA about farmers does not have widespread appeal in Australia. Regardless of the sexuality of the characters.

    Think about the kind of movies that FTA networks screen. Old fashioned love stories set in rural America are not exactly ratings winners. This is also a movie that most of it’s target audience would have sought out and seen by now.

    I actually think it’s a much better fit on Go! because of it’s subject matter. The 16-39 audience is more likely to be into the idea of watching a gay love story. Go! is the younger edgier network. Nine is not exactly young and edgy.

    I wouldn’t call it homophibia, I’d call it reality.

    I’m gay by the way.

  5. Clearly one word to describe this: Homophobia.

    Nine are afraid they won’t attract advertisers, or are afraid certain “family” groups would boycott or attack the network or sponsors, (or both) so they leave it stranded on Freeview.

    Cowards.

  6. Thanks David. I didn’t realise (I’d read the article in haste :P).

    Pretty stupid move on Nine’s part. This film has received hordes of accolades and I always thought that it would have rated through the roof on FTA. There’s absolutely no reason whatsoever for Nine pulling; particularly on Boxing Day (of all days). Pardon me for being presumptuous but I have no doubt in my mind that Nine are playing the homophobic card and giving this a low profile screening so that their key over 55 demographic don’t switch off their network in disgust.

    Yes, I’m bitter. -.-

  7. LOL XIII looks horrible. It’s based on a comic book of the same name. I haven’t read it but I played the videogame adaptation about five years ago. It wasn’t much fun either.

  8. Could’ve sworn it aired on Channel 9 last year.

    Either way, it’s not good enough for a showing on regular channels, gay movies have to be dumped on the less accessible digital channel… so as not to offend.

    sad sad sad.

  9. Er, what a joke!! The film should be on Nine, not it’s sd digital channel, Go. But then, nothing surprises me these days from the idiot programmers at nine.

  10. I saw the ad last night and OMG what were Nine thinking, putting such a great movie on GO! for it’s FTA debut, while having a virtual unknown on the main channel Are they really that paranoid over the content?

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