0/5

Networks gear up for big launches

Television networks are looking to unwrap some of their shiny new gifts to media and advertisers soon.

2010It’s getting close to that time of year again.

Television networks are looking to unwrap some of their shiny new gifts and reveal what is on their calendar.

Next week ABC will have a media launch for ABC3, its new digital channel for kids.

The launch will take place in Melbourne fuelling speculation the channel will be Melbourne-based. The broadcaster is also bringing in media from interstate for the big event.

ABC3 is expected to launch late November or early December.

Meanwhile TEN will unveil its 2010 Program Launch the week afterwards. Its launch comes hot on the heels of the MIPCOM trade event.

Once again CEO Grant Blackley and Chief Programming Officer David Mott will be racking up the frequent flyer points, presenting next year’s highlights to media.

At last year’s launch David Mott announced MasterChef Australia as its Big Brother replacement. This year’s launch should indicate the future for some key shows including Australian Idol, The 7PM Project, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, 9AM with David and Kim and the yet to be announced host for The Biggest Loser.

Meanwhile it remains to be seen whether Seven and Nine will even have any splashy affair to advertisers and media. Last year they laid very low. SBS revealed some of their key titles for late 09 / early 10 a few weeks ago, while Foxtel had just had one of its biggest media events in a very long time.

42 Responses

  1. 9am: They’d better axe it because without David it wouldn’t be David and Kim and this means that Ten can be the channel to break away from that genre at 9am.
    5th Grader: Axe this show. Every little bit of it is disgraceful.
    Idol: Past its use by date, axe that too. No different to Big Brother.
    7pm Project: That’s the iffy one. Many of us loathed it at first, but it has found its feet a bit since, and it will be interesting to see how it goes over summer. Besides Ten has nothing better to offer in that timeslot, unless they shifted some 7:30 programming up half an hour i.e. Glee, Jamie Oliver, Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation, which could possibly steal some viewers.

  2. Keep 7pm – I’ve started watching it again – they actually have a good spread of guests (honestly Andrew Bolt was on the other night!! Very different for a Ten show – I like it!)

    As for Idol – it was dead by the finale of year two, it’s been decomposing ever since! 5th Grader is just awful, if Ten want a kids quiz show they should go back to Australia’s Brainiest Kid (and actually have kids rather than celebs)

  3. OK, I’ll own up to being a 7PM viewer as well – it is better now than when it started but it still needs work i.e. the hideous spew green set and maybe just thinking through some ideas better like trying to talk to someone on a bad mobile line in a country that has just suffered devastation.

    I’d like to see Idol and Fifth Grader dumped unceremoniously off our screens too please.

    PS – Does Ruby Rose still work for 7PM proejct, she hasn’t been on for ages. If she doesn’t – good move ten!!

  4. re: 3rd channels.

    i’ve done some research. HD quotas only apply to HD channels if they exist, it is only there to make sure that if a channel is called **HD that it lives up to it’s name and is not just a ploy. it is still an option to not have any HD channels.
    so the options from 2010 onwards are:

    3x different SD channels
    2x different SD channels and one HD simulcast
    2x different SD channels and one HD multicast < but i doubt this option would ever be taken as few people have HD STBs. and it sucks up a lot of bandwidth from the other two

    moral of the story: you can have 3 channels in 2010. but it will likely cost you a HD channel.

  5. Oh, and @Craig:
    When TEN HD was around they had upwards of 50 hours a week of breakout programming, so I doubt it’s a requirement. I think the networks primarilly simulcast on HD now because they have a secondary channel for their seperate programming.
    Seven are having a fair bit of breakaway programming now.

  6. @timmy:
    TEN could always try and get permission from Conroy. 🙂 ABC are being allowed to broadcast ABC3 from December.
    Also talking about multi-channeling, I hope TEN HD comes back when (or if, I guess) the government sells more of the spectrum out to the networks.

    @David:
    Do you think running 7PM through the summer will work? I think it could build an audience, but they’ll most likely go flocking back to Home & Away and 2.5 Men after the summer is over.
    Also, do you know if TEN are going to be doing anything about their 6-7PM block which fails epically? It wins in 16-39 doesn’t it, but isn’t their targeted audience 18-49?

  7. 7PM Project should stay. It is great. Sometimes I miss out on the news so seeing that is a good way of catching up on the days events and discussion, sometimes serious, sometimes not serious.

    As for Masterchef and Biggest Loser.. ehhhh.. reality shows. I’d be fine if they went. Though with Big Brother I actually kinda liked at times (moreso earlier on the series, than the later ones though).

  8. Doesn’t current legislation also only permit the HD channel (for the most part) to simulcast one of the SD channels? Right now that mans TEN has chosen it’s 2nd SD so we get ONE HD. Plus SC10 doesn’t do ONE SD yet (maybe never). TEN is committed to sport so I very much doubt they will end ONE any time soon, maybe went the rules change and the old system is turned off in a few years they will launch a 3rd SD/HD channel?

  9. wow i love channel tens logo well not logo but 2010 ident for next year thanks david icoudnt got this anywere else but here that why i love this site and thank u for your much great work u do.

  10. that makes sense to move masterchef/loser to 730pm is they wish to keep 7pm project, and not put it into hiatus instead which would be silly if they did that.

Leave a Reply