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TEN to launch new channel

TEN signals a new channel for 2010, plus Junior MasterChef and locks in The 7PM Project for summer.

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tencThe TEN Network will launch a new digital channel in 2010, reports the Courier Mail.

A third digital channel will launch sometime in the next 12 months, it reports.

Commercial networks are currently allowed two SD channels and one HD channel. Currently TEN has TEN, ONE HD and ONE SD which retransmits the feed from the 24 hour sports channel. But as GO! and 7TWO offer entertainment formats they potentially erode TEN’s market share. And as half the country is now on digital it makes the ONE SD channel less viable -except for viewers who have a standard digital rather than an high definition, of course.

It would also presume TEN is eyeing a makeover of its second SD channel rather than ONE HD itself. Many viewers are still lamenting the loss of key entertainment formats in high definition by TEN: MasterChef, So You Think You Can Dance, Rove, Neighbours, Australian Idol, Merlin and more. When TEN opted for high definition sports, it did so at the expense of its other brands.

TEN made the announcement of the new digital channel at its 2010 Program Launch last night in Brisbane.

It also announced a new Junior MasterChef to follow MasterChef next year. This idea has been floated by Programmer David Mott before.

He told TV Tonight in July, “We might do a professionals version or a teen version. We’ll always do one other shorter run but it might not be celebrities.”

TEN also confirmed The 7PM Project would run through summer and into the new year (hopefully with a few tweaks?).

TEN rolls its Program Launch into Melbourne tonight and Sydney tomorrow.

So what would you like to see on a new digital channel?

Source: Courier Mail

106 Responses

  1. A perfect scenario would be to restore Ten to HD so their flagship network is in HD (what were they thinking?), One continues in SD only, and then launch a third SD network (probably young males)
    So you’d have

    Ten (HD, with a SD downconvert)
    One (SD)
    Ten Edge (SD)

  2. @vinny Ten still have the rights to Outrageous Fortune.. They still have season 3, 4 and 5 to play!

    They could use the 2nd channel for extra Big Brother stuff if that was resurrected! Or put Chelsea Lately on it lol

  3. I used to love TEN HD (Rush, Neighbours, Rove etc all in HD plus great shows like Smallville and animal documentaries plus movies). I thought their digital offering with that was better than what 7 or 9 were doing at the time, but since they lost that and gained ONE HD I haven’t been interested. I find the GO! and 7TWO offerings much more attractive.

    So hopefully 10 can do something like gaining TEN HD back possibly or just some other general entertainment channel, that isn’t about Sport 24/7.

  4. Wow masterchef seems to be a lot closer in format and ideas to Americas Topchef, rather than Britains Masterchef. Topchef have recently produced topchef masters, consisting of contestants that are professional chefs, and in production is essentially a jr topchef. The feel of MCA has always felt to me more topchef than masterchef

  5. How many times are people going to say they want a retro Australian channel or night before the networks actually listen to us and make it happen! Countdown re-runs on rage in the summer are the most popular specials they run all year. Foxtel plays old episodes of Blankety Blanks. Why can’t they dust off some of our home grown classics for at least one night on the extra channels? Ten has so much great old content in it’s archives. Early Bird Show, it’s a knockout, perfect match, neighbors, game shows, prisoner ect. Look at the success of Hey Hey and the Don Lane tribute, highest rating in their time slot. Why the networks think we would rather watch imports over home grown content is baffling to me. Cultural cringe if ever i saw it. ABC, 7, 9 and 10, consider retro Australian content instead of American retro content ie Magnum, Charlie’s Angels, Bewitched. Be proud to be Australian.

  6. What I would like to see once Good News Week Ends for the Year is 90210 Return to A Monday Night Timeslot Even If Only for the Summer And some American Teen Dramas for the Younger Generation Plus The Big Kids at Heart.
    Also some of the older comedies that we all grew up with.

  7. No music videos please. How about devoting one night, say Friday, to sci-fi and horror? Remember Deadly Ernest and those horrible 70’s vampire films? They were fun to watch.

  8. a music and entertainment channel would be good. with junior master chef. i think by doing this they cheapening the product. the original one so good because there wasn’t any run off started. the original product will be made worse in the long run if they keep have these spinn off’s of the show. celeberity mc hasn’t been that good

  9. younger audiences are the way to go they just channel flick older audiences stay on the one channel. My sister, who is 7, knows all the new channels but my grandparents, 70, didn’t even know there were new channels because they are so stuck on channel 7, 9 and occassionally ABC. They didn’t even know there was other network except the one they call “the one that shows footballs on the weekends sometimes”.

  10. Before people get excited it is scheduled in the next 12 Months not 12 weeks.

    I’m sure Mott and the crew will have a good look at GO and 7v2 (ratings and people switching to Deeg) before signing up to a youth entertainment based channel with Ten going older skew. Would be good if they released a MPEG 4 HD version of the new channel with MPEG SD – would speed up conversion from analogue by avoiding SD STB’s and PVR’s when people buy equipment.

  13. I want to see general entertainment, particularly those shows that Ten got me hooked on before removing from my screens – 90210 and Three Rivers. I also hear they got the rights to Swingtown and never aired it. I don’t care that it got axed in the US – it was absolutely brilliant. As it stands I end up viewing so much because it gets axed here and I need to see what happens next! 90210 is going from strength to strength, and the new Melrose Place is also heaps of fun.

  15. Ten is not known for its news expertise. Look at the ABC, Nine or Seven – they have credibility when it comes to news. I don’t necessarily think News with Ten.
    I still think the Government needs to strike up a deal with Sky News and get them onto Digital TV – one of the best things on Pay TV is Sky News. That is a fantastic service!

    Ten have always led the way with digital. Weren’t they the first to broadcast in High-Definition? The first commercial station with a digital channel.
    Ten should go a female skew. They’re male-skewed with OneHD, so you wouldn’t want to annoy the females. They would probably be better off with a general entertainment channel.

    Seven Network and Nine Network – they will probably need a specific digital 2nd channel (eg lifestyle, arts, news, comedy, music)
    I’d suggest Nine go with News (if Sky News doesn’t go to digital FTA) and Seven go with Lifestyle – that seems to be their main strengths.

  17. Why are ten continuing on with the 7pm project?

    Last Friday it rated 498,000

    This week its rated better with andrew g, but why continue it during summer? when most people will be out at 7pm enjoying the weather!

    At least we can congraluate ten for giving it a chance

    matt

  18. Monk and Psych please. Great shows taken off our screens and never seen again. Would love to watch these shows.

    Also some old classics, ALF, Full House, Step By Step, Hey Dad all the shows i used to watch as a kid. Reminds me of a simpler time. lol

  20. Ten has a deal with Paramount – put all the Trek series (including the new remastered Original Series) on their new channel

    And yes others here are right, they should fire up some of their older hits and make it a broad channel like 7TWO rather than narrowcasting to one taste (the sport thing really annoys me!)

  21. i would like to see an aussie content day, the rest of the days can be light entertainment with movies every second night, shows like buffy, x files, friends, new eps of futurama, law and order, 90210.

  22. So they are legally allowed to show different things on all 3 channels? This is good new, ONE HD can continue with sport, SD1 the main channel and SD2 and their alt programing.

    I’m homing they can do a general entrainment channel just like the others.

  23. It should be a sci fi channel so they can use all the shows they had on Ten HD: Battlestar Galactica, X-Files, Buffy, Angel, Smallville, Supernatural, Clone Wars. There were the docos they used to show every afternoon and some of the hd movies were cheesy sci fi’s.

  25. i would like either a 24hr music channel with a mix of entertainment channel, shows like 90210 and content from MTV, spike tv, and some docs maybe, or a 24hr news channel

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