A Prime concern
Regional viewers are not happy about the absence of 7TWO, available only in the big smoke. Here's what Prime TV had to say today.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Since its launch yesterday many angry readers have been asking about the absence of 7TWO on Prime Television and asking about its arrival date.
The issue mirrors the same problem when ONE was not initially available in regional viewers in March. The television sector appears to have learned little from this experience. Unfortunately, regional playouts are usually a lot more involved than metro cities.
TV Tonight today asked Prime for clarity but the answer was decidedly brief:
“Prime will announce its plans regarding our Multi channels in the near future.”
A Seven spokesperson previously advised it would be added to Prime with 7TWO branding, but no start-up date was promised. That would seem to still hold true.
No doubt the network is more than aware of the viewer fury that has gathered in the last 24 hours. As to affording ‘fault’ for its lateness that’s anyone’s guess. Suffice to say that Seven’s master plan to keep everything under wraps has been a challenge for some affiliate partners.
Southern Cross Tasmania will add the channel from December 1st. It will also be added to Foxtel cable from November 24th on Ch 127.
When it does arrive to Prime, viewers will potentially have missed out on key episodes of Ugly Betty, Reaper, Heroes and more, though this too is yet to be clarified.
Share
- Tagged with Heroes, Reaper, Ugly Betty
56 Responses
heroes and ugly betty are on the channel 7 website for download, that must be some small comfort until 7two is all across australia.
As far as I know Prime is a regional affiliate of 7 and as per most things rollouts of anything new are always forever before they reach regional areas because the population number is significantly less – yes its unfair but there’s nothing we can do about it.
“In August, it was announced that Prime was installing a Snell Morpheus automation and control system to upgrade their playout. Snell Group reported Lyndon Cox, network project manager with Prime TV as saying:
“Morpheus’ ability to handle live format scheduling changes, like those with sporting events, will reduce the load on our operators — and we also expect big improvements in asset management with the ability to manage media across different brands from a single system.”
Is the Morpheus installation completed? If not, that could explain the delay.”
Oh jesus no, from what I’ve heard Morpheus is taking months to install…
Let me get this straight. Customers with Foxtel satellite are discriminated against and people in regional areas are discriminated against. The people in TV land are only interested in the majority, the majority being people located in capital cities. It is 2009 for heaven’s sake, not 1964. Surely they can pull their collective fingers out of their collective backsides and give regional viewers the same service as those in capital cities. Those of us who live in regional areas are sick of being treated like second-class citizens.
Brad, re the Canberra facility broadcast feed, if its true that makes sense.
It would explain why in the areas where Southern Cross do Seven’s programming (Tasmania and Darwin) rather than Ten’s, Southern Cross can get the feed out before Prime on the rest of the eastern seaboard.
But as it took Southern Cross Ten on Canberra more than 12 months after the promised to date to actually roll out the facility to begin with, its no wonder Prime can’t give a date this time around. I don’t imagine SC Ten is in any hurry to assist their competition, when they weren’t in any hurry to assist themselves.
If that is true, don’t expect prime to have Seven 2 available any time before 2011.