★★★★★ 0/5

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.

56
Leave a comment

prime_logo_1Since 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.

56 Responses

  1. I’m loving how the bit rate on 7TWO is actually equal with 10 SD, 7 and 9, and I wish GO! would step up and stop the youtube style quality we’re getting at the moment.

    As for prime’s lack of 7TWo, maybe they are trying to negotiate with 7 to re-brand it to Prime 2, or Prime Time (seeing as Time seems to be important in 7two’s logo).

  2. @John Bailey, Austar cannot provide the fta commercial networks because each network can only broadcast within a licence area. Austar’s licence covers many fta licence areas. if Austar was allowed to rebroadcast the 3 commercial networks from every licence area, there wouldn’t be any satellite room for the pay channels. If you don’t like it, get Mystar.

  3. I think it’s a disgrace that Austar’s basic service doesn’t include free to air commercial channels.
    Very inconvenient for older viewers who aren’t tech savvy and have to connect and disconnect cords etc
    David can you look into this please ?

  7. i emailed them got no reply so i went to the my local prime office studios *Coffs Harbour Jetty

    and they pretty much said we are not going to comment but be rest assured we will
    make a comment when we are ready

    Prime should get brought out by the seven network
    and have regional channel 7 like in QLD

  8. Yet again the country folk miss out. Im a dead set heroes nut and was looking forward to new episodes as I’ve been watching it by other means. Its bad enough we have to endure infomercials day and night while the metros get decent programming. Thank god for GO

  9. @Steve: “regionalism and local programming”? Apart from local news in some areas and more infomercials overnight, Prime is pretty much the same as Seven.

    In the old days of having one commercial channel in regional areas, it would generally have the best of programming from the three city channels. If Prime are unable to deliver 7TWO now, then many of these complaints would be solved by at least showing key 7TWO drawcards like Heroes and Ugly Betty on the main Prime channel even if late at night so that viewers in Primes coverage area can at least keep up to date withthese shows.

  10. Hi Steve,
    you live in lala land. Prime would never start their own channel. They only care about money and money. Look what rubbish they serve here in Canberra. No real local news and the whole night this info-mercials….. \
    get rid of them. ….
    hopefully prime looses its licence.

  12. When I was told over the weekend that 7Two was going to come out of Sth Cross Canberra the look of surprise on my face so I’m told was priceless!!
    I cant comprehend how a so called modern facility like BCM that was built for Digital Television has to rely on a Non affiliated Regional Network to play out their second channel.
    Seven really were caught out with this and were not planning to launch the 2nd channel until next year.
    But as I’m informed it was the big Media buyers in the country that forced there hand and demanded to know what format the channel would take before they would start negotiation for next year! 😉

  13. To all those people demanding that Prime carry 7TWO – Prime are under no obligation whatsoever to carry it, and in fact, for all we know, they might have plans for their own channel and never carry 7TWO at all. Or perhaps they’re preferring to wait until they can have it run with their own brand. Either way, just because the cities get it doesn’t mean that you should automatically have it.

    And as for the people saying that Seven should take over Prime: have a read of the media ownership laws. They are there to protect regionalism and local programming.

  14. Notes to Prime:

    1. Dump your ugly ass logo and colour scheme
    2. Take on Seven branding, but localise it for each region (Seven Canberra, Seven North Coast, Seven Newcastle)
    3. Launch local news services
    4. Launch 7TWO

  15. Hey Brad, re Sthn Cross doing playout for 7TWO.
    And to only think that Sthn Cross in only over the back fence at Prime. You can see the Sthn Cross building form the Prime Building in Canberra.
    I am sure Prime have their reasons, but I am guessing it caught them out by surprise, as Seven have had to contract out to Sthn Cross at what looks like very short notice as well. The success of GO! had sort of seemingly forced Seven’s hand. Nine is using what was the separate HD suite down the hall from the main Network PC suite at Willougby to playout GO!, which is why there are no more HD breakaways on Nine, and I am guessing WIN is using their formerly WIN HD suite to run GO! as well, hence why the WIN HD Service has shut down for the time being. Seven would have had no spare playout capacity at Docklands BCM, let alone Prime who seeminlgy have none, as Prime simply relayed the Seven HD feed with Seven breaks (minus 7 logo) for HD breakaways, which means PRIME would seemingly have not had a separate HD suite, hence why they are unable to run a separate Pres Suite for 7TWO at the moment? One would think that Prime would simply relay the dirty 7TWO feeds until they had the had their new Morpheus system to take over when ready for local Pres control of 7TWO? Who knows, time will tell.
    ct

  17. +1 at disappointment with the situation.

    It seems an odd situation that Prime is in, in that it is unable to deliver the content the regional viewers would have been anticipating. That is, the continuance of shows they had been loyally following (e.g. Lost, Heroes, 24, Ugly Betty).

    Don’t know who is to blame for the screw up, but as viewers it’s not as though we don’t have options. If a supplier can’t be relied upon, then it’s only reasonable to look for alternatives. Specifically, DVD releases (bought/rented/shared)) or downloads.

    It would seem the networks are signing their own death warrant if they persist with shoddy treatment of viewers – rescheduling programs, on-and-off-again nature of shows.

    I look forward to the day when production houses can sell (e.g. via subscription) their shows direct to the masses. Actually, I guess they already do with DVD releases but some sort of download version would cut out some costs as far as middle men / manufacturing / distribution / packaging and hopefully make it much more affordable.

  18. After a little investigation, I’ve discovered that Presentation for 7two isn’t actually being done by 7 at BCM, but actually by Southern Cross from their digital facility in Canberra for the next 6-12 months..

    As Seven are unable to do it themselves, perhaps this is why Prime were un-prepared!!

  19. Leave it to the regional networks to boost the level of bit torrent traffic and kill thier potential revenue base. Poeple will and have gotten ticked off with waiting and be bypassing the network altogether. Serves them right.

  21. Hi everyone. It’s quite sad to read about Prime not offering 7two. In regional Qld it’s available via 7Qld. I think I’ll be watching this station on a regular basis.

  22. Its not the fact we don’t have it; its the fact prime refuse to give us an answer! If they’d just open up and tell people what is going on then I’m sure that will satisfy some fans.

  23. They are so pathetic. Nothing they can say will excuse their in-action and the only thing they can do to redeem themselves is put the darn channel to air!!
    They’ve given the same line over and over, and people arn’t getting any happier. They are only getting madder!!!

  24. This sux for the regional viewers – I’m sure it’s not as simple as many think [flicking on a switch], but surely planning a wide-spread rollout in sequence with the capitals is not entirely impossible to achieve.

  25. What might be a good idea is if someone asks prime how the propose to allow us to catch up on programs we’ll’ve missed. Not to mention suggesting that prime use it’s hd channel temporarily to allow at least some regional viewers to access 7two.

Leave a Reply