Home Shopping infomercials join “Youth” channel GO!
GO! is now screening infomercials with for gut-busting abdominal exercisers instead of episodes of Gossip Girl and The Inbetweeners.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Programming
In another sign that Nine is diluting the GO! brand it began broadcasting Home Shopping today at 2am.
Nine had 2 hrs worth of infomercials today, whereas a week ago it played a movie.
The move is seen as a revenue raiser by Nine, as Home Shopping hardly fits with the channel’s pitch as a “youth channel.” Today it was selling gut-busting abdominal exercisers.
The move also effectively deletes late-night replays of youth-friendly shows such as Nip / Tuck, The Inbetweeners, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Gossip Girl.
At the same time, it airs Guthy-Renker Australia on Nine, demonstating a poor commitment to multichanneling options.
7TWO airs vintage AFL matches in the middle of the night.
Several TV Tonight readers have expressed their disappointment by the move, saying:
– It seems to me that the death of multi-channeling has come almost as quickly as it came. Go has become a shadow of it’s former self and it saddens me. In one sense it would have been better to have never experienced the convenience and choice of extra channels. At least without extra channels there’s less chance of having 2 shows on at the same time.
– ….according to the EPG there will no longer be any GO! repeats whatsoever for the 9:30pm or 10:30pm shows. only the 8:30pm shows will get 1 repeat at 1am and the daytime line up does not feature any of the primetime shows at all.
– Everyone who is disgusted by Infomercials coming to GO should jump onto their Facebook page and make your thoughts clear. Several comments already there about the subject.
– Home shopping is pathetic, GO! was the last refuge from this dross and the only decent late night offering on TV. I really hope they reverse this decision asap.
– ….I rely on their Early morning repeats of fringe and terminator because I can’t tape them at 830 pm due to lost!
Correction: TVSN is unrelated to Home Shopping content on GO! Apologies for any confusion.
47 Responses
GO! is a general entertainment channel. Nine did trumpet it as a youth channel prior to its launch, but since then they’ve quit using that term so it’s time everyone else did.
P’d off now that I can’t record the early morning repeat of Nip/Tuck on GO! because I will be recording Brothers and Sisters on 7 and Sanctuary on ABC2 at 9.30. Spoilt for choice, yes, but one has to go as a result – when I could have had all three. Thanks for nothing GO! and your stupid infomercials.
So late at night on 7, 9, 10 and GO! there are going to be infomercials? Can’t wait…
The best thing when GO! fully launched was not having to watch infomercials or old old movies on ABC late at night. This is such a bad move and shows utter contempt for their audience. I truly hope they reconsider.
Dutchy
I agree. I much prefer 7two and it has better quality shows and have better coverage of subtitles anyway. Thanks God for Southern cross giving Darwin 7two, and finally one hd (due to start here next week).
Now I don’t care when GO! starts in Darwin because it is already ruined. There is no love lost between me and Channel NIne Darwin to start with.
That is f***ed up. I rely on setting the dvd recorder at 2am for Nip/Tuck because i record Desperate Housewives and Brother & Sisters while watching Good News Week which again runs til 10. What a disgrace Nine is.
Oh well. Looks like I’ll be watching 7two or One hd from now on… What are you thinking 9???
So Nine claims it is a youth channel, which doesn’t appear to be based on the info above. What is GO!’s true purpose and what is it really aimed at?
Sadly it looks like Nine is making changes to GO! before it can be released to the Darwin market. Yet another slap in the face for the youth of Darwin. :(
Yes, the networks are a business, and yes, so called Home Shopping will make them extra money in the short term. But the long term effect will be damage to their brand – especially GO – which is supposedly the youth channel (who else is up watching TV at that time, other than maybe shift workers and the like?) and damage to the whole idea of Freeview which spruiks the benefits of going digital and having more chanels and more options.
As a business, you should also consider the long term effects of your actions, and not just immediate profits.
Agreed. There has been too much diluting, with shows that don’t fit the “youth” brief, and shows that are on both channels. This new change, aired at the same time as shopping on Nine, is another concern to the bigger picture.
Well that’s just brililant, isn’t it! Thanks for nothing!
Yet shows like Seinfeld etc still get to be shown 3 times in 1 day where is the sense in that? Also don’t you just love how they picked this week of all weeks to start the Home Shopping?
Bloody hell.. Way to go Nine & Go.
You’re screwing it up, big time.
Rather than sitting down to watch TV at that hour, in order to avoid infomercials, people will turn to the internet to get their entertainment fix.
You’re killing yourselves, 9.
It doesn’t really matter if people aren’t buying or are buying these crap infomercial products, as they’ll still want to run them on TV. Do you really think people (unless they’re retarded) turn their TV on to 7, 9, or 10 at 1 am onwards, because they enjoy watching infomercials. If you want to complain, do so to the ABA.
This is annoying as there is enough home shopping advertised during the day on GO! as it is. I liked having the late night replays.
GO! Is still hit and miss. There’s still too many repeats of really old outdated shows. I wish that they can replay Gilmore Girls, Everwood, Joan of Arcadia, Roswell, Laguna Beach, etc.
Why on earth do they have to put this sort of rubbish on the new digital channel.Bad mistake i think.
I have to agree with Jason D. Nine only turn over these timeslots to advertisers because advertisers are obviously getting results from this brand of marketing. If people didn’t buy the products being advertised then the advertisers wouldn’t continue buying up slabs of airtime to sell more product.
But it is disappointing to see GO, which started with a clear focus and strategy, is now becoming Channel 9’s junk drawer with random oldies, constant scheduling chances, time-shifted programming and “encores”, and now infomercials. The channel’s focus has blurred somewhat. At least 7TWO has always been focused as an extension of Seven and programmed accordingly. Nine just seems to have no strategy for GO anymore.
To everyone complaining – commercial television networks are businesses, their main aim is to make money. Nine obviously don’t make money on these overnight repeats so they are showing infomercials to make more money.
I don’t think anyone other than people who look at this website will care. There can’t be a substantial amount of people who watch Go at 2am …
Wasn’t the whole point of Go! to offer viewers an alternative?
How is offering more info-mercials an alternative?
With useless football and now informercials I regret buying my set-top box. And now Go! will not offer repeats making it difficult to pick which shows to watch to the point when I won’t even bother.
Viva la internet.
Unbelievable. Epic fail.
Even so i dont like home shopping on our tvs, most american cable networks also have home shopping and some of them are also “youth channels”, but yes you are right david Go could put so many youth shows on at that time instread of home shopping, but of always wonded if GO makes a profit from there replays of their mid morning showsthe time thay are on, i dont know but a show like Gossip girl most cost Go/9 over 100,000 per ep i would guess and would Go really make a profit of showing a encore/reply at 2am or whatever
Disgusting! Shame on you Nine.
Everybody needs to understand that Nine is a business just like Woolworths and Myer. It needs to make money.
Infomercials, religious programming and some specialty programming (ie- some fishing shows etc..) provide television stations/networks with revenue when hardly anyone is watching.
It’s something that Australian television viewers are going to have to get used to. There’s plenty of US over-the-air and cable stations/networks with many hours of infomercial spots.
Pathetic…. I give it one-year and there’ll be barely any difference between Nine and Go… Perhaps a re-branding to 9TWO would be appropriate.
The sad thing is that they wouldn’t be showing these awful infomercials if people weren’t buying stuff from them. Stop buying their overpriced products and believing their scripted testimonials, then it won’t be viable for these companies to sell their infomercials to the television networks.
Bad move GO! I often use the re-runs to record shows I couldn’t earlier in the night, or as a back up.
Once again Nine/GO! showing they care more about there shareholders than the audiance!