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New channel from Nine “soon”

After the surprise launch of 7mate yesterday, attention now turns to Nine and TEN's plans for new digital channels.

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After the surprise launch of 7mate yesterday, attention now turns to Nine and TEN’s plans for new digital channels.

Nine could similarly rebrand its High Definition channel to chase a new demographic, while TEN’s likely option is to dump ONE SD, the standard definition rebroadcast of its ONE sports.

Media are speculating as to which way Nine may move. The Sydney Morning Herald hints at a possible ‘NineCrime’ channel full of CSI, Cold Case, Without a Trace titles. The Australian suggests it could be a Lifestyle channel. “GEM” has also been registered with IP Australia.

It will need to move fast if it wants to match extra demo points that Seven could carve out from 7mate. In a tight race for network figures it might be enough to fall across the line by year’s end.

A Nine source told TV Tonight it was a matter of public record that Nine has been developing a 2nd multi channel to complement the success of GO!

“GO! absolutely flogs 7TWO across the board in the three key demographics, and beats it on Total People. That’s despite Seven’s claims on launch that 7TWO would quickly surpass GO! It hasn’t gotten within a bull’s roar of that because like their primary channel, 7TWO has ended up relying too heavily on the over 55s to bulk up its Total People figures, at the clear expense of the target demos.

“Mate sounds like at attempt to address that big problem they have, but let’s not forget that Mate was in fact their Plan A last year but shelved in favour of 7TWO, which has lost its way. So Mate is now exhumed and dusted off as some new concept, but as a Plan B.”

Meanwhile media buyers gave 7mate a mixed response.

Peter Horgan, a managing partner of media buyer OMD, said: ”If they get it right then it will bring people in. I am interested.”

Nick Durrant at MindShare, told smh.com.au, ”If you are going to attract young guys then you are going to need programs like The Man Show, which is all about girls on trampolines. They need to be offering something different and it [7Mate] is probably not as single-minded as it needs to be, and I don’t know whether they have the appetite for going down that route.”

Nine told TV Tonight there was no date yet for its new channel, “But it’s close and likely to be an announcement soon.”

37 Responses

  1. Who cares,the only good thing they could do which i think would work well and cost virtually nothing is have a channel that’s a plus 2 channel.For people who don’t have Foxtel it’s a channel that screens the same programs 2 hours later after the Primary channel has screened it

  3. to be honest I have to agree that 7TWO is too broad, even though it does increase 7’s auduence share. 9 were clever to dedicate their first multichannel to teenagers to late 20’s as it allowed them to target a specific audience, but now 7 is in the lead for both having the most multichannels (in the commercial category) and having a more specific target audience. I hope that 7TWO is relaunched once 7mate is a hit to be more specific – maybe dedicating to movies as that is what free-to-air is lacking.

  4. These new channels could also show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno , Late Night with Jimmy Fallon , Jimmy Kimmel Live , Craig Ferguson , Regis and Kelly , Rachael Ray and The U.S. Price is Right and anything Foxtel has recently removed !

  6. i love that idea of the channel NineCrime with CSI, Cold Case and Without A Trace and many more shows. Its seems to be the main highlights of Nine and its bouned to be a success. It would incourage Nine to produce more Crime dramas.

  7. there are very few crime shos that i enjoy. so if 9 made a crime channel i would probably never watch it. but… i would assume that it would mean less crime on 9 and GO! would make room for some more shows that i might like. so even for a crime hater a crime channel would not necessarily be all bad.

    @belinda. Lifestyle channels are very sucessful and profitable i am very surprised Australia hasn’t got one. i wuld have expected it to come from 7 more than any other network but it looks like unless 9 or ten do one it will be a while off.

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