Nine to launch new channel before 7mate
Nine has set a date for the launch of its second digital channel, five or six days before Seven launches 7mate.
- Published by David Knox
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“I wanted to call it Dave but everyone said ‘are you joking?'” says David Leckie.
Instead Seven called their new male-skewed channel 7mate.
Presumably nobody thought to ask the same question of that idea.
Dave, of course, mirrors the male-dominated channel in the UK which shows titles like Top Gear, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Red Dwarf and Bottom.
7Mate, which launches on September 25 with the AFL Grand Final, will aim at young males aged 16-39.
Seven CEO David Leckie says the channel “will take a couple of years to make a good profit” but “it will make a profit in year one”.
Advertising will be sold across Seven media properties via SMG Red Unit.
“Anyone in the marketplace will tell you that James Warburton, Kurt Burnette (network director of sales) and their team do a great job selling television, Yahoo!7 and magazines,” he said.
But the Australian Financial Review says Nine has set a date for the launch of its second digital channel, five or six days before Seven launches 7mate. Rumours on Nine’s channel extend from a crime channel, lifestyle channel or a female-skewed channel possibly called GEM.
However, it still requires 8 weeks notice to be included in the OzTAM panel.
AFR also reports Seven is counting on 7mate to correct the failure of 7TWO to broaden the reach of the Seven brand.
“We are very pleased with 7TWO but we think we can do a lot better by the way. GO and ONE are going very well. We saw an opportunity and we are looking forward to it,” Leckie tells The Australian.
Source: The Australian, afr.com.au
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- Tagged with AFL, Bottom, Red Dwarf, Top Gear, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
49 Responses
@David S
Ah ha! That’s it, it’ll be the channel 9 nostalgia channel…. With screenings of all their favourites from way back when they were #1. Think of it, wall to wall Hey Hey, Paul Hogan, Kerri Anne… This wasn’t a good week to give up drinking.
Apart from a bit of extra work by the programming team and the on-air presentation people, why can’t the networks intertwine their HD material with the new channels?
Thus if Nine does Crime:
5.30-9am Today
9am The Mentalist
10am Cold Case
11am News
12 Ellen
1 The View
2 Rockford Files
etc etc
Just need a promo saying “NineCrime will be back at 2, now Nine in crystal-clear HD”
Show some initiative! 🙂
Did the channels every get more bandwidth for the channels, or are they lower the quality of everything again?
I know the programming is meant to be directed at men, but a lot of the shows they’ve lined up I would watch, or already do watch. Sure, they’re aiming it at a male demographic, but it’s not the best male-oriented line-up they could have, especially when you see what they air on the UK men’s channel.
No we don’t need Crime it’s bad enough seeing it on the main channels, Lifestyle is boring, and female-skewed is not what i want. I think GO! and 7mate will be the best channels and Ten’s third channel will be good if we can see shows like Smallville, Supernatural, Stargate Universe. Speaking of Ten’s third channel if nine and seven going to launch their 3rd channel channel ten will have to get their channel launching.
This article has nothing to do with what the headline says….? Where is the info on Nine’s new channel?
It is noted towards the end of the article.
Not lifestyle, not crime, not a chick channel – Nine, Australia has voted and shown the world we love cooking shows more than anything. The IronMasterCookingChef channel, 24 X 7 (in HD of course). With a bit of home/backyard renovation on the weekends. Just for the nostalgia.
The sad fact of these two third cahnnels launching is that all free to air HD TV content on Australia will be restrcited only to a few niche channels while their best content on their main channels will not be seen in HD in most cases. The way FOX8 promote Glee as a first in HD on FOX8HD says it all.
Other sources will quickly take over as being the main providers of HD content in Australia – especially as the National Broadband Network rolls out, and as Foxtel continues to add more HD channels – while free to air TV will be left behind.
Seven’s channel should have been called ” 7m8 ” as that would have been far more receptive to the target audience. It also would provide a far more compact watermark.
No doubt Seven will have an hideously wide watermark stretching a third of the way across the screen with “7mate”!
But Seven will lose my interest by no longer showing prime time premiere programming in HD on the main channel. Now is not the time to be reducing the amount of content shown in native HD. The same goes for channel Nine.
So basically, Nine are running scared and are going to launch a channel that probably needs a lot more work and is only half-planned. Perhaps if Seven and Nine stopped with the measuring competition and actually thought things through we the viewers wouldn’t be complaining so much!!!
“crime channel, lifestyle channel or a female-skewed channel”
I definitely wont be watching then.
stop complainingjust wait and see what happens first
Move the Sopranos to 7mate and show it at a reasonable time, Garry Unmarried is a shocker.
James Joyce from the Newcastle Herald told KOFM today that Prime has said it’s “probable” 7mate will launch for them at the same time.
Which would reflect exactly what I wrote last week.
Channel 9.5 – all 2.5 Men, all the time.
Actually I was nearly going to say it will be a shame to lose 9HD, but when I think about it, there’s only one show I watch on it, Top Gear, which I’m willing to bet will run on the new one.
I wouldn’t mind a Crime network but only if they brought shows like Nero Wolfe or Murder Call to it. It needs to expand to the properly broad spectrum of Crime shows.
I mean it might not be that bad, just think we could get Inspector Rex on a comercial network sponsored by Pedigree.
I hope it’s nothing but 24 hour loop of Laurie Oakes in the shower
Why would they launch with the AFL Grand Final, wouldn’t they cut into the main channels figures? And it’s not really a great message that your new digital channel has the exact same things on as your main channel.
Not a crime channel. There is enough of that stuff already!!!! A lifestyle channel would flop.
Did they seriously consider calling 7mates Dave?
Great, so does this mean Nine HD will go now aswell?
and this channel will be on WIN months before Mate is broadcast by Prime, in my opinion. Prove me wrong Prime!!!!!!!
Um, in this article I can’t find anything about Channel 9. Is this a joke?
whatever 7 or 9 name their new channels, can they please realise that many people are watching past 1am and find the shopping and religious shows thin on script, plot and entertainment.
Nein #3 might show all the shows they played for two weeks on Nein’s #1 channel before being bumped to werewolf timeslots!
Wait…no, it will show all the shows they played for two weeks on GO!, the secondary channel! before being bumped to werewolf timeslots!
But…sorry to disappoint, they’ll only last two weeks before All being bumped to a werewolf timeslot.
Big Bang Theory and Top Gear six times a day, eat your heart out.
Hey, there’s hope for Nine’s fourth channel!