Nine to launch GEM for women
Updated: The Big C, Southland, Miami Medical, McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol, Wife Swap are all coming to Nine's new GEM.
- Published by David Knox
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Nine’s third digital channel GEM will aim at women over 35.
As an acronym of General Entertainment and Movies, GEM promises a mix of ‘new content, classic comedies, cherished drama series, all-time favourite movies’ plus high definition sports aimed at the ‘sophisticated, discerning viewer’
It will be led by new US drama The Big C starring Laura Linney (pictured) and Oliver Platt.
Updated: Other first-run imports include Weeds, Southland, Miami Medical, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and the lifestyle programs Wife Swap, Secret Millionaire USA, The Chopping Block USA and How Clean Is Your House?
It will feature a new season of Random Acts of Kindness featuring Shelley Craft, Scott Cam, Dr Andrew Rochford and Simmone Jade Mackinnon.
Also screening are Aussie dramas McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol and The Alice, plus US crime shows CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, The Closer and Cold Case, along with movies such as Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, 21 Grams and Being Julia.
Friends will be stripped to air every week night,
The channel will officially launch on Sunday September 26th, when it is likely to be included in the OzTAM ratings panel, but it has been reported it will be on air on September 24 -a day before the blokey 7mate begins.
CEO David Gyngell said, “GEM is what its title suggests – a general entertainment and movie channel, carefully crafted and targeted like GO! before it, to appeal to a wide audience cross-section and complement Nine’s existing successful brands,” Mr Gyngell said.
GEM will also include some news and current affairs programs.
“We have a very significant investment in news and current affairs and some of that content will be repackaged to the style of GEM,” he said.
As with 7mate, the channel is set to be HD only, to replace Nine HD.
High definition sport will be seen on GEM until the digital switchover in December 2013.
Rumours on Nine’s moves, including the channel name, content pitch and launch date have been speculated for some time.
Viewers can watch GEM on channel 90 on an HD-capable digital TV, PVR or set top box.
This post updates.
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- Tagged with 60 Minutes, Cold Case, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Friends, How Clean Is Your House?, McLeod’s Daughters, Miami Medical, NRL, Random Acts of Kindness, Sea Patrol, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Secret Millionaire, Secret Millionaire USA, Southland, The Alice, The Big C, The Chopping Block USA, The Closer, The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Secret Millionaire, Weeds, Wife Swap
132 Responses
nine is not going to neglect sport on its primary channel, and with its commitment to hd sport on GEM, that means we can expect both channels to telecast the same sport simultaneously. That should go well!!
@timothy, i actually think mcleods (R) is the most appealing thing there. but thats saying more about the shows.
Noooo not more repeats of Sleepless in Seattle!!! it will be on every day instead of every fortnight like in Ch 9.
Not that much interest until I read the update – Old CSI (original)CSI:NY & The Closer would all interest me & I might check out the Sea Patrol rpts. But how about some classic Australian shows from the 70’s/80’s? like The Young Doctors,The Sullivans or Hey Hey????
Hope they repeat The Young Doctors and The Sullivans at some stage, unlike the other dramas they are going to repeat it’s been a while since we’ve seen those.
‘6:15PM (AEST)Nine to launch digital TV channel GEM’
Just read this on Daily Telgraphs ‘Breaking News’
Laughing my head off…..read it wayyyy earlier today on TV Tonight…..the only place to see it it first …..up to date and real…….
Keep up the good work!
I’ve heard through the grapevine (have a friend who works for Nine) that they are going to ensure that they Don’t fiddle with the scedule for quite a few months to try to give it a chance to settle in. Interesting to see if they keep that up!!
And I will watch because
So now point re-tuning our TV’s then?
I just went to the freeview website and looked at channels for regional area’s & it still has WIN HD & not GEM. Metro area channels on the freeview website has GEM where 9HD use to be.
I plea with WIN to not delay getting GEM to regional area’s.
Finally the worst kept secret in television has arrived!
This feels like a much stronger line-up that 7mate’s collection of leftovers. What’s the bet that once they find the one or two shows that rate really well that they start popping up all over the place … usually when Nine’s having a bad night.
Sorry, just being cynical – hooray for more TV!
Sounds interesting, although i do hope it is the PG rated Friends without the edits instead of the Channel 10 version from a few years back
will Gem be on Foxtel?
wiki page too… now I just wonder with that name with this turn into a movie channel some days?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_HD
Ahh just noticed the updates, so Nine has the rights to Friends again. Also The Chopping Block USA lasted two eps in the US in Summer 2009 as it was cancelled. It was terrible, I couldnt watch the first ep in full, was not like the Aus version.
CSI would be repeats I’m sure. I hope McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol and The Alice will be overnight or daytime, and not passed off as primetime viewing.
Just found this link, it has a logo they will use as well.
channelnine.syd.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7960634
Yet another new channel I will probably not watch. I am house sitting right now, and only have FTA. It is killing me having nothing to watch.
Would be great if they cut out the childrens programming on ABC2, and had more grown up stuff. ABC3 should also run 24/7 as childrens or have adult shows on after 9pm.
With a lot of the old rubbish on GO! going to Eleven, and GEM, GO! will have to get more programs, or just fill the gaps with Bang and Men.
Nine are only releasing this channel on Friday in order to win the week. Two nights of a new channel for Nine, as apposed to one night with 7Bogan will be the clincher.
@sean, I remember when the choice was 2, 7 & 9. And the excitement when 10 launched, it was the biggest thing in my young life at the time.
Now we get a chick channel that features shows about hookers and cancer (see ladies the nice people at Nine know what you want), all just waiting to get bumped by good old sport whenever the footy or cricket is on (and they don’t mean the women’s games either).
Wow, I really need to lie down, I can’t take the excitement like I used to…
David is it on air on 24th or 26 th ?
Love the logo.
David do you know if the CSI nEW York is new episodes ? and whether these crime shows will air now just on GEM ?
How Clean is Your House and Miami are cancelled series.
They’ve got a logo up on the GEM facebook page. Thoughts?
they’ve set up a facebook page for it already, I like the name and the image on facebook. although it does seem very last minute seeing as southland is on the ad for all the shows coming to GO!.
While the transmission will be 1080 HD it doesn’t mean all the content will be, I’m sure some shows with be 4×3 pillar box SD.
@ vinny,
just because the channel is 1080i doesn’t make the content HD. It is always possible to take SD content (576i) and upscale these to 1080i, but that doesn’t make it have the same amount of detail as native HD content. Only Native HD will count towards the HD Quota.