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Just not cricket on GEM

New Update: GEM drops Test Cricket simulcast after all.

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Nine has pulled it’s simulcast of the First Test: Australia v England planned for GEM for tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, to be replaced by various reruns of The Nanny, Sea Patrol, Secret Millionaire, McLeod’s Daughters and similar programming.

UPDATE 1: Nine had the First Test: Australia v England listed in schedules for tomorrow, but as readers have noted, this was an error. The amendment is actually a correction of GEM schedule rather than dropping of HD simulcast. Apologies for any confusion.

UPDATE 2: Yep Cricket is now out of GEM schedule Thursday 25, Friday 26, Saturday 27. Was right after all….

GEM pulled Rugby Leage Four Nations from GEM last weekend.

GEM also didn’t broadcast Australian Masters last week.

When Nine announced the launch of GEM in September its Press Release said:

GEM will be a mix of new content, classic comedies, cherished drama series, all-time favorite movies, and all of Nine’s sport coverage in high definition.

High definition sport will be seen on GEM until the digital switchover in December 2013.

52 Responses

  1. this is complete BS, first the Four Nations & now the Cricket, i rang 9 last night to ask wtf Friends was doing on instead of the Cricket & the chicks reply was that the cricket was indeed being shown on the HD channel Gem… 9 are a bunch of tards

  4. Donald, yes you are correct, what should of been said. Digital at almost 80%. M-peg2 and not M-peg4 and another 2 years until analogue switch off,what an utterly stupid situation we are in.

  5. doyle, they’re not allowed to “show it on one or the other”. It’s usually a good idea to read all previous comments before posting – see comment re anti-syphoning. Andrew B is correct that if they show it in HD, and therefore on Gem, then they are required to show it on 9, and therefore SD, as well. Nothing on the list can be shown only on a HD-only channel until 2013 (pending Conroy’s review).

  6. As viewers and consumers, we buy HD equipment so we have the choice 2 watch things in HD now that choice is being slowly taken away from the aussie public. Soon there will be no live sport on fta tv or HD for that matter

  7. Barry Saunders, actually John Howard made the decision that we would have HD channels and SD ones, rather than all SD channels, even though that means less channels altogether (since the HD channels need more bandwidth). At the time I thought more channels would be better, but after getting a big screen I agree with him(!). We have HD channels, they should be fully utilised (e.g. not showing B&W movies from the fifties in 4:3), otherwise what’s the point in having them? Give us more channels as you say if we’re not going to utilise the HD channels.

  9. What’s the big deal? It’s still on, isn’t? Always amazes me what people complain about here.

    Anyway, have any of you considered the rules that the ACB impose on Nine & its affiliates when broadcasting in the market where the game is being played? If ground attendance doesn’t reach capacity, then the host Nine station must find alternative programming for most of the day. Maybe getting GEM to split into local feeds away from TCN wasn’t possible?

  12. Hate Nine, absolutely hate them. This is just the icing on the poisonous cake that GEM has been. More people would be watching the HD simucast than will be watching exclusive GEM programming- which by the way, is made up of a majority of Non-HD content.

  13. Wondering how many, out of all these people who say sport does not need to be on two channels and the like, will actually be watching anything on GEM during the day in any case?

    I put it to you, that Nine/GEM showing cricket in both SD and HD would draw more veiwers than only NIne showing cricket and GEM showing regular daytime programming.

    But as these matches are all day time, surely the motivation would not be ratings drvien, probably a matter of cost of production instead or extra advertising revenue. Until Nine advises reasons, we can only guess what their motivation is here.

  14. HD is going backwards in this country. England, NZ and probably India/Asia will get to see The Ashes in HD but not in this unprivileged country. We get the scraps from a scrappy commercial driven network. Bring on the nbn and scrap these goddamn anti-siphoning laws.

  19. Danny Wu, still looks good in SD? Maybe compared to analogue, but certainly not compared to HD on a big screen! I’m not a cricket fan, but I’ve seen full HD sport, on a good TV, and I wouldn’t wish SD-only onto any cricket fan. I’m guessing there are many people hoping One will buy up more rights soon.

  21. I don’t know aboout GEM pulling out the cricket simulcast, maybe they should air the daytime shows that is affected, instead pre-empt them or put them in a late timeslot. Clearly Nine is lying, they said they would be all simulcasting sports until the end of 2013. When the switchover ends we need a sports channel for Nine so we can watch sport in HD. Nine has been playing with the decision all day today, and to make it more confusing it says it would actually happen at Hobart, the team that is playing Australia A and England and my EPG hasn’t even change yet

  23. well i for one am happy with this, why do sports need to be on two channels anyways, i for one don’t like cricket at least i’ve got some alternative viewing that GEM can offer…

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