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ONE to relaunch with entertainment in May

ONE will relaunch on May 8th with more drama, factual and movies in HD but retain its premium sports as it chases males aged 25-54.

TEN has confirmed it will relaunch ONE in May with more entertainment.

The sports-channel will now include a mix of entertainment and sports aimed at males aged 25-54.

It will include a mix of premium sport plus additional drama, movies, and factual. Many will be in HD.

First run titles include Ricky Gervais’ An Idiot Abroad, Terriers, Lights Out, Breakout Kings, Everest.

It will also air Sons of Anarchy, new episodes of COPS, Airline, Long Way Round, plus shows that have already aired including Ice Road Truckers, Extreme Fishing with Robson Green

AFL, Moto GP and Formula One will remain on ONE.

The move follows the exit of sports boss David White and the failure of the channel to attract significant numbers on an on-going basis.

‘‘The bold, broad appeal of TEN along with the already proven performance of the distinctly youthful ELEVEN and now with the broader content offering for the male-skewed ONE positions us to capitalise on viewer and advertiser engagement,’’ chief programming officer David Mott said.

ONE has been trialling entertainment shows for many weeks and noticing an increase in its audience.

“We found that has already boosted our audience with a 27% share jump in those timeslots, so we know there is an appetite for this,” a TEN spokesperson told TV Tonight.

“Where we have things in full HD we will play them in full HD.”

Entertainment will air Monday – Fridays, with sport on weekends. ONE is aspiring to a 2.5% share with its new line-up.

TEN will also launch The Bolt Report, hosted by Andrew Bolt on May 8 on Sundays at 10am. Meet the Press will be move to 10.30am.

The announcements come on a day when TEN reported “unacceptable” half year results of
group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) before Non-Recurring Items was $106.0 million, down 9.8 per cent on the prior corresponding period.

Interim CEO, Lachlan Murdoch said: “The half year results are not acceptable and
immediate action is already underway to address them. Disappointingly for TEN’s 1300 employees and 22,500 shareholders, these results do not demonstrate TEN’s underlying strengths and potential.”

“TEN is at a crucial juncture in its history. Free-to-air television is an excellent business with strong growth prospects. However, TEN has been under-delivering and this must change.”

“Importantly, this change has already begun.”

This post updates.

111 Responses

  1. Got Foxtel just for sports back in September and it’s clearly the best decision we’ve ever made. This year I am looking the Olympics in HD, all AFL games live and ad-break free apart from EPL and the T20 Big Bash league which I am currently watching when the footy is in the off-season.

  2. ONE HD are showing about 3 games of Serie A and Bundesliga per week but Delayed. It wasn’t shown during MLB season because its on in early morning

  3. The whole ONE HD Sports commitment is a scam and the additional entertainment is trash, but I’m sure the CEO has saved money with absolutely no improvement in brand value. With this approach, go online and turn off the tv.

  4. one hd bundesliga is a must have!!! i wanna see it live pleeeaaaassssseeeee!!!!!!! its my lifeline;) come on guys nomore serie cheating a how cares?? we want the real deal boys, we wanna see the highest scoring league in europe!!!!! viva monaco di bavaria!!!!!

  5. I completely disagree with the comment about the Bundesliga. We prefer watching it to the rampantly commercial and expensive Premier League. We support Cologne (Koln) and we were disappointed when there were three weeks in a row of cutting Cologne’s game by ONE HD to squeeze the highlights back to an hour!

    Go Podolski and the Mountain Goats!

    It would be great to see the Bundesliga 1 in 2011-12 again!

    Many thanks to ONE HD for showing it over the last two seasons. We loved it for free.

  6. ONE HD didn’t seem to secure any additional major sporting events since it’s inititial release and just picked up a large number of slot fillers.
    If the slot fillers can be replaced by “Entertainment” programs which can generate more income to allow the purchase of more significant sporting events, then I welcome it.
    If this is just an exit strategy for ONE HD to run down the clock on their existing sport broadcasting contracts, it will go against their original mission statement and lose long term market share.
    By weakening ONE HD sport, it opens the door for others like SBS and ABC, which will hopefully be up to the challenge of bringing free-to-air sport back to Australian’s.
    I remember when Foxtel started, and the only thing they had on was Thai kick boxing. They eventually built up their broadcasting contracts and find themselves at the top of sports broadcasting.
    Now, most men just get Foxtel for the sports channels.
    Does ONE HD want to give up this dream?

  7. @roy4hire – thanks for that. Half sport and half world movies is fine with me. Setanta would be great, esp if it includes the EPL and perhaps WRC (or Asia-Pacific) now that One have pretty much slashed their commitment.

  8. @Secret Squïrrel

    it’s not soon but on the cards, One gone is good news for them (SBS), they have plan 4 channels by 2013, (The ABC has 6 Channels plan by 2013, ABC5 education & ABC6 internetional).

    As for SBS, SBS3 half sports and half world movie was planned, this could now change to full sports (teaming with setanta sports for sporting events they can show free to air), as for SBS4 half latin soap and half of those japanese cartoons and series.

    this info was on sbs website a while back.

    i also e-mail them about the sports channel, to bring the most importan football league matches whith the highlight show during weeknights (not live), seria A, brazilian and argentinian league, la liga and ipl. whith highlight shows from each country like la domenica sportiva (italian serie A) in their original langauge, somthing ONE could never do.
    they reply that some are on the table and would pass the info on.

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