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Pay TV Exec: Pay TV is for people who are “dumb enough” to pay for it

There were raised eyebrows at an industry function last week when a Pay TV executive made some very flippant remarks about subscribers.

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A Pay TV executive has labelled subscribers as “dumb” at an industry function, last week.

Tony Forrest, Chief Executive Officer of Movie Network Channels was giving a speech at a function in Richmond on Friday night before cast and crew of upcoming series Conspiracy 365 and invited media.

In trumpeting the $13m action adventure, which has been fully funded by Movie Network Channels, Forrest joked that sometimes they argue with Foxtel and Austar. He made light of the reputation that “Pay TV is a dirty word.”

But it was his comment that Pay TV was for people who were “dumb enough” to pay for it that raised the most eyebrows in the room.

At a time when Foxtel CEO Kim Williams has acknowledged Subscription TV is under pressure from Freeview channels and a cautious consumer market, the remarks aren’t likely to be well-received by industry.

Despite his surprising comments, Forrest remained upbeat about the ambitious new series. He noted that Circa Entertainment were given considerable enormous creative freedom to produce the series, due to air on FMC in January.

Movie Network Channels owns Movie One, Movie Two, Movie Extra, Starpics 1, Starpics 2 and Family Movie Channel (FMC).

47 Responses

  1. ummm seems a bit odd to announce a $13 mill investment in a show and say people are stupid to buy pay TV. is something being taken out of context here????

  5. It was a dumb comment to make considering his position.

    Having said that, I agree with many of the comments already made by people in this forum.

    I’m dumb enough to pay a very sizeable wack of $ to Foxtel every month for many services I never use. But that’s my choice and luckily my circumstances mean that I can afford to make it.

    My pet beefs with Foxtel in no particular order are:
    1. Commercial breaks as long in duration and frequent as FTA – why not just close up the beaks and run locally made interstitials to fill the time to the next programme? In that space, commercials could also be run.
    2. Really trashy US offerings on several of the channels – yes, Arena, I’m looking at you!
    3. The over indulgence and emphasis of local programming centring around the “beautiful” yet vacuous people in the modelling and fashion world.
    4. Inflexibility of their accounting and systems when moving and re-installing their boxes from locations in the same city.
    5. Illogical channel allocations eg Ch9 on 100 rather than 109; BBC World News, ABC News 24 not included anywhere near the news area eg Sky, Fox etc.
    6. Packaging of some of the channels in a fresh way as to suggest how ‘hip’ it is to watch old repeats of repeats eg TV1 & 111 Hits.
    7. Quality local production is limited – there should be an increase.

    With all it’s problems, I still choose to continue with Foxtel because it at least offers some interesting first-run alternatives to the FTA offerings inc the digital channels. FTA’s reliance on prime time reality and factual/obs-doc series has reduced viewer’s choices – The Renovators has proved that.

  7. I only pay for it so i can get access to sports and racing. If i had the option to just have these channels i would. If this was all available on FTA then i would flick PayTV very quickly.

    I do agree with the article.

  10. I agree; i likewise was a fan of Galaxy tv then foxtel until the commeracials ruined it. i have my own Satelite dish and can watch bbc tv free and legally without paying to watch

  11. I know it’s not for everyone but I’m happy paying to have ability to watch live every EPL, A-league, AFL (next year) game in HD – sport on PayTV leaves FTA for dead as will the 8 HD channels of Olympics without Eddie & the crew!

  12. For the price that Foxtel is it should be much better . I think the Foxtel bill should be 55 dollars less a month and then it would be what its really worth. Yes its pay TV but more specifically its Rip off TV.

  13. dumb comment considering his wage is dependant on those same Dumb people continuing to spend their hard earned on something that they could get for nothing through freeview

  14. This is the same man that was “dumb enough” to launch StarPics2 HD. Seriously, we are a country that is using roughly half a satellite (1/4 of Optus D2 and 1/4 of Optus D3) and he decides to waste bandwidth on a timeshift HD simulcast when he could have launched Movie Extra, Movie Greats, or even FMC HD. When we reach the U.S. level of ten satellites then we can have timeshift HD simulcasts. Calling us idiots is farely hippocritical.

  15. Frankly, I agree with him. Always have. Have never seen the attraction of Foxtel/Austar. There’s nothing better than prowling the local Blockbuster for movies I do want to see, or buying a box set of something I do want to see on eBay for a few $. Now with ABCNews24 and 15 FTA channels there’s even less need for it.

  18. I think these fair and honest comments deserve a much wider audience. It would be nice if the freeview channels can report these nigt;ly for the next couple of weeks. Where are TT & ACA, they could give these a good airing.

  21. Dare I say – it’s true. Until the industry connects every home, and offers a pay-per-view option across all chanels, it’s a losing proposition. National Broadband Network anyone?

  23. I couldn’t agree more

    I remember as one as the first adopters of Foxtel, they offered the earth, zero installation, all the channels, free magazine and most importantly, no advertising, because this was what You were paying for.Then the rot set in, constant repeats, not scheduling, I mean whole series repeated again and again, groups of channels moved to an extra payment service, all the good shows moved to these “extra” channels, the magazine incurred a charge, prices went up, and ads became more frequent. When I moved to Melbourne and inquired about the transfer, Iwas told I had to pay another $10 a month for a dish because they didn’t cable any more. Seriously! I told them to come and get their box and haven”t looked back. when their agent come door knocking, i politely send them on their way, so they don’t waste their time. . Yep. Dumb enough, or too much money.

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