FreeTV Australia to run Freeview
Commercial networks will now run the FTA marketing platform, which includes ABC & SBS.
- Published by David Knox
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Free TV Australia will now provide management oversight of marketing platform Freeview through Free TV CEO, Bridget Fair and Finance Director, Camryn Turner.
“I look forward to working with Helen and the Freeview Board to help ensure that Freeview is a strong contributor to the range of free-to-air broadcast and digital services,” Ms Fair said.
Acting Freeview CEO, Julie Flynn, will work with Free TV to transition to a new management structure. Flynn took on the acting role following Liz Ross’ departure in mid 2019.
Free TV Australia represents commercial television broadcasters while Freeview, which promotes FTA content, includes ABC & SBS.
“The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted Australian viewers’ strong attachment to our free-to-air broadcasters – the ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and 10 – which have all seen strong growth in viewing on their broadcast and digital platforms,” said Freeview Chair, Helen Clifton,
“Given diversified viewing habits, the Board of Freeview began a detailed review in the months before the pandemic and that work has since accelerated to redefine the role of Freeview so that it gives viewers an easy, convenient and aggregated way to discover and experience all our great content – and all for free.
“We are very excited that Freeview will be supported by our free-to-air broadcasters to deliver enhanced services to both viewers and broadcasters.”
Findings from the review include the following initiatives:
– An improved Freeview service with greater search and discovery on the ‘big screen’ – TV and laptops.
– An enhanced Freeview website to promote the huge breadth of free-to-air content, linking viewers to content on individual broadcaster apps.
The Freeview mobile app will continue to provide a TV Guide and access to content through individual broadcaster apps.
The changes will be delivered throughout 2020.
6 Responses
For the life of me, I still don’t understand what Free TV Aust or Freeview actually do. I’m pretty certain that FTA TV operated just as successfully back in the day, as it does today, with these groups now involved in it.
It does seem like a marketing exercise without any noticeable purpose. But going to back to when it was formed at a time when PVRs were king, a few Freeview branded PVRs were sold through some PVR manufacturers at a lower price than the fully-featured versions. The downside was that some useful features were disabled on Freeview PVRs, the main one from memory was that the maximum fast-forward speed was significantly slowed so it wouldn’t be possible to highspeed FF through ad breaks.
That is a gripe of mine as well, I realize that revenue earning is unavoidable but some change to the mindless randomness of ‘fill in’ advertisements and promotions on FTA streaming needs a rethink.
Depending on what user interface your TV has try fast forwarding an SBS on Demand movie to its end and count how many adds you get.
It’s taken a while. Freeview was originally created by what was the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations, but decided it was politically expedient to include the ABC. It was a masterstroke as a deal was brokered as part of Rudd’s GFC stimulus package which saw the ABC run commercials for “Freeview” claiming there would soon be “16 channels” which was a good reason to spend the cash on a new widescreen TV. Unfortunately the ABC went a bit overboard and ran the commercials in regional areas with only two channels. But commercial television got their wish and the ABC got a few hundred million dollars from the taxpayer to launch a digital channel so everyone was happy. That politically-motivated tryst is now past its use-by date and so commercial television can now go back to being … well, commercial television!!!
Great move, I love FTA tv , and I look at the Freeview web sight daily , but have noticed the present management are so far behind in updates, I hope I mirrors the uk version
Catch-up figures could be a lot higher if they used a less buggy system. Having to sit through the exact same set of commercials every time you want to rewind a moment of a program, for example, is infuriating.