I’m tempted to go all Edwin Starr on the news of a new digital channel that’ll serve (essentially) just ads. Do we need to use up digital spectrum like this?
TechAU reports on a new digital television station launched yesterday for regional markets in NSW, VIC, ACT and the Gold Coast. Sure, most of the secondary digital channels launched by the incumbent free to air broadcasters have been littered with re-runs of programs that are a little by their sell-by date, but at least that targets a certain market segment.
Is there really a market for a channel that, from its own information page, only offers “access to information about products and services as well as special offers and deals in their areas”? Isn’t that niche over-saturated in morning talk shows and early AM infomercials already?
[Television 4 via TechAU]
Rod
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:10 PMI’ve already removed it from my Program Guide.
ozoneocean
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:19 PMIt’s a good question. To apply it ore broadly though- do we need TV now at all? ALL that bandwidth could go to internet services to make it cheaper, faster and more broadly available. ALL remaining “TV” shows could be available on the web through your ISP. I don’t see any point at all to traditional TV stations (digital OR analogue) anymore.
Andrew
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:48 PMI’ve thought for a while now that TV should be pushed to a reserved portion of bandwidth on the NBN. Think of all the wireless spectrum it would free up.. Think of the revenue that could generate. Think of how much more practical it is to use wireless spectrum for mobile purposes. How flooding the airwaves 24/7 with non-interactive content revieved on a device that never moves is just plain illogical.. /endrant
Ozoneocean
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 6:39 PMExactly.
When the NBN and attendant wireless solutions are finished rollout they should just shut down all over-the-air TV and use that spectrum for the development and deployment of new wireless internet services.
It should be TV on demand through our ISPs only.
az
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:30 PMyeah that’s a great idea, in theory only – because it assumes that everyone will sign up to have it connected, which really won’t be the case unfortunately (at least not for a good 5-10 years after its all completed probably)
maddogeco
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:22 PMis it hd? ill watch it if its hd becuase there is sweet FA hd out there at the moment
jamall
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:39 PMThe Ab Circle Pro in HD would still just be an Ab Circle Pro, and the prospect of Jennifer Nicole Lee in HD is actually a little bit scary! Maybe the Pro-Active ads would benefit by showing higher resolution before and after shots, but I’ll never know because I’ve already blocked it.
Andrew Browne
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:56 PMIt would be Ab Circle Pro 2
Aliasalpha
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 9:57 PMSurely it’d have to be Ab Circle Pro HD
mc
Friday, September 30, 2011 at 4:11 PMIt’s not in HD.
It’s in very low bitrate SD, which is a bit of a shame considering not all of it is straight ads. A lot of it might be better categorised as “web video”, the sort of thing you’d find on commercial websites or on corporate YouTube channels.
To some extent it can be argued that “if you want to see that sort of thing, you can find it online,” but the counter argument is that you typically wouldn’t be looking for it.
Fistbeard McTavish
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:44 PMYou mean to say I can watch constant re-runs of Mr T trying to sell a flavour wave oven by using crappy one-liners to an audience of 60 year old women and homemakers??
SIGN ME UP!!
Lord Crumplebottom
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:46 PMI could watch him stumbling through the door after kicking it down over and over.
Wait, we have done that…
Fistbeard McTavish
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:49 PMI’d count Mr T’s infomercial time as low as Rove’s move from successful TV personality to washed up Pay TV talk show host.
The only thing lower than those are the TV “Psychics” on an unstoppable cocaine bender at midnight on Expo.
Yes, Pay TV sucks ass. First 3 seasons of NCIS again, please!
Matt
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:53 PMI pity the fool!
Joel
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:23 PMI pity the food?
Graham
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 2:52 PMI guess if they are attempting to market to the same type of people who visit daily bargain websites (Im one of them), then it could attract attention, particulary from those that dont use the internet much and would rather have content force fed to them (and order by phone etc).
If they can do it well and actually offer things that people want at REAL savings compared to retail then it might be work.
Bargain websites are just so popular that it makes sense to do something similar with a TV channel. Perhaps an attempt to grab eyeballs that the internet may not reach on a regular basis.
If its just a heap of infomercials about products without offering genuine savings then blurrrghhh!
JAKE
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:00 PMYou know that TVSN (TV shoppers network) is just about the most popular day-time channel on foxtel…
Channel 4 will be creating a free-to-air version of this I imagine.
moloko
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:02 PMJust when I think FTA is going forward this shit pops up. Well atleast it wasn’t a christian channel.
Aliasalpha
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 6:18 PMGive it time, after all its not hard to infect the 4 listed objectives of the channel with religion
Shopping: Buy our commemorative jesus dinner plates
Finance: Jesus needs your money or something bad will happen (but this isn’t a protection racket)
Lifestyle: How to best prostelytize about jesus to your friends
Education: Why MY imaginary friend is real and why everyone else’s is childish foolishness
Stew
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 11:58 PMPls comment more often :)
(no sarcasm)
stevjosco
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:07 PMI thought we already had a channel dedicated to ads, they call it GO!
GO! for a tea break
GO! for a toilet break
GO! for another toilet break
GO! for a break just because we can
Virus__
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:35 PMCan we just keep the ABC stations & One HD & have a channel dedicated to documentary shows? Cause that’s all that seems worthwhile on TV these days.
Trav
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:36 PMI just started using TVshows2 on my mac (same as TED for windows). I’m honestly struggling to see why we need FTA TV at all with TV on demand like this. Funny thing is I used to live in the states and never used this. I just streamed the shows with ads which I watched. So the AUS networks by not streaming content to protect ad revenue on the traditional FTA channels are leading people towards a product that they choose not to provide and might not have matured to it’s current state had they not resisted.
Dean
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 3:51 PMABSOLUTELY NOTHING
Matt L
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 4:14 PMMost people buy TVs for the screen, not for the DVB tuner.
Gordon Pedersen
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 5:47 PMI can’t believe there’s a dedicated infomercial channel, and there’s not even a whisper of a dedicated music channel yet…
Come on, surely ABC has enough reruns of Rage and old music shows like Countdown plus new ones like J-TV. There should be enough content there.
Dan Miller
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 5:57 PMWow FTA TV sucks in Australia. I have Foxtel on xbox but I’m starting to think about getting standard Foxtel.
Jetstar hater
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 6:27 PMIt seems all there is on Aussie tv is those damn infomercials.
Jetstar hater
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 6:28 PMI agree with Gordon, a 24 hour music channel is definitely overdue.
Eugene Feldman
Monday, September 19, 2011 at 8:34 PMA channel serving just ads?
I don’t think its a smart idea,ads should be served between shows,to catch the eye of the customer,no one will watch that channel intentionally.
Kylie Smith
Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:11 PMI love TELEVISION 4! I have been watching it heaps since it started recently and have already bought great products (mostly makeup n cosmetics).. but its great to watch when there’s nothing else on :)
Ryan
Monday, October 31, 2011 at 12:43 PMSeriously?
Hermione Handipants
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 10:03 PMConsidering we seem to get a lot of TV far later than it airs in the US or UK (Breaking Bad for example is an entire season and a half behind of ABC), and that a LOT of people are choosing to download shows in HD via a torrent site, I can’t imagine that any show is getting decent ratings any more. Shows on the internet also have the added benefit of NO ADS.
On a side note, why the fudge has my digital reception gotten worse in the last few months?
William
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 1:24 AMAnd here I was thinking we might be getting a channel 31 equivalent for regional Victoria…
Chris
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 11:04 PMThis channel is rubbish. The first channel I have ever set to skip on my set top box – so essentially it no longer exists for me.
Ryan
Monday, October 31, 2011 at 12:43 PMWorst channel ever. I can’t believe it even exists.