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What’s happened to HD?

Our HD programmers seem to have taken a break for the holidays too. Forget about looking for alternative schedules from the commercial networks.

Programming on HD channels has taken a holiday at some networks, with fleeting attention by networks to provide decent alternative viewing.

On some days next week on TEN HD there is only 3 hours of dedicated programming. On other days there is none.

Evening HD programming has dried up over summer on TEN, with no alternatives once provided by shows like Monk, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Eureka and The X Files. Those shows have now either concluded, without being replaced, or simply stopped.

When TEN HD was announced by TEN it promised “50 hours per week of programming viewers won’t see on the main TEN channel.”

Elsewhere, 7HD will only offer 3-4 hours alternative programming in the evenings from Monday January 5. It will feature titles such as Urban Legends, The Grid, Dr. Danger, Gear plus documentaries and repeats of Lost, Alias, Scrubs and Heroes. Its afternoon HD programming appears to have been demoted in favour of tennis, but its evening HD programming interrupts the sport from around 9:30pm.

Nine’s HD programming is largely unchanged, with alternate programming from around 10:30pm with shows like Nip / Tuck, The Ellen deGeneres Show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and repeats of  Weeds and Stingers. Friday and Saturday nights are without any HD offerings.

That leaves the public broadcasters as the only true ‘alternative’ channels on Free to Air, though neither ABC2 nor SBS Digital are high definition. ABCs provides constant alternate programming, including its themed nights such as Arts and Music (Sundays), Drama (Tuesdays) and Comedy (Thursdays). ABC HD remains a high definition re-broadcast of ABC1.

SBS Digital maintains its ethnic news bulletins from around 5am – midnight.

From January 1st the three commercial networks are allowed to broadcast their second digital channel. TEN promises its new sports channel ONE HD to launch around April.

But if summer HD programming is anything to go by, some could be struggling to fill their new offerings with content.

39 Responses

  1. Why don’t they put on some movies? It’s bad enough that they just “stop” series for no particular reason but then they replace them with nothing. How cheap. There are millions upon millions of movies out there. Show some! And I’m not talking Bridget Jones or Liar Liar. The are countless movies that have never been shown on TV before.

  2. Thanks Kirben for the heads up! Look forward to watching it!!!

    Oh and Chris, couldn’t agree with you more! Nothing should be “axed”, instead, simply moved to the HD channels for alternative programming

  3. Well all of this is a moot point for use on the little island. I have a HD set-top box and a HD TV yet most of the time I get test patterns/loops. I really wish ppl would pull their fingers out and actually acknowledge that 1. we are a state and 2. we have as much right to decent programming as the mainland.

  4. Here’s an idea. Instead of axing stuff, you could shift it onto a HD channel! That would be too bad for all the non-HD-viewing-audience, but hopefully Freeview will alleviate that.

  5. i’m with jerome and lee123, i can’t stand when a show i like is not in HD. i’d say no different shows at all.

    i can understand if the networks do not want to put anything too good on, so many people would miss out and should not have to pay

    but bring on 2nd SD channels, that should be all new shows. if you are right belinda i would be sooooo dissapointed

  6. Channel One will have One HD and Channel 12 will have One SD when Ten launches the new channel around april-may next year.

    As for the other networks, im wonering what they’ll do. Hopefully they put something useful on their other channel.

  7. Look at what CH 7 are doing tonight.
    Movie – Braveheart on SD
    Show – This is your laugh on HD

    Is this a glimpse of things to come?
    Movies on SD and rubbish on HD

  8. Ben: Ten has only one HD channel, but two Logical Channel Numbers (LCNs) for it. Choosing channel 1 or 12 will point to the same HD channel ‘stream’.

  9. Come 2009 all the HD Channels should be a similcast of the Orginal SD Channel. That way people who spent thousands on HDTVs, PVRs, can Foxtel IQ2, can actually gain something from it.

    OneHD is pointless. The sport should be on an SD channel between Midnight and Midday. Then from Midday to Midnight, it should be all the shows that TEN think are not good enough for the main channel. We should be seeing, Monk Season 6,7,8, Psych Season 2,3, Smallville Season 8, and then repeat the News at 6pm-7pm, and repeat Neighbours at 10:30pm, and as they do on TenHD at the moment, show catch-ups on weekends, I blind monkey could have seen this is a much better way to use the additonal channel.

    Someone noted earlier that Smallville has been onsold to Foxtel. Well, if that is the case, then only a small percentage of the population can view it, plus Fox8 is currently airing season 5 I believe. It is going to be a long wait till people can see season 8.

    I think Nine will be last to launch their new SD channel. Based on the poor standard of programming on their main channel, I see it being pretty lame.

    From April, at least I can remove OneHD and OneSD from my channel listing, so I can flick faster between channels I actually want to watch.

  10. We still don’t get 10 HD here and with the new ONE simulcast on the 2nd SD I guess it doesn’t matter come March, unless we don’t get that as well?

    While I think Freeview is a joke, designed to sell hardware I do hope it brings more content but again how can they compete with PayTV?

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