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ONE to launch March 26

TEN will launch ONE, its 24 hour high definition sports channel, on March 26th.

onehd-logo2Network TEN has announced its 24-hour sports channel, ONE, will launch on Thursday 26 March 2009 at 7.30pm.

TEN says the opening weekend will include:
• AFL‘s much anticipated first-round showdown between Richmond and Carlton will be the first sporting event to air on ONE in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, with the match to be broadcast simultaneously on ONE and TEN.
• Also on 26 March, ONE will broadcast an exclusive Swimming Australia SKINS event showcasing the Australian Swimming Team and international stars, including Olympic gold medallists Oussama Mellouli and Therese Alshammar. The SKINS event will be shown first in the Sydney and Brisbane markets, with coverage in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth following the AFL.
• Then, ONE will feature live and extended coverage of the Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix over the
launch weekend with more than 22 hours of action across Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Full details of the schedule for ONE will be announced closer to launch. TEN also promises:
• Extended versions of the ‘must-watch’ show for sports fans, Sports Tonight.
• More extensive coverage of domestic and international sport than ever seen before on Australian free-to-air television, including AFL, motor sport (Formula 1, Moto GP, NASCAR), netball, cricket, swimming, golf, NFL, NBA Major League Baseball, NCAA College Basketball and Football, and others.
• New, locally produced shows.

Network TEN’s General manager of sport, David White, said “We know our opening weekend will give viewers a sensational introduction to ONE, and mark the beginning of a lifetime’s habit of essential sports viewing.”

This means March 26 is also the date that TEN’s other programming will no longer be available in high definition.

ONE will broadcast from 26 March 2009 in High Definition (HD) on Channel 1 and also in Standard Definition (SD) on Channel 12.

97 Responses

  1. Again I’ll say that as far as digital free to air is concerned in Australia, we will not see anything close to 15 unique channels until analogue goes off in 2013. They will not want to risk losing any of their falling ratings to their own alternative channels and as it is the advertising revenue is shrinking – let alone the problem of speading it over more channels.

    This is the main reason why unique HD programming usually didn’t appear unti lafter 10.30pm and during the day on 7HD. Only 7HD experiments with Sunday nights, and 10HD used to have their Sci Fi night but due to ratings not counting HD channels, how could any of them know if they had been successful or not?

    As for comments about SC10, don’t believe anything you read about them. They were meant to have unique 10HD programming as well some time in 2008. They will hopefully get their act together in time for ONE HD. At least 10 are doing something about an extra digital channel and will hopefully spur 7 and 9 on.

  2. A better set up would be

    Make the sole HD channel just “Ten” as it is now

    Have 2 SD channels

    “One” – 24 hours sport in SD
    “Unamed Channel” – 24 hour general entertainment channel

  3. One word: Boring! Digital FTA TV in Australia has rapidly turned into a dribbling joke.

    I half expect TEN to put The Bold and the Beautiful on their HD channel.

  4. slydoggie- freeview boasts 15 channels, it is supposed to be the 5 networks with 3 channels each, although quite obviously from this that does not mean that the 3 channels will actually be different to eachother.

  5. David,

    Just a quick question.. With TEN removing their TEN HD service, will they/can they improve the signal strength of TEN SD.. that is effectively making it closer to a HD signal.. Because my biggest annoyance is the fact that TEN SD where i live is really croppy, and the quality is just that bit “blockier”.. I would assume that you would be as unsure as the rest of us though.. They apparently don’t like being specific at the moment..

    Thanks,
    Alex

  6. Neighbours will still be shot in HD, but it just won’t be shown in HD in Australia, just overseas.

    I’d say the Sydney News studio will still have Sports Tonight at 7pm each night on OneHD, so Ten will still need that studio in HD.

    With all due respect, the shows that were not rating well 5 years ago, they would be dumped to a late night slot. The same will happen now on Ten. Some examples: Taken Out, Queer Eye, Top Model amongst others, all very late at night.

    Has Nine thought about dumping their catalogue of old movies (from the 40’s to 70’s) and their ancient sitcoms (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie) into an Oldies channel. Kinda like what used to be on Channel 31 a few years back. It wouldn’t be a sexy channel to market but it would hit the right demos (of an ageing population) and would leave the main channel for 29-54’s.

    Just an idea 🙂

  7. To all those complaining about OneHD not showing the AFL live in Sydney/Brisbane… this isn’t allowed under the anti-siphoning legislation. When an AFL game is shown, it must be shown on the main channel (Ten) it must be shown on all multichannels (OneHD & OneSD) simultaneously.

  8. David, CNET is reporting that SC10 will be taking ONE completely, but the start up for Southern Cross wont be until later in 2009, not the 1 Mar start up date.

    Between 1 March and later in the year I wonder if SC 10 will broadcast the shows we’ve not seen on 10HD (Battle Star G…, Veronica Mars etc).

  9. Hey, I just went to the Freeview website, and it no longer shows regional equivalents of the new channels, it just says ‘stay tuned’. It defintely used to show various regional stations, but still 15 channels. Does that mean that the regional stations will not get freeview in the same manner, if at all?

  10. As dissapointed as I am about Tens move to show mostly sport, the problem is that digital is still a niche market for broadcasters, with no guarantee they’re going to make revenue from the extra stations. Do they even do ratings for the other channels at the moment, and will they? If not, there’s very little incentive for advertisers, and therefore the broadcasters to sink a whole lot of time and money into it, which is probably why the original plans for unique HD programming didn’t really last.
    Lets face it, while they should be pleasing their audience, the broadcasters are out to make money, and digital television isn’t currently a way for them to do that, lets hope it will be.

  11. Terrible:( i like my sport…but i dont want a 24/7 channel. all of tens shows looked soo much better on HD.. im going to hate watching sd…whats the pont of having an LCD? soo long TEN HD……..

  12. The cry babies have surfaced again about sport getting first exclusive go of HD only channel allocation. 12 months from now there will be more so calm down. As for SC10, they are expected to start in late March along with Ten but if you don’t have digital SC10 at the moment then don’t hold your breath.

    Imagine why all those drama shows are sold off to paytv, well if there was more viewers to generate consistent ratings then Tenb would have kept it, evening allowing for the schedule changes. Ten SD will continue but that’s not good enough for some (or alot if you like). As for NCAA sports, deadset checkout what your saying before sayinbg “who’d watch that sh..” since much of college sports and tournaments are more enjoyable than the professional version. Just need a football component and oh yeah a spare HD channel for the drama queens and then the tears will end.

  13. TEN is restricted in it’s ability to broadcast the AFL live into the Sydney and Brisbane markets, as the AFL is on the federal governments anti-siphoning list which requires networks to show events considered of national interest (e.g. Melbourne Cup, Australian Open, State of Origin) to be broadcast on the networks main channel first before it is permitted to broadcast the event on its multi-channel. Hence, why they’re showing the AFL simultaneously on both ONE and TEN into Melb, Perth and Adelaide. There’s no chance that they’ll show the AFL on the main TEN channel on a Thursday night into Sydney.

    TEN is quietly pushing for changes to be made to the anti-siphoning list to allow for events to be shown on ONE first.

    Do we know if TEN/ONE is the host broadcaster for the SKINS or will they take the FOX SPORTS feed? If ONE is the host broadcaster, any idea on who will be their main commentator? I know they’ve recently signed Nicole Livingstone to the network for 3 years.

  14. Re: Jed. Foxtel have recently started airing the 1st season of Psych. Ten’s already sold off the rights to the new eps of Battlestar Galactica so I imagine the rights to other HD exclusives like Smallville, Psych & The Shield that Foxtel already show will follow, if they haven’t already.

  15. The Freeview website lists 15 channels available in the 5 metropolitan markets, 3 of each of all the major broadcasters.

    Seven – 7, 7HD, 7SD
    Nine – 9, 9HD, 9SD
    Ten – 10, 10HD, One HD
    ABC – ABC1, ABC2, ABC HD
    SBS – SBS, SBS2, SBS HD

    This list is wrong as Ten are not having 10HD and One HD as it is not possible to carry two HD signals with the bandwidth currently available. It is also incorrect as it lists 7SD and 9SD, which appear to just be the Seven and Nine logos with SD tacked to the bottom of them. This is probably a temporary thing as these networks have not yet announced their multi-channelling plans.

  16. I can’t wait to see how awful it looks, considering they’re going to have to drop the bitrates on both the SD and HD channels to fit OneSD into their available bandwidth…

    Things get blocky enough on 25fps film+drama with their current bitrate — can’t wait to see how awful it looks when they steal 5Mbps for OneSD and predominantly show 50fps sports broadcasts.

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