Freeview’s second advertisement launched last night, showing a montage of historic moments on Australian television, set to the tune of Born Free by Matt Monro from the 1966 film of the same name.
In case you’re not familiar with it, the film was about Elsa the Lioness as written in the true life book by Joy Adamson.
In Freeview’s new ad it wasn’t so much lions as Mr Squiggle, Perfect Match, Ron punching Normie, Rex kissing a fish, and Rove kissing Bert.
Most of the news clips were from international broadcasters. The optimism of the Monro song seemed at odds with the darker tales of death and despair. Maybe that was the point.
Significantly the new ad no longer spruiks “15 digital channels” so much as “5 more channels” (is that 5 on top of ONE and ABC2? We already have them now, right?)
In today’s Australian, Freeview chairman Kim Dalton said, “I don’t think there’s been a backlash at all among our viewers.
“There’s elements of the media and commentators who love to be critical and negative about free-to-air TV, but I think for the Australian viewing public, they love free-to-air TV.
“That’s OK, we’re grown-ups. We know there’s a real interest out there from the public about this new era of TV that’s coming.”
The article also mentions October or November for Seven’s new channel to be on the air, June for SBS2 and November for ABC3. Nine’s new entertainment channel remains a project for the second part of the year.
if they government relaxed the anti-siphoning rules and allow channel seven to friday footy at 830 on its digital channel in non-afl states, a lot of people will buy a freeview box for this reason.
Com’on Ten what did you do? What ONE & 11. How about 11 for tv shows when you had it before.
I like too watch HD Movies and HD tv shows not boring sports.
Now if each broadcaster started a new channel that played all their good old shows, I might get excited. I could live with some Auntie Jack and Tim & Debbie, as opposed to endless repeats of, say, MASH.
C’mon David. Break some parody news. I spent a good 5 minutes writing this. Put me on the home page Headline “New freeview ad already a target for parody”!
@kuttyswood: spread the word!
bornfree, Send that to Marc Fennell and Dan Ilic!
With apologies. To the tune of Born Free. Viral it people!
Would love someone to sing this and dub it over the ad.
FREEVIEW
Freeview, well it just blows
Now watch the same shows
Or ones we didn’t want at the start!
Freeview. the future surrounds you
The downloads compond you
To an irrelevant life in the past
Freeview, your EPG divides you.
But PVRs are a roaring tide
And ICE TV had the victory!
Freeview, my life is worth living
Timeshift and torrent – no misgiving
’cause I’m free of programmer arrogancy!
Freeview the future surrounds you
But PVRs are a roaring tide
And ICE TV had the victory!
Freeview, my life is worth living
And here’s my misgiving
You stole 60 seconds from me.
What advertising agency won the freeview contract? And thats the best they can do ! Freeview is the future not the past they are stupid heads
Ahhhh, if that’s the best the people at Freeview can do, I might as well stay with Foxtel
This ad was pretty awful, even compared to the first one.
Sure, the first one was information overload but this one had nothing at all.
The best ads for switching over have been from the Federal government so far.
Dan Ilic, Marc Fennell, please make fun of this ad!
@Christopher: Agreed, the ad sent me to sleep. I didn’t think they could release an ad which was worse than the first, but they some how managed it.
They still haven’t answered the essential question – why?
The TV channel logos used in the ad show ABC1, SBS1, 7, 9 and 10, followed by ONE, ABC2, SBS2, 7HD and 9HD – therefore the last 5 are the extra 5.
Go 99 and ABC3 add 2 more to that but you don’t see their logos in the ad. No doubt they will modify their advertsing as new channels come on line.
Thankfully they are not promising 15 channels although 7HD and 9HD should only count as partial channels at best.
Man, that ad is pretty piss-weak.
Hahaha. I hate that song. I actually forgot this ad was supposed on. After the actual news finished and it went to sports, I switched over to to a new episode of Pushing Dasies gained from the best source of TV Show, oh yes, the internet.
the graphics in the top right that show channel logs are confusing. the channel brand shown doesn’t correspond to the source of the vision. at the end it seems to suggest either more of the same not promote what is “new”. yes it’s full of nostalgia, but you get that from the logies or 20 to 1s most memorable moments of television.
freeview – get with the program. show us why we should care of get excited about what is new. oh that’s right, there’s nothing.
Even worse than the first ad.
I watched freeview’s promo’s last night interesting to see that they have amended the channel range from 15 to 5 new channels.
How disappointing that seven is not launching their new channel until November.
What I don’t get is their attitude, it’s like FreeView wants to get rid of PayTV, that’s the feeling I have. It’s shown almost every day FTA can’t cope with the TV offerings with shows being passed on to PayTV, most recently with Tiger and the Golf.
Also I’d have to check but was there a logo for ONE HD in the rotation of logos in the top right of the ad?