Comments on: New Pay channels on the air

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:37:25 +0000

I agree with Russo when he says he thinks there needs to be a channel focused on younger adults showing all the wb shows like felicity, one tree hill, gilmore girls, 7th heaven, everwood, jack and bobby and other shows that fit that like the oc, veronica mars and party of five.

I also think Showtime Horror, Movies 24, MTV Hits and TMF also need to be added as Foxtel channels. Movies 24 will be Hallmark’s other sister channel which will be dedicated to made-for-TV movies, 24-7 and commercial free!!!

By: Baggygreen

Baggygreen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:34:28 +0000

Nother really to get too excited from my point of view. Would rather they fix the irritants than keep adding. Specifically no FTA on satellite in Adelaide & Perth, blackout AFL games (same cities), non widescreen channels. Its actually getting harder to justify the expense when all they really add are gimmicks (iSelect i’m looking at you)

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:16:46 +0000

@Stayin with FTA says:
November 16, 2009 at 6:29 pm
‘Looks like Foxtel have done it again. Overcharged and under delivered. Par for the course. Not worth the money”

Please define where they have overcharged….I really would be interested to know where and your reasons as to why ???

(note: you had an option/choice to change things long before the live date)..

By: Jake

Jake — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:25:20 +0000

disappointed with showtimes offering. genres seemed like a good idea but checked out their webstie to see how the list of movies looked next month and it was all the same stuff again. I counted a few titles that played 17 times in the next month or so on the Action channel! WTF … its what I was worried about. They dont have enuf movies to feed the beast they created with action, comedy and drama

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:12:11 +0000

If I remember correctly back to the Galaxy days you could change the order of the channels. EG I would be able to move BBC News to channel 602 and everything just bumps along.

Maybe an idea for the next firmware update??

By: Stayin with FTA

Stayin with FTA — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:29:59 +0000

Looks like Foxtel have done it again. Overcharged and under delivered. Par for the course. Not worth the money.

By: Reubot

Reubot — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:40:22 +0000

Craig, they probably mean the master tapes.

By: friendly croc

friendly croc — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:29:15 +0000

Overall I’m pretty happy with the new channels. I had a nostalgic blast watching Dennis The Menace and Sonic on Kids Co. I like the French rugby on EuroSport, also had a bit of a laugh watching arm wrestling. ^_^

I like British human interest docos, so there’s programming on LifeStyle You which is up my alley. I have no interest in Style Network and Turbo Max. Da Vinci’s Inquest is the only show I like on 13th Street. I am very pleased with the additions of the 111 Hits and showcase timeshifts.

I find it totally unnecessary to have moved BBC World News so that History and Discovery etc. could move up two measly positions while BBC WN is all the way at the back. As a consequence I notice I’m watching little to no Sky, Fox, CNNI because I’m just going directly to 649, whereas I’d normally go to 606 and surf through the other news channels. It’s hardly the end of the world but it does make things noticeably less convenient. (I also preferred it when BBC Knowledge and CI were next to each other). I checked out Sky News Local and was surprised the picture was not full-screen. It’s great to finally have Seven on satellite in Melbourne.

Add Al Jazeera English please and I’ll be over the moon.

By: Andrew B

Andrew B — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:27:54 +0000

It’s good having the new HD channels for free to start with but when you look closer, like with free to air, not that much of the content is really in HD. Some movies on the HD channels are not really HD for instance – you see what is and isn’t with the “i” button. Not sure if it will be worth paying the extra for HD once the free two weeks are up for HD, especially considering a HD movie can use 10% of disc space on IQ2 and we already have so much recorded to watch at later dates and its only building up leading up to summer (and empties out during non ratings).

By: Not Fooled

Not Fooled — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:05:20 +0000

When the dust clears we will all see that its nothing more than a powder puff makeover. Fancy having three channels now on which to watch UK TV as if most of the shows on there would benefit from HD. What a disaster loosing BBC.
As for the other new channels well havent we seen that show somewhere before hmm its like a repeat of a repeat!

By: ross.

ross. — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:30:41 +0000

@grinspoon UKTV HD now has the BBC logo underneath…isn’t this the same channel and content as BBC HD?

By: ross.

ross. — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:28:48 +0000

@craig that story seems like total BS on Arena’s part. Whenever Arena has content on Foxtel on demand, the shows are shown in full 16:9, so obviously they have access to content in 16:9. Why can’t they just make the channel 16:9 and slowly add 16:9 content?

By: John Bailey

John Bailey — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:23:05 +0000

Had time to look at the new channels .
Very disappointing, lots of American accents and cheap and nasty shows that don’t interest me at all.
I’m more excited about GO and Seven 2 being added !

By: Grinspoon

Grinspoon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:23:49 +0000

The got rid of BBC HD? that was one of the best channels

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:00:11 +0000

I contacted Arena and they don’t plan on going widescreen until sometime in the middle of 2010, there reason was the cost of converting shows. Which is silly since most can’t be ‘converted’ to 16×9 and shouldn’t. There are lots shows on Arena (and the other 4×3 channels) already made in 16×9 but cropped to 4×3, really how much does it cost to update a few station promos and other equipment to widescreen?

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:05:09 +0000

@ross

I’m not too sure but snippets of Super Mario Bros (the first series) was shown as part of a generic promo on the channel so I assume it’s coming at some stage (certainly it was made by DiC which are part owners of the channel)