Nine to launch GEM for women
Updated: The Big C, Southland, Miami Medical, McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol, Wife Swap are all coming to Nine's new GEM.
- Published by David Knox
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Nine’s third digital channel GEM will aim at women over 35.
As an acronym of General Entertainment and Movies, GEM promises a mix of ‘new content, classic comedies, cherished drama series, all-time favourite movies’ plus high definition sports aimed at the ‘sophisticated, discerning viewer’
It will be led by new US drama The Big C starring Laura Linney (pictured) and Oliver Platt.
Updated: Other first-run imports include Weeds, Southland, Miami Medical, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and the lifestyle programs Wife Swap, Secret Millionaire USA, The Chopping Block USA and How Clean Is Your House?
It will feature a new season of Random Acts of Kindness featuring Shelley Craft, Scott Cam, Dr Andrew Rochford and Simmone Jade Mackinnon.
Also screening are Aussie dramas McLeod’s Daughters, Sea Patrol and The Alice, plus US crime shows CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, The Closer and Cold Case, along with movies such as Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, 21 Grams and Being Julia.
Friends will be stripped to air every week night,
The channel will officially launch on Sunday September 26th, when it is likely to be included in the OzTAM ratings panel, but it has been reported it will be on air on September 24 -a day before the blokey 7mate begins.
CEO David Gyngell said, “GEM is what its title suggests – a general entertainment and movie channel, carefully crafted and targeted like GO! before it, to appeal to a wide audience cross-section and complement Nine’s existing successful brands,” Mr Gyngell said.
GEM will also include some news and current affairs programs.
“We have a very significant investment in news and current affairs and some of that content will be repackaged to the style of GEM,” he said.
As with 7mate, the channel is set to be HD only, to replace Nine HD.
High definition sport will be seen on GEM until the digital switchover in December 2013.
Rumours on Nine’s moves, including the channel name, content pitch and launch date have been speculated for some time.
Viewers can watch GEM on channel 90 on an HD-capable digital TV, PVR or set top box.
This post updates.
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- Tagged with 60 Minutes, Cold Case, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Friends, How Clean Is Your House?, McLeod’s Daughters, Miami Medical, NRL, Random Acts of Kindness, Sea Patrol, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Secret Millionaire, Secret Millionaire USA, Southland, The Alice, The Big C, The Chopping Block USA, The Closer, The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Secret Millionaire, Weeds, Wife Swap
132 Responses
@chk chk – current restrictions limit the FTA commercial channels to 1HD and 2SD each. (ABC has 3SD and 1HD) the limit is technical and could be lifted when analogue ends in 2013.
How original. I wonder if the GEM programmers will have ADD like the GO! team!
I’m a woman over 35 and I have to say I wouldn’t watch any of those things. But hey, I don’t have HD so I guess I wouldn’t be anyway. ; )
Another crap channel filled with American rubbish! Go, 7mate and GEM are all gonna be crap! Where’s all the HD Aussie content??? Definitely won’t be watching either channel.
Why is there a HD sports quota? Is there a HD quota for other content?
Very happy with this. A station that is aimed at women over 35 (wow!! that’s me!!! 🙂 Very interested to see what other shows are on going to be on it. I’ll definitely be watching.
@chk chk – Networks can have (there is only a certain amount of space)
1 hd channel and 2 sd channels
abc and sbs can have as many as they like but abc can fit it in because abc news 24 is 720p not 1080ihd.
It’s interesting that nine is targeting the over 35 female audience with GEM as to me, Go! is targeted at under 35 females. Nine is very much a female centric network on their secondary channels which sort of makes up for the blokey main Nine channel.
GEM is a great name, clever with the acronym too. Same as the name GO!, i like it. Both are much better than Seven’s stupid ‘mate’.
But Ten need to hurry up with their new channel, because GEM and mate have nothing i want to watch. I want Monk and Psych.
@Matt – Read what David posted!
FYI ‘The Big C’ is good but I doubt I’ll be watch much on the new channel.
Any chance the likes of Gilmore Girls, Everwood and Jone or Arcadia will make it on the new channel?
Hopefully WIN can launch it the same day; I think they managed to do it with GO!
A dumb question here but can a channel have more than 1 HD channel or if they’ve already used it, can they apply for another one?
I’ll probably watch this as much as I watch ONE.
@ Troy – Yes it is replacing Nine HD.
Oops just read the last paragraph, so the sports will still be in HD. Still, I don’t understand the need to take up a whole HD channel for repeats of dodgy shows that don’t rate highly enough to warrant a spot on the regular Channel 9.
Is weeds females skewed ?
Replacing Nine HD? What? So I’ll have to watch the cricket in standard definition this summer? And all the other Nine shows? What a terrible decision!
Sorry, just seen that it is replacing Nine HD.. should have had a better look!
@Matt ” As with 7mate, the channel is set to be HD only, to replace Nine HD. “
Matt says:
September 13, 2010 at 10:40 am
Does anyone know if it is replacing Nine HD? I hope not.
It says so in the post:
As with 7mate, the channel is set to be HD only, to replace Nine HD.
Does anyone know if it is replacing Nine HD? I hope not.
And nothing says “warm and classy” like Wife Swap
That is so strange that Weeds will be airing on this channel wouldve thought it was more appropriate for GO!?
Need to see the full schedule before commenting further… but there were indications CSI franchise will be on it, as part of a “crime night.”
Yay! More Wife Swap.