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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.

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.

132 Responses

  1. I was annoyed at first in losing the HD channel … but to be honest watching 7 in SD is fine, you get used to it.

    Though it does make me think why don’t they just sell HD TVs and set top boxes? I nearly bought a SD set top box last year, but was convinced by a friend to buy HD …. I thought I didn’t need it, but glad I got it now.

  2. why do we need digitital, HD isn’t much compared to the conversion from Video to DVD, it’s only pixels put together more or something, leave everything SD, I say

  3. @Jeremy

    More than 10% have HD.

    ATM the best way to tell is by looking at AFL ratings

    3 Ten’s AFL Finals 2010: 1st Semi Final Wb V Syd Ten 935,000 87,000 497,000 35,000 166,000 151,000
    Ten’s AFL Finals 2010: 1st Semi Final Wb V Syd One 146,000 33,000 75,000 3,000 21,000 15,000

    It seems Sydney has a lot of HD viewers.

    Be interesting to know the numbers for regular shows on 7HD and 9HD but they are always combined with the SD and analogoue channel.

  4. Weeds is all about an empowered woman kickin ass and sisters doin it (as well as various drugs) for themselves… sounds like a fit for gem to me

    i imagine this will be similar to W… so lots of cold case, without a trace- perhaps damages if they still have the rights

    expect the view as well i imagine

  5. NRL and cricket on a over 35’s womens channel? That is hilarious!! And Weeds?? why, because the lead character is female, and probably over 35?? Ch 9 , what a bunch of nuff nuffs!!

  6. @Jeremy Thanks for that detailed explanation, 2014? that’s a while away. – Would you happen to know if Nine will still broadcast Sports, News Bulletins & Current Affairs in HD on GEM? I read that somewhere. Thanks

  7. So now all the blokey content in Nine’s content library won’t be shown in HD and all the women’s interest content in Seven’s library won’t be shown in HD any more!

    That’s why the entire idea of genre based channels is utterly stupid on FTA TV since each network has the rights to a wide variety of programming. By having a HD channel channel that only shows a subset of that content is utterly moronic. The HD channels should be exclusively reserved for showing only the HD content that each network has the rights to show. Genre/market demographic based channels should be reserved for the SD channels.

    The FTA networks are foolishly trying to imitate what Foxtel has done but they can’t realistically achieve it.

  8. @Abdul: The networks cannot put their main channel in HD-only at this stage, as many people bought SD-only set top boxes and TVs when the move to digital began.

    So they have no choice but to either:

    1) Simulcast their main channel on SD and HD
    or
    2) Use their HD channel for extra content

    Once the digital rollout is complete, this can be re-assessed in 2014. It’s likely (IMO) that the networks will then move their primary channels to HD. Except perhaps 10 might leave One on HD.

    No doubt they will look at the stats in 2014 to also see how many people only have SD. If it’s more than 10%, they may keep the current setup so as to not lose ratings.

  9. just to clear up confusion over HD sport – this from David Gyngell:

    “High definition sport will be on GEM until digital switchover because we need to meet our high-definition quota”

    So call it 5am brain on my part for confusing the two when writing the article up for some sites this morning – sorry!

  10. Noooooooooo!!!!

    Not another HD Channel Axed!!!.

    The main purpose i purchased a FullHD TV is watch the main channels 9,7,ABC1 in HD and Now, The networks are replacing the channels with this Rubbish.

    David, Is there any chance the main HD channels with be back in the near future?????

  11. @Branko – Umm there isn’t much Australian HD content available so what are people whinging about??

    This will be a cool channel – hopefully there will be a crime night – Crimetime Saturday and a classics night – Charlie’s Angels, Dynasty, Dallas

    Hopefully we will see some content moved from GO! to GEM such as the 60’s sitcoms – it fits in with the target demo better than GO! Hopefully GO! can go (lol) back to it’s roots as a youth oriented network.

    Yeah!! Nine seem to understand demographics better than 7 & 10

  12. all this rubbish comes on these new channels and Still we cant watch the US Open tennis on FTA TV in OZ or watch a live AFL final in Sydney………..but we can watch the 15th re run of gilmore girls or what eva…why dont the fix the sport anti whateva …. Blah blah blah…i want live sport

  13. Um …… were to begin. How bout if GEM what to show some sport why not women’s sport that always go unnoticed? As much as we like to see men running around in short shorts that’s readily available while women’s sport gets ignored.

    I’m hoping that they’ll have movie nights or some good lifestyle shows over the weekend and perhaps when its the cricket show

    TV shows it would be good if they good repeat from the beginning ER, Gilmore Girls, Everwood, Joan of Arcardia. I know I’ve mentioned it before …. but I like to live in hope

  14. “some sports, including Cricket and Rugby League”? Not sure how this will appeal to their target demographic. Concept of GEM is good, but I think a lot of the shows they plan on showing are too similar to the type of shows on GO.

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