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ONE to broaden its horizons

ONE will be adding more general entertainment in a closer battle for eyeballs with 7mate.

In recent weeks ONE has been playing everything from Ice Road Truckers to The Manchurian Candidate, neither of which are sports-related.

But soon the channel is expected to reveal its plans to incorporate more general entertainment aimed at males. It will pit the channel in a closer battle for eyeballs with 7mate.

The moves are in response to the soft figures for the sports channel, while Seven and Nine are on the attack with three stronger channels.

ONE is likely to retain big sports events, but will add entertainment programmes, including Sons of Anarchy.

Head of Sports David White announced he would be departing after 14 years with TEN. The channel will reintegrate its scheduling, promotions, publicity and marketing into the Network Programming team.

Programming of ONE will fall under the domain of David Mott and his team.

White has not indicated where he will wind up, but some observers note Premier Media is looking for a new CEO after the resignation of David Malone.

TV Tonight is hearing whispers to the contrary that could see him remain with a commercial network.

If TEN can sort out ONE at the same time as fixing its revamped news hour, and roll out MasterChef too, it will be better positioned to compete.

Source: The Australian

46 Responses

  1. @ Dot, I bought season 1 and season 2 DVDs from a nice website that sells lots of TV boxsets that are not available elsewhere. I suspect they are not “official” but the quality was good and it beats downloading from the Internet!

  2. Ben is exactly right. Live Sport = Ratings, as evidenced by Foxtel’s ratings. Show the sports that everyone is interested in – AFL, cricket, tennis, EPL. NBA, NFL, F1, NCAA etc and you will actually get ratings!! Did you actually think pro bull riding would get more ratings than these sports??

  3. I hope One/Eleven or whoever it is actually airs Sons of Anarchy. I was told that it wont be released on DVD until it has aired on free to air television. How frustrating!!

  4. That’s OK that ONE-HD are changing a little bit. It’s a business channel so i guess that it still shows mostly sports programs most of the time & Live. I am enjoying the AFL programs “The Game Plan” (Thurs 8:30pm) & “The Final Siren” (Sun 7pm) plus “One Week At A Time” (Mon 9:30pm). Much better than The Footy Show.

  5. Also noticed on some nights on ONE they’ve been playing movies for a while-guess is part if this plan to have more general entailment type programming.

  6. Here is a tip for the programmers at One HD Sport. The top 25 highest ratings programmes on paytv this week happen to be 24 Live sporting events. Yes One HD Programmers, Live Sport = Ratings. I know its a radical idea showing Live sport on free to air across Australia, just try it and give it a go.

  7. Peter A., figures have been up for One lately due to finally having live sport on in primetime – netball, basketball, AFL, F1. This week there’s the swimming.

    I don’t get time to come here anymore – someone somewhere else linked to this article – but I see people still don’t understand that “daily ratings” only covers 6pm-midnight, which until recently there was next to no live sport on. I knew I’d see bigger figure for One the next time I looked, because I’ve noticed all the live sport on in primetime lately (almost every night).

    Did David White resign or was he pushed? With what they’re doing to One now, I’m not surprised he’s going. Just when they’re finally getting a good amount of live sport on in primetime and the figures that refllect that, they want to “widen their horizons”. Someone with a surname starting with P just wants to get into a “daily ratings” p’ing contest, as I suspected way back when his involvement was first announced. sigh. Even if it’s not a particularly fascinating sport (not dobbing anything in) I’d still rather watch live sport than that other “adventure” rubbish they’ve been showing to try and get a bigger primetime share.

    As for whoever made the comment about the F1 coverage being poor, you obviously don’t remember what it was like on 9! No practise? How about no race until a ridiculous time of night and nothing else at all. I hope they can at least stick to F1 and NFL, even if some other things get tossed (still have no idea how the american sports are doing, since they never fall in primetime to see the effect in the “daily” rating).

  8. Scrap ONE and replace it with an HD simulcast of ESPN, CNN, Sky News (with Red-button service) or a completely new channel such as an AFL-dedicated channel like the old Fox Footy.

  9. even more reason they should get rid of the ant-pay tv regulations why should free tv get rights to sport when all they really care about is stuff like this.

  10. It’s good that they are getting away from sport but couldn’t they put something better on, like some real genuine entertainment? I mean if Ice Road Truckers is the best they’ve got to entertain us then they have some serious problems. Ten has made many Australian programs over the years, it would be good to revisit some of those.

  11. It is sad that ONE HD is showing documentary style content and movies. However until it aquires the rights to better events then this is what will happen. the channel must be on it gives a real alternative to the other channels which are clones of the main channel news and sport excluded. If one hd is to be axed i hope it is replaced with some thing trully entertaining. Then there is the question of all those sports rights which they have aquired. I am pretty sure that the NBL, Netball Australia and other non high profile leagues are breathing heavily and sweating over the future of one hd. If i was to give some advice to the board at Ten (not that they would listen to me anyway) i would urge them to stay the course and build ONE HD up just like Fox Sports was built up. But the reality is that investors only come when either its a good buy or when the organisation is succesful.

  12. As a non-sports person, I’m still a little disappointed that OneHD want to go down the 7Mate path. The great thing about niche channels like OneHD, ABC3 & News24 is they give Freeview an edge over Pay. If there’s already a 7Mate, why would TV Tonight readers want another one? Yes, TEN is a business that has shareholders (like Packer) to think of before they consider the greater good, but I’m a non-affiliated viewer that wants all FTA networks working together to compete with Pay.

  13. probably a good idea to replace some of what is obviously filler programming(kitesurfing replay 5:30pm today) which something people will actually watch.

  14. so i guess all the defending ten has done of this channel about their advertising rates and nicheness advantages of a 24/7 sport channel turned out to be bull.

    the problem i see is that 7mate is a purpose built mens channel with their graphics, branding and vo’s clearly directed at the beer guzzling male. ONE has the clean polished look, while it may have more integrity and suits a sport channel well, i think 7mate has the right idea in term of appealing to the right people.

    but a good decision nonetheless, so many people have seen this day coming since day dot. if they listened earlier they could have saved themselves 2 years of embarrassing raitings.

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