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Seven to refresh datacasting channel

One of Seven's two datacasting channels has been rested ahead of a relaunch in the new year.

2014-12-01_1212One of Seven’s two datacasting channels, Fresh Ideas TV, has been rested ahead of a relaunch in the new year.

The channel, which features Health, Fitness, Family, Home and Beauty content, is on Channel 78.

It began just over a year ago with such gripping titles as Brazil Butt Lift, Ninja Mega Kitchen System – BL770NZ, Shark S3901 – Lift-Away Professional Steam Pocket Mop, Nutri Bullet Range, Total Gym Fit and Dr. Ho’s Pain Therapy Kit.

Seven still data-casts TV4ME while Nine has Extra, Extra2 and TEN has SpreeTV and TVSN.

19 Responses

  1. Personally I would not call these channels true data casting channels. Has there been any indications on what is going to happen to the old VHF analogue channels 0,1,2& 5A? I know they were not suitable for high bit rate MPEG2/COFDM due to electrical interference issues. I heard some time ago that they could be sold off as datacasting channels.

  2. @oceanographer – the networks can’t find enough decent content to fill the broadcast channels they currently have. A better idea would be to use the bandwidth to improve the bitrate of their existing multichannels.

    Anyway, ratings are irrelevant. The networks are already paid by the people whose content is broadcast on these advertising channels.

  3. Does anyone actually watch these channels other than a few bored housewives. What a waste of tv spectrum. Can’t we replace them with a movie channel, music channel, or documentary channel. Surely they would actually rate.

  4. I like Muscle TV on TV4ME. Some really good advice and training routines as long as you can stand the constant spruiking of Max’s and Maxine’s supplements.

  5. Media companies wanted government enforced control of data transmission that would exclude competition slow down the internet taking their viewers. Alston was happy to deliver.

    Sure back 1999 many people were still using dial-up modems, but it was the peak of the dot.com boom and fairly obviously a crazy idea. Now it reduces picture quality so that networks can target people other than insomniacs with infomercials for vacuum cleaners and ab machines.

    My dentist took money to show one of them in his waiting room — more painful than the fillings. Centrelink was punishing dole bludgers by subjecting them to them too, until complaints forced its removal.

  6. I must admit that some shows on TVSN actually educate. I purchased a new camera and it showed me things that I did not know were there, they were in the manual but a lot easier understand demonstrated on TV. I do not watch the others in fact have deleted them, but TVSN works for me.

  7. Every single one of these shopping channels should be shut down. it’s a disgrace that Free To Air channels fill all of their entertainment channels with these shit shows but then still foist extra all-infomercial channels on us. We wait years and years for digital chanels and this is what we get? How about leaving commercials to the commercial breaks? And do a comparison – how many more shopping channels are there on Freeview compared to Foxtel? I agree with Aussiecam58 – find your instruction manual and delete every last one of these shopping channels so you pretend this scourge on our broadcasting airspace doesn’t exist

  8. I cracked up at “such gripping titles”!
    I wish there was a way to identity viewership of these channels to realise they must be a waste of time and effort. I don’t have them tuned in, and the only time I ever see them is when the gym has a power failure and when the STBs are rebooted they flick the TVs over to a channel, and occasionally, like today it was a data cast.

  9. @MichaelQ: There’s no spectrum to “reclaim” – a DVB-T signal takes up 7MHz, regardless of how many ‘channels’ are in it.

    @Jason: It’s the result of successive govt’s (a) pandering to FTA by blocking competitors, (b) pandering to Pay-TV by blocking FTA competition, (c) realising they just cut off their “digital dividend” money & selling ‘datacasting’ licences to get it back, and then (d) restacking TV spectrum so there’s no spare channels for them to use…

  10. Perhaps Seven could outsource that bandwidth to the Channel 31s that are about to be made redundant 🙂

    Community TV programming would surely fall within the criteria for datacasting channels

  11. I guess it’s money to them… I wish a station would look at rebroadcasting say Al Jazeera or BBC World News, or even Sky News Aus — the latter is available for free on Xbox, they don’t seem overly concerned about keeping it a paid Foxtel exclusive. Something with *some* value to the viewer.

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