A post containing actual information

Last week marked the launch of the latest digital channel to grace our screens. Eleven has been hyped a hell of a lot by Ten. They insist that its DIFFERENT to all the other channels on offer. But what IS the deal with all the other channels? To quote my cousin on launch day-

“What’s this whole multi-channel thing all about anyway?”
I’m glad you asked.

Digital television is different to analogue television in two important respects. Firstly the reception is much better and second, there are more channels. Australian television, as you know, is home to five channels- the ABC, SBS, Nine, Ten and Seven. There is a certain amount of regional variation (Nine masquerades as NBN and WIN, Seven as Prime, and Ten as Southern Cross Ten) but those are the organisations in charge of our screens.

Now. Digital television lays claim to significantly more channels. There’s ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC News 24, SBS 1, 2 and 3, Nine, Gem, Go, Seven, SevenTwo, Seven Mate, Ten, One and now Eleven. So where do all these fit into the general scheme of things?

Basically they’re “extra” channels. Each of the smaller ones is owned and managed by the larger bodies. So Gem and Go come under the Nine umbrella, Eleven is managed by Ten and so on. Excuse me while I use a nautical metaphor- its like a naval fleet. ABC1 is the flagship, ABC2, 3 and 24 constitute the rest of the armada.

There’s still a fair amount of confusion in the industry about the whole thing (so the general public are excused for feeling the same). See, television operates on “ratings,” which (very loosely speaking) is how many people are watching a show at any given time. Whoever gets the ratings gets the advertising revenue (plus glory and the people’s ovation forever.) But while’s its obvious that Nine and Seven are in direct competition, what about Nine and GO?

This goes a long way to explaining the distinct lack of interesting content on the digital channels. The last thing channels want to do is steal their own audiences. So if they want you to be glued to a top rating show on their flag ship, they’re hardly going to tempt you with a tasty morsel on the secondary vessel are they?
So why is Eleven a big deal?

So far multi-channels have largely been vehicles for repeats of ancient sit-coms and movies that are only a “free to air premiere” because no one else has wanted to fork out the cash for them before. In contrast Ten is going to give Eleven “equal billing.” Instead of playing second fiddle to the main channel, it’ll fit alongside it. Like two frigates, instead of one frigate and a sloop. It’ll be a full and proper network in its own right. So they’ve moved The Simpsons and Neighbours across and are throwing truck loads of advertising at it in an attempt to create “a unique personality” for the channel.

This all sounded rather exciting and innovative. Sounded being the operative word. In reality Eleven is only making a real push during prime time. During the day it sits pretty comfortably with the rest of the pack, content wise. Its all repeats of ancient shows. Which makes all the scathing remarks their CEO has made seem a bit uncalled for. They’re got some good shows, don’t get me wrong, but nothing to justify the pomp and pretension.

Then I realised something else. A digital channel on which new shows premiere? Which has original content tailor made? This is all sounding rather familiar all of a sudden. And you know why? Because the ABC has been doing it from the word go (no pun intended). They were the first cab off the rank with the launch of ABC2 years before anyone else got off the ground. Plus ABC3 remains the only channel which genuinely functions under the parameters Eleven claims to be pioneering. It has genuine personally, was created for a real niche audience and has been serving up clever and well produced original content for over a year now.

So basically Eleven is a lot of hot air and navel metaphors are cool.

I can, if you’d like, do more of this kind of thing. As you may have gathered my TV-Nerdom goes much deeper than just obsessive watching habits. I’d quite like to do a “Ratings 101” post and stuff like that. Would there be any interest?