Australian TV News

I've been checking The Australian regularly for articles about Australian TV, there’s a lot going on in the industry at the moment. These articles were actually put on the site today, so how's that for my up-to-the minute reporting!

Price too high for merger mania
Mark Day and Nick Tabakoff
May 10, 2007

Article about a possible merger that now doesn’t look like happening, between Austar and Foxtel.

* “Austar reported a significantly higher level of customer disconnections than Foxtel in its quarterly results briefing”

* “Austar has 620,000 pay-TV subscribers in Australian regional markets”

* Austar has been approached with takeover bids, and “Foxtel was identified as the logical bidder. As the supplier of most of Austar's content, it could see benefits from adding the regional operator's subscribers to its base of 1.35 million capital city customers”. Although, the price got too high, and Foxtel pulled out of negotiations. The article stated “relations between the two pay-TV operators are strained”.

Fourth Movie Channel on way
Amanda Meade
May 10, 2007

* “Premium Movie Partnership, owner of the Showtime pay-TV film channel, is expected to launch a fourth channel to beef up its package ahead of changes to competition rules at the end of the year.

* The new channel will be called "Showcase" and is likely to run a mix of quality TV drama as well as movies”.

* “At the end of the year, a five-year 2002 commercial agreement - termed the buy-through - between Premium and rival channel Movie Network comes to an end. The buy-through deal dictated that subscribers who bought their pay-TV package through Foxtel could only purchase Optus's Movie Network channels as a second-tier movie package after Showtime.”

* “Showtime's investment strategy has shifted away from film towards TV, including funding in the acclaimed drama Love My Way."Showtime a long time ago decided to keep quality movies and add iconic mini-series and drama," Mr Rose told Media. "The whole success of subscription television is about doing things differently."


Network Chiefs go fishing in LA
Michael Bodey
May 10 2007

This article talks about how all the Australian TV executives from the free-to-air networks and executives from Foxtel are about to go to LA for the “annual LA screenings, in which executives see pilots of upcoming American TV series, are a lottery in which a US studio output deal is more likely to deliver a failed program than the next Desperate Housewives”.
What I found interesting about it was finding out which free-to-air networks get their content from which US network, I didn’t realize they all have deals which determines the shows they can buy.

* It says that “by sheer weight of numbers, the Ten network is more likely that Seven or Nine to be dealt the next hit for 2007-08”.

* “Ten's output deals with the Paramount-CBS, NBC Universal (it splits with Seven) and Twentieth Century Fox Television (split with Fox) studios will provide it with the bulk of the pilots commissioned by US networks, although there's always the issue of how many get picked up by the networks and then succeed with US audiences later this year”.

* “Up to 100 pilots were commissioned for the next US season, which begins in September”, which is obviously a lot more that we get commissioned in Australia.

* Nine has deals with Sony and Warner Bros, which are said to “look more positive than they have in years”

* Seven has a deal with American network ABC

* “The NBC Universal deal, is split between Ten and Seven. However, Ten is more likely to benefit from the most productive studio during the pilot season, Twentieth Century Fox Television. It shares Fox's product with Foxtel in a deal whereby programs are split according to commercially confidential criteria”.

Online prospects push Emitch into web TV
Lara Sinclair
May 10 2007

This article talks about some new developments in Internet TV, and some of the innovations TV and advertising companies are making in the online world.

* Head of one of Australia’s biggest advertising films, “Harold Mitchell's listed digital advertising agency Emitch is set to become a content creator with the launch of a broadband television arm called Digital Artists”.

* “Ninemsn will this week launch paid-for video content on its site for St George Bank, branded Money Minutes, and is believed to be close to launching Ralph TV in partnership with ACP's Ralph magazine. It also recently relaunched its Catch-Up TV service, which allows people to download episodes of selected shows for less than $2 each. Director of content and services Jane O'Connell said content producers had realised that they needed to shift their content to the internet, supported by user charges or advertising”.

* “Yesterday SBS announced plans for a multi-platform version of The Movie Show that will allow users to upload their own film reviews”.

* “Last month music television channel MTV launched an on-demand web TV service called Overdrive, which screens advertising as it serves up music videos”.

* “Sources said internet TV services such as Brightcove.com and Permissiontv.com, which run branded content channels in the US, were examining the Australian market”.

* “WPP-owned media agency alliance GroupM Australia has said it will ramp up its video branded content initiatives by hiring TV producers”.

* “Digital Artists, which is understood to be testing broadband TV projects with a couple of existing advertisers, expects internet TV will take off in Australia by next year, despite broadband speeds that trail those in markets such as the UK and the US”.