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Freeview’s simultaneous Australian launch.

Australia, say hello to Freeview.

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At 6:29pm tonight Freeview came to Australia. The new digital platform (aka marketing ploy) launched across the five free to air networks in an effort to band together and promote the benefits of digital terrestrial television.

The Freeview concept has been a strong part of the digital take up in the UK since its launch in 2002, with New Zealand following with a similar campaign in 2007.

I’m sure Australia’s equivalent of Penelope Keith will be spruiking set top boxes and multi channel goodness to a confused public in no time.

9 replies on “Freeview’s simultaneous Australian launch.”

According to the site, the “fifteen channels (wow!)” are the twelve we’re getting right now (ABC1, ABC2, ABC HD, SBS, SBS News, SBS HD, Seven, Seven HD, Nine, Nine HD, Ten, Ten HD) and the three new SD channels that the commercials are launching next year. In other words, same crud, different tin.

If Aussies are getting digital TV because of the “bonus content”, I’m sure they’ll feel slightly underwhelmed, even now.

I didn’t realise you guys spelt ‘programme’ without the ‘me’ at the end til I saw that.

Anyway, I KNEW the ad looked familiar. I’m pretty sure an Orange ad used a similar concept, too.

Love the blog =]

Hi
First thought was, cool! now I can drop Austar and save some money, yaay. Then when I was told that we would be getting double ups and nothing much else on Freeview I thought… why bother? The free to air channels are going to look very silly with what comes down to a public relations hype. They are missing a real opportunity to compete with pay TV in their own field, but no. Once again it’s just a gimmick. Really, no way will I buy another set top box to watch basically the same stuff I’m watching now with a few extra channels thrown in that are dedicated to sport/news etc. Seriously guys… you have to do better than this.

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