Saturday, January 10, 2009

╠ Freeview ╣

I recently saw the freeview advert on the TV and thought '15 channels, wow that's like awesome'. Then I went to the website and saw that the 15 channels were actually just the ones pictured on the left.

3 Channel 7 Clones
3 Channel 9 Clones
2 Channel 10 Clones
3 ABC Clones
3 SBS Clones
& 1 One Film Channel

So from what I considered to be meaning there would be 10 new channels there is about 1. I personally was greatly disappointed. It's no secret that the government wants Australia to adopt digital TV as much as possible but I think this is really just trying to make the whole thing look shinier than it really is.

As marketers this is technically what we're meant to do, but I believe there are ethical lines we should keep to in order to make sure consumers can trust advertising and I believe claiming a channel and it's SD and HD counterparts counts as 3 channels crosses that line.

This may just be me taking more interest than the average consumer since I have to sell this stuff but what are all your personal opinions. Do you consider this lineup worthy of being called 15 channels?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, not really. But My SBS 1 and 2 are different. Same goes with ABC 1 and 2. (Depends on the time of the day). It's cooler to have at least a few channels extra, though.

Jono Sumner said...

Yeah, I agree that it is very misleading. Channel 7 SD and Channel 9 SD are meant to broadcast different content from their standard digital counterpart so there should be a bunch of new stuff on there. Its similar to what ABC 1 and 2 are doing now (like Lili said). HD is effectively the same stuff... although it gives a tad more choice later at night when it'll vary slightly.
The downside is most of this stuff isn't going to come in til at least late 09.
Oh, and just to make you that little bit more disappointing. The 'One' channel isn't a movie channel, its a Sports only channel run by 10.
But heck, we shouldn't be complaining we are getting more choice for free. Its not the greatest deal in the world, but given I'm not paying anything and my viewing options are increased, even if only marginally its going to be a bonus.

the threebillion project said...

You're better off just subscribing to Foxtel. At least you get what you pay for.

Zac Martin said...

Actually, I think technically making things look shiny is not what we're meant to do!

The film channel could be interesting though...

Tannie said...

@Lili and Jono:

You seem to both be most the same as me, like there s some new stuff there but they are blowing it up way too much. Suddenly jumping to 15 channels was a bit skeptical so I had to look into it. I think they would've gone further just saying there would be some new content rather thn this.

@Zac: It was a gross simplified approach. Following in the basic assumption that our job is to sell things. Obviously it's a lot deeper than that but that's what small points miss.