The Australian reports today that the Ten Network has given a broad outline of its plans to launch an additional digital channel in the second half of this year.
Ten programming chief David Mott has told The Australian that the new channel will be focused on general entertainment but won’t rely on repeating content that has already been shown on the main Ten channel or become a dumping ground for programming that failed to work on Ten:
“It’s got to be original. It will have equal weighting with Ten. In the digital environment, why wouldn’t you?”
The new channel is expected to be branded independently of Ten in the same fashion that Ten’s sports channel is branded One HD and bears little resemblance to Ten on-screen.
Ten’s launch of an entertainment channel is possibly a ‘catch up’ to rivals Nine and Seven that both launched entertainment-themed channels last year – GO! and 7TWO respectively – which both appear to have taken some audience share away from Ten.
And it’s not only Ten that is preparing to wheel out a new digital channel. Both Nine and Seven are said to be launching an extra channel each before the year is out – but neither have revealed what their new channels will entail.
Plus there’s ABC’s upcoming 24-hour news channel to launch this year.
