In committing itself to a five-year deal, worth $500 million, to Warner Bros studios, the Nine Network now feels it has enough programming ammunition to tackle the digital age with a new channel.

The new entertainment-based channel will tackle the younger adult age bracket – who are normally the domain of the Ten Network and, to a lesser extent, Seven – with programming from Warner Bros as well as from Nine’s existing content deals with Sony and Village Roadshow.

Between the new channel targeting youth and its existing channel covering a broader demographic range, Nine is confident of capturing a bigger share of the overall 16-to-65 group, and hopefully the advertisers will follow.

Nine haven’t confirmed or announced the name of the channel just yet – though the name and logo GO!99 (pictured) have reportedly been registered by Nine.

A launch date is also yet to be advised apart from a vague statement from Nine as being ‘later this year’ – and there is also no word on whether the new channel will be made available through regional affiliates WIN and NBN, or what impact it will have on the existing break-out programming schedule (mostly old movies and sitcoms) of 9HD.

Nine’s new digital channel plan follows this year’s launch of Ten’s 24-hour sports channel One, the revamp of SBS’ digital channel as SBS2 and the announcement that ABC’s new children’s channel, ABC3, will launch before the end of the year.

The Seven Network, four months after CEO David Leckie promised an announcement was imminent, has still yet to outline any strategy for its new digital channel.  So far, Seven’s digital output only comprises the simulcast of the analogue channel (as with the other networks) and its high-definition channel 7HD which carries a limited amount of ‘break-out’ programming.

Source: The Australian