With all this talk of GO!99, I thought it time to look at the current situation with ONE HD.
As of July 2, Southern Cross Ten in Victoria, NSW and Queensland commenced offering the 24 hour psorts channel on their HD channel 50. The launch day was complete with the same countdown used on March 26 in the 5 main cities and even used the same half hour “ONE HD Infomercial” that was used on March 26 in the cities. That particular show “Welcome to ONE HD” in fact made reference to the ANZAC Day AFL match which by July 2 had well and truly passed. Surprised they did not update the welcome!
As the announcement came for ONE HD on SC10, it was reported that TDT in Tasmania would start ONE HD at the same time. That, of course, did not happen. ONE HD in Tasmania starts on Thursday July 30 at 7pm, no doubt with the same countdown and half hour welcome show already seen on the cities and SC10 in the eastern states. TDT in Tasmania is half owned by Southern Cross and half owned by WIN usually affiliated with 9 – perhaps this half – the 9 affiliation – caused the delay here.
If you see ONE HD in the cities, you will see that the commercial breaks are filled with ads typical of what you would see on commercial TV as well as some channel 10 ads promoting channel 10 programs. If you are watching ONE HD via SC10, sometimes you get ads, other times you get the traditional SC10 HD scenery that they have been broadcasting for years with a tacker message announcing “This is a ONE HD commercial break – we will return you to the regular program shortly”. This no doubt is the direct result of not all advertising space being sold on SC10’s ONE HD.
Which prompts me to ask the question, why was there a delay on ONE HD’s implementation on SC10 if they were not going to fill ad spots? Many reports had suggested the whole problem was the fact they had to insert regional ads into the ONE HD feed in order to re-broadcast the service to regional areas. The fact they are still showing scenery in the ad spaces suggests this was not the real reason and that there were other factors involved here.
As far back as two years ago – you could watch Rove in HD on SC10 HD but having the ads replaced with the scenery (this is based on my own experience with SC10 Newcastle and may not be the case everywhere). Now given this is now happening with ONE HD, then there really was no reason why they could not have had ONE HD up earlier and avoided all the fuss and confusion of those who wanted ONE HD in regional areas.
Finally, there is still no news about regional WA, SA and NT having ONE HD. Many of those areas only have 2 commercial networks and see little channel 10 programming. Apparently, from what I have read, WIN WA usually a 9 affiliate is starting to take on more 10 programs. Who can blame them with the way 9 is going. Regional WA will have a 3rd commercial carrier some time in 2010. Maybe that will be their time for ONE HD.
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