Two of Foxtel’s most popular channels will go off the air at the end of the year.
The owners of TV1 and SF haven’t been able to negotiate a deal with Foxtel, and the channels will close when the current deal runs out at the end of December.
Mediaweek reported that Foxtel seems certain it can find replacements for both, and keep the most popular content available to subscribers.
Foxtel will reveal details of its new general entertainment and science fiction channels once it has finalised new content deals.
TV1 and FX both allow playback to TV and tablet right now if you sign up for Foxtel Play, but you can’t watch them on computer because of a strange licensing quirk. One benefit of the upcoming changes may be improved cross-licensing that lets you watch both channels on more devices.
Comments
7 responses to “Foxtel’s TV1 And SF To Close In December”
Or NBC, CBS, and Sony Pictures (Owners of TV1 and Sci-Fi) could make a deal with a competitor to Foxtel. Channels still exist, just not available on Foxtel. There are a number of pay TV channels available on other providers, but not Foxtel. Having all channels on Foxtel, Foxtel owned is not good at all. The movie channels were all scrapped, after Foxtel couldn’t reach a deal with their owners. Now the new movie channels most people hate.
What other providers?
There are several around. Not as many as previously.
And in the news today it mentioned TV1 CEO has spoken to several other competitors to keep the channels alive – TransTV, Fetch TV and others. Also talked about providing content direct to places like Crackle, Apple TV, etc.
The way Foxtel are going they are going to lose a lot more customers!
Movie channels got dumped for rubbish replacements and now two of the few decent channels got dumped as well.
Not looking good!
No idea why so many customers want Foxtel to control the channels in house. External owned channels, will always be better, They have an incentive to be. If they’re terrible, Foxtel will can them. If Foxtel owned and operated channels are terrible, Foxtel won’t do anything.
I’m pretty sure the management over at Foxtel were sick of TV1 and SF rating so highly and taking in pretty decent advertising revenue.
By shutting down the second most-popular channel on Foxtel (i.e. TV1), they’re dragging in more advertising revenue and steaming ahead to a complete monopoly of all content on subscription television.
All I can think to do is apologise to the good people at TV1 and SF who have tried so hard and done such a great job over the years. I’m sorry that your work isn’t as important as Foxtel’s money.
SF was one of the main things we had Foxtel for. That’s HAD.