TORONTO – CanWest’s TEN Television Network will be launching TEN-HD in December for free in the major metropolitan centres of mainland Australia.
TEN was the first Australian television network to begin broadcasting in standard definition digital and is the only network transmitting in HD down under, says the company. CanWest owns approximately 56% of Ten Network Holdings Limited, which owns and operates the TEN Television Network.
For substantial periods of the day, TEN-HD will break away from TEN’s primary channel to offer alternative programming and themed events focusing on, for example, Live Sport, Entertainment, Movies, Documentaries and Science Fiction.
"TEN-HD will excite and entertain audiences across Australia like never before. We are no longer bound by a single linear channel, and TEN-HD is a natural next step in our goal to make our content as widely available as possible to consumers,” said TEN Television’s chief executive officer, Grant Blackley.
Blackley also cited TEN Digital’s online and mobile activities and the recently-concluded retransmission agreement with FOXTEL as examples of TEN’s multi-platform distribution strategy.
Industry figures from Digital Broadcasting Australia show that by March 2007, 28% of Australian homes had free-to-view digital television, with HD receiving equipment comprising the fastest-growing segment of a market that is itself dramatically increasing each quarter.
Given the rate of take-up, the Australian Digital Suppliers Industry Forum (ADSIF) predicts that almost 10 million flat panel HD TVs will be purchased in Australia by 2012, says the CanWest release. At this rate, ADSIF estimates that there will be at least one HD TV in the vast majority of Australia’s eight million homes in only five years.
