Television in Australia - History - 2000s

2000s

The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney resulted in huge ratings for its host broadcaster, the Seven Network – over 6.5 million Australians watched the telecast of opening and closing ceremonies, which were amongst the most-watched programs in television history and helped Seven defeat the Nine Network in ratings terms for the first time in more than two decades. The broadcast also ran on the short-lived C7 Sport subscription channel. The Dream with Roy and HG was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sydney 2000 (and subsequent Salt Lake 2002 and Athens 2004 Olympics) presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG which achieved great popularity during the Games.

The turn of the millennium introduced digital television to Australia, as well as the transition to widescreen standard-definition and high-definition television production. Community stations also began to receive permanent transmitter licenses, replacing temporary licenses that were renewed yearly. At this time it was thought that allowing Commercial Multicasting would be detrimental so the publicly owned networks (ABC and SBS) were the only networks that were allowed to create new digital SD Channels. This was only revised after Digital Television Uptake was not as high as expected in many areas, and from 1 January 2009, Network Ten, Nine and Seven were allowed to create alternative SD channels.

Many successful Australian shows were created during the 2000s, including ABC TV comedies like Kath and Kim, Spicks and Specks and The Chaser's War on Everything, Network Ten's Thank God You're Here, which led to the creation of many local versions throughout the world, and the growth of reality television, especially Big Brother Australia and Australian Idol. Australian content on subscription television also grew, with shows such as the Logie Award winning Love My Way. Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, a television interview show broadcast on ABC1, aired from 2003 to 2008.

Amongst the new digital 'multichannels', one of the earliest was the SBS World News Channel in 2002, providing news bulletins in languages other than English. In 2003 Tasmanian Digital Television launched, providing Tasmanian viewers a third commercial station, and nationally-available stations Fly TV and the ABC Kids Channel launched, later to be eventually shut down due to funding issues and replaced in 2005 by ABC2. Mildura Digital Television, similar to TDT, launched at the start of 2006. Sydney also began testing datacasting transmissions with Digital 44 in 2003. While digital television boomed in areas that received a third channel and with the subscription television services, growth in other areas has been slow, with analogue shut-down dates pushed back several times. A number of new community stations were also opened, including C31 Adelaide in April 2004 and Television Sydney in February 2006.

In October 2005, Network Ten announced that Good Morning Australia would be cancelled at the end of the year, after a 14 year run. Although Bert Newton was offered ongoing employment at Network Ten, he joined the Nine Network to host the short-lived game show Bert's Family Feud, until 23 May 2007 when the program was axed.

The Nine Network, the traditional ratings leader, suffered ratings losses by the mid-2000s, losing out to the Seven Network, which became the most popular Australian network early 2007. This was not the only loss by the network: the death of its CEO Kerry Packer in late 2005 led to network personality Eddie McGuire becoming the head of the network, and the network lost AFL broadcast rights to the Seven and Ten networks in the largest Australian television rights deal in history, worth A$780 million.

In mid-2007, National Indigenous Television launched as Australia's 'third public broadcaster', after the ABC and SBS, replacing Indigenous Community Television on the Optus Aurora remote satellite service. The move to High Definition Television broadcasting came to the forefront when Network TEN announced its intentions to create the first dedicated HD multichannel Ten HD on 14 September 2007 with a December 2007 Launch date.

Although Ten HD was initially expected to be the first new commercial television channel in metropolitan areas of Australia since 1988, it was instead beaten to the punch by Seven HD. Following the announcement by the Ten Network, Network Seven also announced its previously hidden plans to launch a dedicated HD channel on 15 September 2007 and pushed the launch date forward to 10 October. Seven HD was the first dedicated HD multichannel launched, 2 months earlier than the Channel 10 equivalent. The Nine Network's move to a HD channel was considered sluggish by industry insiders, taking until March 2008. The Network was more excited by its plans to introduce a new SD channel in 2009 called GO!, which is when digital multicasting restrictions were scheduled to be lifted from the commercial stations. Go! was released to the public on 9 August, spelling the end of Nine HD which was replaced by the previous HD version of Nine. 2009 also saw the launch of four other channels, 7TWO, a general entertainment channel, SBS Two available in SD, ABC3 a dedicated children's television channel available in SD, and One, a dedicated 24 hour sport channel and a subsidiary of Network Ten available in both HD and SD, replacing Ten HD. ABC3, unlike commercial channels, is not constrained by local content quotas.