Optus Television is the cable television
division of Australian
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
company
Optus
Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore, Si ...
.
History
Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between Optus and
Continental Cablevision, with small shareholdings by media companies
Publishing & Broadcasting Limited
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) was one of Australia's largest corporations. With interests primarily in media and gambling, for the entirety of its existence it was largely controlled by the Packer family.
History Predecessors
PB ...
and
Seven Network
The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...
.
It was founded to handle residential cable television and local telephony, while its parent concentrated on corporate, long-distance, satellite and interstate communications. It used a hybrid fibre coaxial cable network to connect homes to its network, and subsequently added broadband
cable internet access
In telecommunications, cable Internet access, shortened to cable Internet, is a form of broadband Internet access which uses the same infrastructure as a cable television. Like digital subscriber line and fiber to the premises services, cable Inte ...
.
Optus Vision used the Optus telecommunications licence as its authority to build a cable network, which it deployed in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...
.
Optus's main competition, especially in the metropolitan areas, was
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
, a joint venture between
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
and
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
.
Optus negotiated exclusive access to AFL, rugby league, and other sports, and had exclusive access to
Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
, ESPN and
MTV Australia
MTV is a 24-hour general entertainment channel specialising in music and youth culture programming which serves Australia and New Zealand. It is operated by parent company Paramount Networks UK & Australia headquartered in London with a local of ...
, but lacked the general entertainment channels
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
had. It commenced its cable TV service in September 1995, one month before Foxtel, delivering a limited number of channels to a small number of subscribers, all of whom were connected via its Blacktown Exchange.
From 1995 to 1997, the
Super League war
The Super League war was a commercial competition between the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and the Australian Super League to establish pre-eminence in professional rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-1990s.
Super ...
waged between the two consortia over lucrative rugby league rights.
In March 1997, Optus bought out the other shareholders in exchange for equity in itself, to float.
In 2002, it let go of some of its exclusive content contracts, replacing them with non-exclusive ones.
MTV Australia
MTV is a 24-hour general entertainment channel specialising in music and youth culture programming which serves Australia and New Zealand. It is operated by parent company Paramount Networks UK & Australia headquartered in London with a local of ...
,
Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
and the premium
Movie Network
Crave (formerly The Movie Network or TMN) is a Canadian premium television network and streaming service owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc.
Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, early difficulties and a subsequen ...
channels all became available on Foxtel.
In 2009, Optus Television stopped offering service to new subscribers, but maintained it for existing subscribers.
From February 2011, Optus again offered Optus TV featuring Foxtel including IQ2 services.
On 14 February 2016, Singtel-Optus renewed their contract with Astro-Fetch TV in preparation for the 2016/17 EPL season.
Satellite broadcasting
Optus, along with Austar had a joint venture in the use of Satellite broadcasting for the delivery of Subscription Television. Originally, Foxtel had not previously offered a Satellite service, until purchasing the satellite subscribers from Australis Media within their service area. Until 2004, Foxtel was a customer of the Austar/Optus joint venture.
Optus utilised this joint venture to initially trial and subsequently offer a basic satellite service, named VIP. The service was very select with not many being able to access the service. It was also offered to Norfolk Island and some smart cards were enabled for some residents (who had the required satellite receiving equipment) to take part in a trial of the service. The ability to offer the service came about due to Optus offering a large number of channels to East Coast Television (now a part of Austar). After Optus axed the "VIP" Service, it also sold its share in the joint venture to Austar.
In 2004, the roles reversed and Austar became the customer to Foxtel for satellite delivery.
Sports programming
Until 2002, Optus did not offer the Fox Sports sporting channels on their service as Foxtel and Austar did, instead offering channels from
Sportsvision
Sportsvision (SV) was a subscription sports television service founded by Chicago White Sox owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn and media mogul Fred Eychaner. The service broadcast live sporting events, and for much of its time of operatio ...
, (later
C7 Sport
C7 Sport was a pay-TV service in Australia, owned and run by Seven Network. The service was carried on the Austar and Optus Vision pay-TV networks between 1995 and 2002. Seven unsuccessfully pursued court action against competitors, seeking dama ...
) and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
.
During the Super League/ARL war, the Optus sports channels had the rights to the ARL competition and the Super League rights were held by Fox Sports.
Seven bought Sportsvision, which became Optus and Austar exclusive C7 Sport and progressively lost sporting rights to Fox Sports. During that time Foxtel granted Optus an
NRL Channel, screening all of the NRL matches that had previously been shown exclusively on the Foxtel platform.
C7 Sport for some time had attempted to access the Foxtel platform for their service – however Foxtel were hesitant to accede to the request, with one exception being the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where C7 offered two extra channels dedicated to Olympics coverage.
In 2000, Seven and C7 Sport lost the
AFL
AFL may refer to:
Sports
* American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues:
** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...
rights to a Nine/Ten and Foxtel-based consortium leaving C7 with only the Olympics and 6 Nations Rugby rights of major substance.
In March 2002, the commencement of the new AFL broadcasting deal with Foxtel led Optus and Austar to drop C7 Sport from their services, leading to the demise of the channel. Optus replaced the C7 channels with an Optus rebadged version of Fox Sports. Optus dropped the "Optus Sports" name in October 2002.
The dropping of the C7 service led to Optus being a party in the unsuccessful legal action taken by the Seven Network over the demise of the C7 Sport service.
On 13 July 2016, Optus launched
Optus Sport
Optus Sport is an Australian group of sports channels, owned by Optus launched on 13 July 2016.
The channels are available through Optus' Yes TV by Fetch IPTV platform, or through an Optus Decoder on the VAST Satellite Network, as well as thro ...
, a group of sports channels that were established to televise the
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
.
Subscriber numbers
For some time, Optus has not explicitly released subscriber numbers for their Optus Television service, however combining them with other services offered under the division of which Optus Television is a part.
Since December 2002, subscriber numbers have dropped considerably to almost half of the 241,000 reported. Since that time, Optus has repositioned its television service to being a major component of bundled services, rather than a service by itself. By August 2010 only 96,000 subscribers remained.
Optus iTV trials
During 2002–2003, Optus trialled
interactive digital television over part of its Sydney network. The service was being built from 2000. This service was known as Optus iTV. The service was unique to Optus and had a good deal of positive consumer feedback. The iTV service utilised the Liberate platform instead of OpenTV, as used by
Foxtel Digital. The trials were cancelled by Optus after the Content Supply Agreement with
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
was reached. One byproduct of the new agreement was the re-engineering of the Optus iTV broadcast centre in
Macquarie Park
Macquarie Park () is a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Macquarie Park is located 13 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Ryde.
Macqu ...
to become the new broadcast centre for
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
.
A notable difference between Optus iTV and Foxtel Digital was that the Optus system used the same
HFC cable network both for delivery and for the
return path
{{No footnotes, date=June 2016
A bounce address is an email address to which bounce messages are delivered. There are many variants of the name, none of them used universally, including return path, reverse path, envelope from, envelope sender, MA ...
, meaning no additional hardware or service was required for this return path. By contrast, the Foxtel Digital system at the time relied on a
telephone connection for the return path. The advantage of this system is that it is ''platform neutral'', meaning that the same telephone-based return path can be used for both
cable and
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
installations.
The Optus iTV system also allowed near video on demand (nvod) not true video on demand. Foxtel Digital now provides Near Video on Demand as well. Featured content broadcast on multiple
channels with staggered start times available at frequent intervals. Some new Foxtel Services offer a "Video on Demand" ability for limited product, various transmission paths offer a broader VOD version.
Other potential features of Optus iTV included e-mail and
walled garden
A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate c ...
Internet access.
Optus TV featuring Foxtel
After signing up to the Content Supply Agreement with Foxtel, Optus Television changed their channel line up to reflect the offerings from Foxtel. Optus were able to have a number of differences between their offering and the Foxtel offering, so that Optus could meet some contractual obligations they had, as well as satisfying a number of requirements placed on the organisation by the
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.
A number of channels that had previously been unique to Optus (in comparison with Foxtel) such as the
Odyssey Channel
The Odyssey Channel was a documentary channel that was previously available on Optus Vision in Australia. It was one of the few channels on pay TV in Australia that had a large amount of Australian content available.
Due to the CSA (Content Sh ...
were removed from the Optus line-up, as they competed with channels that Foxtel offered. Other channels crossed from Optus to the Foxtel line-up such as the
Ovation Channel. Optus was required to have a number of channels that were unique to their service, though the flagged channels are now available on both platforms without any change in regulation nor penalty.
Optus TV featuring Foxtel Digital
In April 2005, Foxtel granted Optus the right to carry the "
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
Digital" platform (one year after being available to Foxtel subscribers) The service would be resold by Optus, utilising the same equipment as Foxtel (such as the Foxtel set top box, remote, NDS technologies for encryption and OpenTV for interactivity delivery).
This agreement also allows for non-exclusive resale rights to the Foxtel Digital service using Satellite Delivery within Foxtel's service area.
Commencing trials in November 2005, the service became fully operational in December of the same year.
Optus is believed to be permitting wholesale access to the network so third party broadcasters can sell subscription services over Optus cable.
See also
*
Subscription television in Australia
Subscription television in Australia is provided using technologies such as cable television, satellite television and internet television by a number of companies unified in their provision of a subscription television service. Notable actors in ...
References
External links
*
{{CATV Africa, Asia, Middle East and Oceania
Optus
Australian subscription television services
1994 establishments in Australia
Australian brands
Companies based in Sydney
Telecommunications companies established in 1994
Mass media companies established in 1994
Telecommunications companies of Australia