News

Foxtel to close youth music station Channel V

Foxtel is set to shut down its music youth music channel Channel V in what is thought to be a major cost-cutting exercise at the broadcaster, creating a new 24-hour music video channel instead.

channel v

Staff were told yesterday the stations were set to close, with most being given notice of redundancy. The station’s biggest name is currently ‘VJ’ Danny Clayton.

The station has struggled to create a compelling proposition and attract decent audiences in recent years, losing 28% of its audience on the second half of 2015.

News was first broken by industry website The Music.

Foxtel said in a statement: “We are making some changes to our music channels on Foxtel. Starting from this Saturday, February 27 you will begin to see some changes to Channel [V].  Following on from that, from March 25, we will no longer use the Channel V brand, which will change to V Hits and V Hits +2.

“V Hits features a line-up of music videos and countdowns, including the latest hits from Australia and around the world. There are no changes to MAX, CMC or Smooth.”

Younger audiences have migrated away from TV in recent years, sourcing music videos on demand through services like Youtube and Vevo instead.

Last year Universal Music also pulled all videos from its artists, including Taylor Swift and Justin Beiber, from the network in a stoush over royalty payments.

Channel V morphed from the Red network, which started with the launch of pay-TV in Australia in 1995, turning into its current incarnation in 1997.

Over the years it has launched the careers of the likes of Clayton, Yumi Stynes, Osher Gunsberg and Jabba, and was at one time fronted by Molly Meldrum.

danny clayton tweets channel v

Alex Hayes

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