Telly site TV Central launches – and picks a fight with Nine
Australian TV website TV Auscast yesterday relaunched as TV Central – and carried a grudge against the Nine Network into its new incarnation.
The site issued a press release thanking networks for their support and pointedly leaving out Nine:
“Our relationship with the networks has been strong and TvCentral would like to thank Tim Worner and the team at Seven, Lesna Thomas and the team at the ABC, Susie Riddell and the team at SBS and Catherine Donavan and the team at Ten for their support. They recognize that in the world of massive technology that more and more viewers are getting network information (on whatever level) through a number of resources and have regularly supported Tvaus in the past to get information and news to an audience that is hungry for immediate gratification.”
In the posting, he suggested that the network gives priority to more “gossip” based sites. He said:
“Network publicity departments are a bit like girls that choose bad boys to date rather than go with the attributes they originally thought were important.”
And he suggested that contact had been cut off after he complained about the publicity team’s lack of response to his inquiries to the programming department:
“On phoning the network publicity team and asking why they do not respond, I was simply told by a publicist that she does not have time to deal with non-major media outlets. The next part was what killed me. In my stupidity I decided not give constructive feedback about that comment to the assistant to the Head of Programming at Nine. My point was basically what I had addressed at the start of this column – that the real passion and discussion for television programs on the Nine Network is being done with more integrity and passion on other sites such as the one I am now writing for and the attitude of the staff member was ignorant. BIG MISTAKE. Never go over the head of a publicity department – after that the relationship with publicity went sour and all went downhill. My good rapport with the programming department was snipped by the publicity team and the walls went up. It never recovered from there.”
However, a possible reason for Nine’s apparent lack of engagement with the site may be its relatively low reach. Although it does not appear on Nielsen MarketIntelligence, based on the less reliable panel-based tool Alexa, it appears to have a fraction of the reach of TV Tonight, which also targets the same type of TV fan audience. (Update: the site says it has been averaging 50,000 page impressions per month.)
According to TV Central, its point of difference will be the range of television resources it will offer including programming guides, the latest schedule amendments for every state and ratings information, plus news and features.
It said: “Tvaus has been providing a lot of the above information for some time, but we chose not to relaunch until we had got the mix right, the elements of the site flowed together and we were ready to take that leap into being a major media player in the Australian landscape. Providing unique content such as the full advance guides and full ratings information on a daily basis allows TvCentral to be both a complete and unique Australian television website.”
The site is owned by Cameron Jeong.
Meanwile, a source at Nine said of Ryan’s complaints: “He needs to take some time out for a good long read of Dale Carnegie’s tome on winning friends and influencing people.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Who cares, anyway? It’s a featherweight site with a tiny readership and very little distinctive content. Most of its “news” content appears to be directly copy-pasted, in full, from other news sites (with a cursory link at the bottom of the page). The rest is a combination of copy-pasted network press releases and clumsy commentary with a view to presenting itself as TVTonight-lite or MediaSpy-lite.
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So.. Some pissant site w/ 3 hits a day launches- and the owner’s upset the 9 pub dept won’t bend over backwards for them? Or have I missed something??
And what on earth are these comments??
“Network publicity departments are a bit like girls that choose bad boys to date rather than go with the attributes they originally thought were important.”
How old is this guy? He sounds very green. Very stupid picking a fight like this with 9 when launching a site that would benefit on having them on side.
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TV Central / tvauscast seems to be getting a bad wrap everywhere. Can’t say I’m surprised one bit given AARON’s attitude.
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No wonder Aaron got banned from Media Spy for breaching board rules. Nine has actually been smart in this instance refusing to deal with him. The content is terrible anyway with copy and pasted articles and poor writing and grammatical skills. And unique guides? – TV Tonight has provided them for ages.
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Is this post just another way to try and have a dig at Channel 9? Its getting tiring …
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Not sure where you get that from, Brian. I’m certainly not taking sides on this one (and haven’t got anything against Nine either).
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
TVCentral/TVAuscast/TVOutcast/TVWhoGivesAF***
It’s just the same old same old.
You can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.
Aaron Ryan needs to understand that he is not the be-all and end-all, nor is his writing anywhere near the quality needed. His spelling, grammatical errors and style of writing is embarrassing.
There are a myriad of sites out there that do it better.
Media Spy, in Sir Hillary’s view, is better off without him.
Bravo Channel Nine for having the sense not to have anything to do with him.
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Thank you all for your comments.
Look it is an interesting situation that I get a number of people with less favourable views on me. I am ok with this as I am a person that does like to grow from these type of situations. A few points:
1. I am a very passionate person about television. I exist because I believe that the media landscape could do with a little shake up. I have posted amendments / programming changes on media websites for years and was of the opinion that viewers should be treated with as much info as possible since they are the ones watching the programs. So I have built from there.
2. Believe it or not I am a hard working Christian guy with good morals and values.
I like to grow. I don’t think I know everything and I actually take on board some of the more constructive criticisms. My dealings with Nine are a bit more detailed than what is published. If it is any consolation, I have apologized to Nine for any offense caused but they do not wish to come to the party. If and when they do then that is great. People pick out what they want to – I have a good relationship with the other stations and even the regional affiliates and I am happy with that and do hope that Nine come to the party sometime.
3. Spelling errors and grammar. Well that is a bit of laziness. I actually have a full time job outside of the site as does the owner. We do this for passion and love of television and most of the time I do not have time to re read which is unfortunate. My day consists of waking at 5:30, reading television stuff, emails from networks at my other job at 7am, home by 5, dinner, amendments, update guides, do some stories (interviewing Tim Ross and Todd McKenney this week), I also study for something else, watch maybe an hour of telly and go to bed. On weekends I catch up on shows, write out the guides which takes hours and write blog etc etc. I also attend Church and try and have a life. That all equals spelling and grammar issues and I apologize and will work on more. That is a fair call.
4. I do think that TvCentral offers some point of difference. Other sites like this do a great job. In fact if you go onto the front page of TvCentral there is a full story about TvTonight, MediaSpy and others and I highlight what they do. Everyone specializes in something. Knoxy at TvTonight is fantastic – great guy and great site. I read it every day. He does it as a full time job so his content is great and a lot more extensive than TvCentral. I encourage people to go there. TvCentral does offer some point of differences including the advance guides with market variations, media releases, amendments in one post and the most extensive ratings analysis each day.
5. People expect me to come out blasting. I will not. MediaSpy banned me – so what? I am not going to bad mouth them. They run an excellent forum and their newswire is great. They just broke a story about the 24 Hour news channel launching this week or next. Was a great read. Would I do the same in return if needed? No. But that is cool. I like freedom of speech and any comments about me at TvCentral have and will not be banned unless they going into unlawful territory but none have.
Anyway, feel free to judge me, but I think you will find I am not the person some of you think I am. I get a lot of positive feedback and the site is growing and I wish you guys all the best, Mumbrella (whom I thanked for the story) MediaSpy and TvTonight all the best 🙂
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Ironic. Sounds like all that writing about TV doesn’t leave Aaron time to watch any.
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Aaron- sounds like you need a holiday mate.
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No no. I am cool. Just saying I enjoy doing it but that may be the reason for the lack of grammar and spelling errors 🙂
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I need a holiday after reading that!
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