Channel 9 appeal judgment day today

[ackbar33]

There is a nice easy fix with all of this ...


No Nine Tv guide= We dont watch Channel nine.


:)


I hope that makes them happy !

[Mr_Q]

That may not be far from the truth. When we were using the iQ for Foxtel and they didn't have the programme guides for 7 and 10 we just didn't watch those channels. It wasn't any form of protest, we just didn't bother - we had programme info for the other channels so we watched those instead.

Unfortunately I doubt there's enough IceTV subscribers that if channel 9 would notice if we all stopped watching. :(

[dJOS]

not much worth watching on Nein these days anyway!!

[toppytools]

not much worth watching on Nein these days anyway!!

I don't really pay much attention to which channels my timers are on... so I just went through all 33 timers that I have set for the next week... Most were on Ten. Then there were a couple on each SBS, ABC and Seven. With only one on Nein. And I really wouldn't care if it didn't record at all (David Attenborough: Bears - Spy in the Woods).

I'm sure at other times during the year that there may be something on nein that I would like to record... but if I don't know that it is on then I won't miss not recording it.

[dJOS]

Nein Guide Data is back in ICE Guide!  ;D

[Matt at IceTV]

we could and should have been notified.  That is my only quibble.   As someone said, IceTV does have our email addresses, so a short email can't be that hard.  The email wouldn't have had to give any info that may impede the court case, just to let us know that until further notice, the Nine guide will be removed.

We apologise for any inconvenience this process has caused some users. We completely understand some of your frustrations but unfortunately, although we were somewhat prepared for the Full Court's, we were advised at the time not to make any form of public comment or notification. I am sure most of you can appreciate this given the circumstances.

We will be sending out an email to all users shortly regarding coverage of Channel Nine's weekly program listings and that of it's regional affiliates. We are doing our best to keep everyone informed, whilst trying to resume our expected service standards.

We expect to have full listings available again shortly for all regions with the exception of "N/A" notifications, which will appear within the IceTV Guide in times that we are unable to cleary advise you of what show will be being broadcasted. As soon as we know, these notifications will be replaced with the applicable program.

If you notice anything incorrect with our coverage of Nine’s programming or for any other Channel in your region, please don’t hesitate to contact a member of our Guide Team via (http://www.icetv.com.au/cgi-bin/webpage.cgi?op=show_contact).

Once again, we greatly appreciate everyone's support and continued patience during this time. Rest assured we will continue to keep everyone as up-to-date as possible regarding this matter and as frequently as we can.

Regards,

MattK
IceTV

[mtb]

There is a nice easy fix with all of this ...

No Nine Tv guide= We dont watch Channel nine.

I hope that makes them happy !

I phoned them in Perth today and told them just that... that their legal action had directly resulted in the loss of our entire family as viewers since we rely totally on the EPG from Ice.  I'm considering phoning the other Nein offices too, just to make sure to get the message across.

I also went through five old recordings we had (off sick) of The Dead Zone and noted forty five companies/entities in Perth who will be receiving letters explaining why their adverts will no longer be reaching us as we won't be watching Nein any more.

Anyone else who will also not be watching Nein, I would suggest do the same to keep the advertisers in the loop of why their advertising on Nein is not necessarily as cost-effective as before, purely as a service to them.

We apologise for any inconvenience this process has caused some users. We completely understand some of your frustrations but unfortunately, although we were somewhat prepared for the Full Court's, we were advised at the time not to make any form of public comment or notification. I am sure most of you can appreciate this given the circumstances.

More power to your elbow fellas, when will Nein realise that they're hurting themselves as much as anyone else.

Oh, and if any "user" submissions are required/beneficial for any subsequent action, please feel free to contact me (and, I suspect, any other user on the forums!).

We have also made further requests to certain TV Networks to permit or grant licensed access to IceTV to reproduce their weekly television listings within our IceTV Guide. It is our understanding that similar agreements must have been made for services such as TiVo to provide thier EPG information.

I think I shall also be writing to two other commercial networks and pointing out to them the likely result of them stopping Ice from providing EPG data for their network's programming, namely the loss of us as viewers.  Might also write to some more advertisers too...

[prl]

I'm not sure of the effectiveness of people who record programs, in part for the ability to skip ads, telling advertisers that they're going to stop watching their ads.

[mtb]

I'm not sure of the effectiveness of people who record programs, in part for the ability to skip ads, telling advertisers that they're going to stop watching their ads.

That is the very flaw in Nine's argument, the (tenuous at best) link between an EPG and skipping ad's.  We don't record in order to skip ad's, we record because we can't/don't want to watch the programmes at the time they are broadcast.  It is because we can record a programme by any mechanism (PVR, PC, VCR, etc.) which enables us to skip ad's, it has nothing to do with the source of the schedule data - that simply enables us to perform more accurate recordings of shows we watch rather than relying on out of date printed guides or having to scan the web daily "by hand".

As it happens we DO watch ad's (yes, really!), in order to keep up to date on pending shows and the occasional new product - but we only tend to watch them once or twice until the information is familiar and then we skip them.  Rather than jump the full 2.5 minutes or so of an ad. break, we tend to 30 second skip them - if we see something new, we'll tend to watch it until we deem it important or irrelevant and then skip or not accordingly.  After all, what is the point of watching the same old reality or game show ad's when you don't ever watch the show, it's almost negative marketing if you have to watch because it annoys you all the more.

So we consider there IS value in letting an advertiser know that the actions of a TV station are undermining their potential advertising audience.

One last thing...  If we contact advertisers, how did we identify that they are an advertiser...?  I guess we must have... watched the ad.!!

[philzgr8]

Me thinks you lie....

Quote - 'This problem is being fixed as we speak and you will already start to see scheduling information available for Ch9 '

About an hour after this statement - a refresh of the guide data for Melbourne - and nothing for Ch9.


My concern is also about stability, who knows when, later today, next week or next month... when the police come and raid, or everything is exhausted - suddenly ch9 data disapears without a warning...


Gee a Tivo is starting to look good again - even at $700 and available next month - at least no ongoing guide data subscriptions...

Gee, you wait a WHOLE hour for them to reconstruct their guides nationally before laying into them. My, you are generous!

You're aware, of course, that you can't skip over ads on a TiVO.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Impact here. It's not about giving them time to fix what they took away, it's about the fact that they chose not to notify anyone before pulling the plug on the data. You have to remember that plenty of people will have spent quite a bit of time trying to fix what they may have perceived as a MCE problem and potentially could have damaged other things. I certainly sympathise with Ice in their battle and they have my full support but it really does annoy me that they never seem to learn when it comes to keeping subscribers in the loop.

[mtb]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Impact here. It's not about giving them time to fix what they took away, it's about the fact that they chose not to notify anyone before pulling the plug on the data.

If you took the time to read all the relevant posts and news items at the time this was happening, you would have seen that Ice's legal advice was to not to post ANY information regarding the real reason for the removal of the data.  The following is a quote from the e-mail that was issued...

"Acting under legal advice, we were prevented from fully informing our customers as to the reasons for this lack of guide data. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers."

Given the true nature of the reason for the data not being produced, I think people should think twice before ranting about a lack of information - Ice are trying hard in trying circumstances, cut them a little slack!

[Matt at IceTV]

IceTV has been sucessfully granted special leave to appeal the recent decision made by the Full Court of the Federal Court to the High Court of Australia.

The court date for the High Court appeal has now been set for October 16-17 this year.

Check the News section of our website for any further information.

Regards,

mattk

[pvogel]

P.S. The hearing will be in Canberra.

[pvogel]

P.S. The hearing will be in Canberra.

I have been at the High Court today, my report of the day's hearing of IceTV vs Nine is here: http://vogelross.com.au/vrblog/

Peter "so sue me" Vogel

[neilius]

I have been at the High Court today, my report of the day's hearing of IceTV vs Nine is here: http://vogelross.com.au/vrblog/

Peter "so sue me" Vogel

Peter

Fantastic blog!

Thanks for the report.

Neil