Farewell GNF Movie Channel
This entry was posted on 6/22/2007 12:57 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Our unofficial free sample of Setanta Sports ended earlier this week, and now I have another bit of sad news about Galaxy 25. The GNF (GamezNFlix) Music Channel will go off the air July 1. According to GNF, they want to focus on "advancing the development of the GNF Game & Music Channel, reflecting the
company’s mission to deliver quality programming in the extreme sports,
video-gaming and music genres."
Personally, I think that GNF had its best idea at the very beginning. It got some space on G25, where most of North America's stationary Ku-band dishes are already pointing. Then around the beginning of 2006, it apparently acted as an America One affiliate, passing along that network's programming. Whenever a local ad slot came along, GNF filled it with ads for its core business - DVD and game rental by mail for a monthly fee. What a brilliant low-cost way to reach a new audience!
Then something changed. In March 2006, GNF acquired the rights to a bunch of TV shows, apparently mostly music with some gaming. The next month, it licensed 3600 movies. The GNF channel dropped the America One content and eventually morphed into two channels, one with movies (licensed and public domain) and one with those TV shows. GNF started work on signing up broadcast stations and on streaming the channels on the internet. Did they reach too far away from their core competencies? Did they make the right move to adapt to the market? Time will tell.
In the unlikely event that I would have been in charge, I would have done a lot of things differently to promote the GNF Movie Channel. I would have cut way back on the in-movie commercials; showing the same product ten times instead of five won't increase sales that much. I would have made the online streaming version a clickable option instead of trying to launch itself as soon as a user visits the page. I would have made the program guide meaningful like the White Springs TV grid, with more information per show than just a title. And I would have started an email mailing list with weekly program highlights. Someday, someone's going to put together a fine channel that way.
Meanwhile, I hope that some other company sees the potential in bringing America One back to Ku-band dishes. (It's also available on Galaxy 23 on C band.) When the right company checks the costs, then compares them to a national mailing or magazine ad campaign, it will see what a great deal FTA can be to introduce the company into a new market.
