Anyone know what's up with the Voom format changes?

[M Sparks]

Assuming the EPG info being uplinked is correct, the following Voom channels...

Gunslingers HD
HaHa HD
Divine HD
Family Room HD
Film Fest HD
Vice HD

...have been replaced by...

Torque HD
Gameplay HD
Coda HD
Sizzle HD
Renew HD
Cosmic HD

There has been some speculation going around about the new formats, but most of it doesn't make much sense. I think everyone agrees "Cosmic" is Sci-Fi, and a few of us think "Coda" will be musicals. But the others are a bit mysterious.

Based on these names, I'd guess we might be losing a movie channel or two in this switch. (Well, I'm not LOSING anything, because I never had Voom before.) I just can't see how "Gameplay" is going to be a movie channel. I was particularly looking forward to "Film Fest" .

Of course, it's possible there could be other re-branding when these go live. I find "Guy TV" AND "The Majestic" to be poorly defined themes.

So What do you guys think? Here's my best guess, although some are still a little weak.

Torque HD- Action movies, possibly replacing "Vice", "Gunslingers" AND "GuyTV"
OR an HD version of "SpeedVision" (doubtful, Rainbow doesn't have the rights to anything major.)
OR part of a rebranding/removal effort for "Rush". (Some of "Rush"'s programming could fit on "Equator", some to "WorldSport", and some could get combined with racing to create "Torque")

Sizzle HD- "naughty" (softcore) programming (unlikely they would run this 24/7, as Voom is going to be sold on "basic HD" cable tiers. Seems like "Vice" probably had some "erotic thrillers" on it.)
OR a romance channel (could pull old romance off "The Majestic" and combine with uncut versions of the movies on Rainbow's "WE" channel.)
OR a combination of both- Rita Hayworth in the daytime, Shannon Tweed at night.

Renew HD- This is the most puzzling. Could be a "chick flick" channel (stupid name, but no stupider than "Lifetime" or "Oxygen"), but that would interfere with the possible romance angle for "Sizzle"
OR it could be all pre-60's movies "Renewed in High Definition" (Again, helping to get rid of "The Majestic", and picking up a lot of the "Gunslingers" movies)

Gameplay HD- The obvious answer is an HD version of G4. Several people have pointed out that the new game systems coming out will be HD.
OR it could be all sports movies. There are a heck of a lot of sports movies, and this could further help eliminate "Guy TV"

Coda HD- Seems like this has to be all musicals. Of course, there's the joke answer that it's "just the ends of movies".

Cosmic HD- Gotta be Sci-Fi...or maybe all stoner movies. (Actually, that is a brilliant idea...stoners watch a LOT of TV.)

That kind of leaves some of the old channels "orphaned". "HaHa" could be split between some of the other themes, but it would be nice to have a full time channel. A lot of "Divine" will wind up on "Coda" (if it's truly a musical channel), and some could go to a romance channel, but truly "gay cinema" would seem to belong on "FilmFest"...which isn't listed anymore. "FilmFest" would be the hardest to find a home for, and I'm really disappointed that it's gone.

I'm really surprised to see "Family Room" go too. However, considering the amount of repetition on "Animania", I wouldn't be suprised to see these combined. It could have the standard "Animania" stuff in the daytime, run one family movie twice each night (say 7pm in the east AND the west, with Pink Panther, ect padding the time inbetween), and more of "The Classics" in late night. There are probably live action kids shows available in HD (probably from the UK), that could fit in if it wasn't JUST a movie channel or JUST a cartoon channel.

Of course, if "GuyTV" and "Majestic" go away, there may be two more new formats we don't know of yet. Heck, they could be changing EVERY channel.

 

[BrettTRay]

Looks like you have been doing alot of brainstorming!!!!!!

 

[M Sparks]

Not till just now!

Don't worry, this didn't keep me up last night or anything. I just like to think about this stuff. I have a degree in Broadcast Management and my favorite course was programming.

I now operate a one man commercial production business, so I don't use most of the management stuff except basic accounting.

 

[riffjim4069]

One thing is for sure: Unlike in the days of VOOM DBS, VOOM HD Networks is going to aggressively market and [hopefully] update their programming.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I would be surprised if any actual HD were lost in the changes. It could be reshuffled and shown on a channel with an altered theme, but I doubt any movies would never see the light of day because of the changes.

As to the "Renew" channel, perhaps that will be all zombie movies.

 

[David Dietzel]

Speculation is always fun.

We all have lots of great stuff to look forward to.

 

[Conner Dain]

I almost don't care how it shakes out...I just want it to HAPPEN! I love my VOOM channels, but I want MORE!

 

[jsb_hburg]

Torque HD sounds like a motorsports channel. There have been rumors of racing on WorldSport but I have not seen except in WorldSport promos.

Sizzle HD could be a food channel, sizzling steaks.

Renew HD does sound like a Lifetime/Oxygen channel or home improvement like HGTV.

Coda HD could be a musicals channel or it could be the channel for long gone series that have met their end - an HD "TVLand."

Cosmic HD has to be sci-fi.

Ok, this was fun. I hope these channels light up before turkey day!

 

[M Sparks]

I would be surprised if any actual HD were lost in the changes. It could be reshuffled and shown on a channel with an altered theme, but I doubt any movies would never see the light of day because of the changes.

I know that (they can't afford to let anything go to waste!) But I'd still rather see more movie channels, especially if they are going to stick with the one or two movies a day plan.

Also, in the case of FilmFest- that's a channel I would look to regularly. Those films aren't that popular, so they probably won't get shown as often on the other channels. I'm sure that KungFu fans would feel the same if they dumped the KungFu channel...sure they would still get shown on other channels, but not dependably.

I think they should have one or two "general" movie channels that run on the regular movie channel format- different movies all day, maybe repeating no more than once a week. The rest of the movie channels could be "ultra-niche" like Monsters, KungFu, Musicals, ect. Those could stick with the 2 movies a day format. (I know Monsters doesn't do that now, but I think it might seem LESS repetitive if it only showed a couple movies a day...because then they wouldn't come around as often.)

Voom is such a genius concept, and I'm glad they keep tweaking it. It might be kind of cool if they rotated themes on the movie channels. Say, have one channel be KungFu the first week of the month, Vice the next week, Gunslingers the third, ect. Then you could have 20 or 30 niche "channels", but they would still only take up 10 slots.

While we're on the topic of niche channels...I REALLY wish we could get something like "Drive-In Classics" in America without having to (wink) "move".

 

[M Sparks]

Coda HD could be a musicals channel or it could be the channel for long gone series that have met their end - an HD "TVLand.

Problem is, those shows weren't in HD! But maybe they could do filmed shows, like they did with Hogans Heroes.

Only thing is, if they were in 4:3, they should stay in 4:3.

 

[mdonnelly]

Anything on film is HD already (much better than 1920). Not all film is widescreen (16x9), but that's okay.

 

[Tvlman]

Regardless of what they call the channels it seems to me that there are enough movies in their vault to cover the following areas.

Western
Action
Comedy
Musicals
FilmNoir
Filmfest or Art movies
Foreign Films
Documentaries
Classic Films
Sci-Fi

There are always going to be films that fall into several catagories. But I don't really care what they call them. Let's get them up and going! I've been waiting since April!

 

[shanewalker]

Gameplay could be the new home for their sports programming, plus new coverage of video/computer/etc. Remember, sports are indeed games, after all...

 

[Chop-Chop]

That kind of leaves some of the old channels "orphaned". "HaHa" could be split between some of the other themes, but it would be nice to have a full time channel.

How abot HaHa for a comedy themed channel

 

[M Sparks]

Gameplay could be the new home for their sports programming, plus new coverage of video/computer/etc. Remember, sports are indeed games, after all...

Good point, I think we might be seeing more shuffling and rebranding of the the channels that are on now. "WorldSport" appears to be coming back, but "Rush" could be going away in favor of a combo extreme sports/videogame channel.

Looking at the current lineup as it is now may offer some clues. "Torque" is right next to "Rush", but "Gameplay" is up at the top between "Cosmic" and "Sizzle". But the lineup doesn't make much sense in other places..."WorldSport" is between "Gallary" and "Animania"..."Lab" is up amongst the movie channels..."HDNews" is going to be right in the middle..."CBS-HD" is plopped right in the middle...

I think these channels numbers are just for temporary testing (although you'd think they would be up in the 9900s...and with fake names.) I think Voom is in for a major reshuffle/rebrand/reformat.

 

[M Sparks]

How abot HaHa for a comedy themed channel

Voom DID have a comedy channel called "HaHa"...but it doesn't look like it's coming back based on this uplink list.

 

[Chop-Chop]

I think Voom is in for a major reshuffle/rebrand/reformat.

I remember reading about this a while back in one of the forums. I think Voom was planning to consolidate all 21 channels into a smaller number of channels so they could sell as a package to other distributiors. I think 21 individidual channels is a lot of bandwidth to handled by most distribuiton companies both cable and DBS. At least if there were only a handful of channels we would see less repeats.

 

[M Sparks]

I remember reading about this a while back in one of the forums. I think Voom was planning to consolidate all 21 channels into a smaller number of channels so they could sell as a package to other distributiors.
At least if there were only a handful of channels we would see less repeats.

It's well documented that Voom has signed DISH, several cable companies, and Verizon for all 21 channels. And this whole discussion stems from the fact that DISH has supposedly uplinked all 21 now.

You're technically right about the repeats, but that seems beside the point. It's not like you can watch every channel at the same time, nor do you watch all day long (well, I don't). The whole point of having so many channels is to have more choice at any one time.

When I look at the EPG, yes I see the same programming repeated over and over...but I've still only watched maybe 5% of it. If you consolidate it onto a few channels, you have fewer chances to see the things you haven't seen before. I've watched some really interesting travel shows on Equator and Rush that I would have never seen if Rave and Monsters had more variety.

Plus, with fewer channels, there's less incentive to ADD new programming. Cable channels may be twice as repetitive as they were 20 years ago, but there 10 times more of them- which means 5 times more programming.

 

[voripteth]

I saw a Voom commercial which included the Kung Fu channel.