Hamish Heard
Geelong’s first TV station has won recognition as a world leader in internet television broadcasting a month after its launch.
GOTV director Adam Tribe has been invited to be a keynote speaker at an Australasian Internet Protocol Television conference at Sydney in November.
“The amount of international media attention since the launch has been quite staggering,” Mr Tribe said.
Internet hits on the channel’s website had jumped 300 per cent in July, with the total exceeding 135,000 for the month, he said.
Mr Tribe called the hits “certainly encouraging”.
“We obviously think the numbers will calm after the hype of the launch fades, so we’re hoping to get over 100,000 in August,” he said.
“But we’re primarily a cable channel and we can’t release ratings figures from Neighbourhood Cable until we’ve put our own survey in place to assess the number of people watching via that medium.”
Mr Tribe said the amount of local businesses embracing the channel as an advertising resource was also encouraging.
“There has been a lot of outlay to set the station up but the figures are looking very healthy and that bodes well for the future of the station,” he said.
“Businesses are certainly proving they’re keen to take advantage of the medium.”
GOTV last week doubled its content to two rotating programming schedules a week.
That schedule will increase again next month when news programming commences.
“Long term we’d like to see seven blocks of content a week and in the more distant future there’s a possibility of separate blocks for morning and afternoon seven days a week,” he said.
Mr Tribe will tell attendees at November’s conference about the benefits of broadcasting local content to capture advertising revenue from businesses that generally do not advertise on mainstream television.
GOTV’s online channel is available at www.gotv.com.au.