The profound rantings of the one like Tom Atkinson… and now art gallery and shop.

MediaWorks to ban free tv guide listings for TV3 and C4

UPDATE: They have re-instated the listings! Good on ya MediaWorks for coming to your senses.

In some impressively bad form, it would appear that the guy who runs http://www.freetvguide.co.nz/ has been asked to remove TV3 and C4 listings from his TV Guide. They've asked him to pay $2k per month for the priveledge, which makes me think, does this mean that the next best one (NZ City TV Guide) also pay MediaWorks for their ability to publish the programme listings?

Robin's words:

After a few phone calls and emails in the past 2 weeks with a representative of MediaWorks that owns TV3 and C4, they have decided that unless I pay $2000 a month I am no longer to publish their listings. When the FreeTVguide first started nearly 4 years ago, TVNZ, PRIME and a Canwest person all allowed me to publish the current days listings, I had communication with all of them, but in this past year or so Canwest have sold TV3 and C4 to an Australian company and lately they have decided to 'protect their brand' as they put it. I was told today that either I pay the full $2000 per month or pull their listings immediately, and if I continue listing their programs, they will put a lawyer and a $50,000 fine on me, can you believe that? they are only free to air program listings for crying out loud. Please voice your opinion on this thread, tell me what you think and offer any suggestions on how I can keep the freeTVguide alive and worthwhile, I really don't want it to die off, but without TV3 on the listings its a definite kick in the guts.

So i wrote TV3 a note on their website about it:

http://www.tv3.co.nz/Default.aspx?TabId=52

Posted by tomachi on October 29th, 2008 filed in Rants