As I reported on 28th June, Foxtel will be launching 30 new channels later this year and News Limited publication The Australian has provided confirmation of some of them.

They list the following new and expanded offerings:
Showtime Greats will be dropped in favour of Showtime genre channels covering action, premiere, comedy and drama. With action and comedy appearing in High Definition.  The Movie Network will add Starpics, and the Family Movie Channel (FMC) with Starpics and Movie One going HD.

On the sports front Fox Sports 1 and 2 will be HD, no word on the previously mentioned Eurosport just yet.

Fox8 and W will also go HD, other new Standard Definition channels include Nation Geographic Wild, Lifestyle You, The Style Network, Discovery’s Turbo Max, Kids CC, 13th Street and Sky News Local.

Sci-Fi, Turbo Max and Lifestyle you will get time shifted along with 5 other as yet un-named channels.

The article goes on to claim that Sport and Movies are the focus, however with only the addition of Fox Sports 2 to HD I can’t see how they claim that. Movies and Lifestyle would appear to be the main focus to me.

The channels mentioned in the article only account for 29, though some are just HD versions of current channels, new channels. This leaves 1 yet to be revealed channel. What will it be? Could it be Eurosport?

November seems a reasonable time frame for the launch of the new channels as the new satellite was only launched last Saturday, 22nd August.

Of course Foxtel have refused to comment according to the article , but as the article was published by 25% owner of Foxtel, News Limited, it is either true or a really good smokescreen. The fact it tallies with a survey sent out by Foxtel in late June, it would be a safe bet most if not all of these channels will appear.

You can read the full article here.