Foxtel
A Foxtel remote control is seen in a store in central Sydney May 26, 2011. Australia's biggest pay-tv firm, Foxtel, has made a $2 billion takeover bid for rival Austar in a deal aimed at reviving subscriber growth and taking on growing competition from free-to-air television stations. Reuters/Daniel Munoz

Foxtel recently announced that it is retiring its brand Channel V and merging it with V Hits.

Remember Yumi Stynes, Danny Clayton and Osher Gunsberg? These Australian entertainment stars and many more had their careers launched by the popular youth channel, Channel V. People remember Channel V for playing a range of alternative and mainstream music for the past 20 years. The channel also hosted a number of special events.

Following the popular music channel's news of retirement, Stynes, Gunsberg and Clayton took to Twitter to express their sadness of Foxtel’s decision.

“Channel V is closing on Friday. Must have been a tough call to make for MGMT. 20yrs of cutting edge TV, sad to see it go,” wrote Gunsberg.

“Decades of music, concerts, punters, rock-stars, laughs, gaffs, jokes, tears, smiles and mostly love went into a sensational place,” wrote Clayton in one of his tweets.

In the other tweet by Clayton, he became nostalgic of the fact that in four months time, he would have celebrated his 14th year at Channel V.

Stynes shared a memory with Channel V when she told her boss she was pregnant and in reply, her boss simply said that she was a young woman and that’s what young women do.

The merging of the two channels has resulted in a number of staff redundancies. Broadcast of the new look V Hits will commence on Feb. 28, Saturday.

“We are making some changes to our music channels on Foxtel. Starting from this Saturday, February 27 you will begin to see some changes to Channel [V]. Following on from that, from March 25, we will no longer use the Channel V brand, which will change to V Hits and V Hits +2,” said a Foxtel representative.

Brian Walsh, the network's executive director of TV gave the news to the staff on Tuesday via email. Although Foxtel declined to comment the number of people who have been asked to leave, Walsh’s ended his email saying, “I would also like to thank those team members leaving us today.”

The reason for this merger has been attributed to the easy availability of music videos on social channels such as YouTube. Linear broadcast audiences for music channels have also been in steady decline. In a bid to run Foxtel’s music services more efficiently, it was decided to merge Channel V with V Hits.

Channel V premiered on Foxtel in 1997.

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