This is a highly reductive but completely true statement: if you are male and between the ages of 16-49 then your ideal television-watching experience involves flashes of side boob and dudes getting hit in the gonads. At least that’s what Seven’s newly launched digital offering 7mate is hoping, as it today unveiled a promotional video featuring more exploding cars and disrobing women than that ad Michael Bay did for Victoria’s Secret.
As revealed today, the channel will launch September 25 to coincide with coverage of the AFL finals. Says Tim Worner, Seven’s Director of Programming and Production: “We’re using the biggest sports event to launch 7mate but this new channel will be so much more than sport. We are after the most elusive demographic in media and we think we’ve got the offering to get them.“
Right, the demographic so elusive we cannot identify who they are. Men? Women? Dogs? Looking at the programming schedule (see below) it’s clear that male-centric offerings are in abundance (Ax Men, Jacked: Auto Theft Taskforce, Mega Movers, Air Crash Investigation) but it’s also painfully clear, with the likes of Family Guy, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother all poised to grace Australian screens with more regularity, that the main beneficiary of 7mate is not just people with penises but people with a sense of humour. Humans huh?
Programming will include: Family Guy, American Dad, Parks and Recreation, Last Comic Standing, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, That 70s Show, Scrubs, Crank Yankers, Caprica, Warehouse 13, Stargate Atlantis, Jersey Shore, Pawn Stars, Punk’d, Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels, Monster Garage, Fifth Gear, The Universe, Life After People, The Boneyard, Ax Men, Jacked: Auto Theft Taskforce, Mega Movers, Mega Structures, Air Crash Investigation, Shockwave, The Ringer, Strangers, Primeval.
