SYDNEY: Optus Television will launch two general entertainment channels on 1 October which will both carry advertising Ñ Oh! and Animal Planet. Oh! is aimed at a broad audience, and will carry the first series of the high rating ABC program, Sea Change. Animal Planet is a joint venture between the BBC and Discovery Communications, and will attract more women and kids than the documentary-oriented Discovery Channel, which has a slightly male audience skew. Animal Planet will look for sponsorship and advertising in a range of categories, with pet food one obvious target. It will be locally programmed with a mix of comedy, drama, non-fiction and kids shows such as Skippy, which all explore the relationship between animals and humans. Both channels will be available only to Tele Delux subscribers, who will pay $37.95 extra to receive a package that includes the main movie and sports channels. Optus is the smallest of all pay TV platforms with only 215,000 subscribers, but the two new channels are not designed to increase subscriber levels. Rather than push only for pay TV subscriptions, Cable & Wireless Optus wants to offer bundled services of pay TV, Internet, and long distance, local and mobile telephony. Evan Mistilis
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