As of this week, the Sony Film Channel isn’t any extra. A staple of the Freeview period of tv, the SMC and its spin-offs have allowed viewers to get pleasure from half-decent cinema, in their very own residence, free, for years. However now the channel has come to an finish. As a substitute, the long run is Nice!
Nice! Films is the title of the brand new channel that’s to switch the outdated channel however will present the identical movies in the identical place. There will probably be equally rebranded siblings too – Nice! Films Motion and Nice! Films Basic however not Nice! Films Asshole! Because of its agenda-setting break with syntax and the attendant suggestion of an entire important lobotomy, Nice! Films has all of the hallmarks of a swift proper hook from modernity.
The rapid query, with or with out the addition of a number of exclamation marks, could be: why? Why would you ditch a reputation synonymous with cinema for one thing that might be something from a model of pet food to a kind of scouring pad? What Nice! technique is at work?
It’s not just like the channel is struggling. “It’s a type of issues that for those who don’t watch them you assume nobody else does, however really the viewers for the Sony Film Channel is sort of huge,” says Tom Harrington, a TV skilled on the analysis firm Enders Evaluation. On common, slightly below 1,000,000 individuals within the UK watch at the very least three minutes of the channel a day, which is greater than Comedy Central or Cartoon Community and about half the viewers of Dave. Over the previous yr, its hottest movies have been Die Onerous with a Vengeance, a Jason Statham car referred to as Homefront during which James Franco performs a Louisiana meth baron, and Fairly Lady.
“I’d say about 70% of their viewers is over 55,” Harrington says. “That’s fairly outdated. However the viewers has been secure over the previous few years. And one factor about an older viewers is that they’re much less more likely to be recording, watching it later and fast-forwarding the adverts.” As a free-to-air channel SMC relies on adverts and, like many related channels, it runs brief information bulletins in the course of its movies to permit it to get round OfCom guidelines limiting the quantity you may present an hour.
Sony Film Channel seems to be doing a good job of channelling Sony motion pictures to the general public and creating wealth off the again of it. So far as the TV viewers is worried, a brand new title is unlikely to do far more, in line with Harrington. “Possibly it is going to catch individuals’s eyes on the EPG,” he says, “however most viewers are going to lookup what is definitely on moderately than the title of the channel.”
Model guide Cara Bendon isn’t precisely persuaded by Nice! both. She describes the title as “pretty generic” and says it “doesn’t really feel like a thought-about, consumer-focused selection” however extra like a choice pushed by enterprise considerations. “If you need your title to make individuals consider you’re nice, it must sound aspirational,” she says. “The phrase ‘Nice’ and the exclamation mark have a extra dated, nostalgic really feel, harking back to high 10 lists of movies.”
So what’s going on? At this stage it ought to be identified that Nice! is below new possession. Earlier this month Sony bought its UK TV channels to a US funding agency referred to as Narrative Capital. An organization which invests in “all the life cycle and world distribution of mental property”, Narrative has purchased the channels and licensed the identical content material – all the pieces from the Sony film library, plus a load of TV reveals – however determined to present it a brand new title.
Narrative Leisure’s chief govt, Daniel Levin, suggests the title is a “wink, a nod to an outdated good friend”. “For those who requested me what Rambo or Blade Runner 2049 or The Graduate have in frequent,’” he says, “I’d say: they’re nice!”
Levin explains Nice! values in different, equally tough to fairly get on board with formulations, however he additionally acknowledges that, sure, the Nice! channels are more likely to be relaunched as an advertising-funded video on demand service and that, sure, these providers will in all probability be made out there to extra nations than simply the UK. With that in thoughts, there are solely so many names that work on TV, on an app, with young and old individuals, in Sweden in addition to Swindon. And superlatives work more durable than most.
“Over one in two adults aged 16 or over watched this portfolio in 2020,” Levin says, ultimately explaining his funding. “We’ve zeroed on in on this [business] as a result of we predict it’s a terrific springboard and an exquisite method to join with lovers of movie and leisure. It’s not for a scarcity of seeing what’s on the market. We’re very excited by the chance.”
It involves one thing once you’re pining for the times of channels being named after a very good, old style Japanese electronics conglomerates, however at the very least the Sony Film Channel meant somefactor. As Bendon observes: “Sony’s title is synonymous with prime quality know-how.” (She additionally notes that Sony has a fame for altering the names of its channels, and the earlier title for the Sony Film Channel was Movies4Men.) Now, the worth of embracing a world digital future seems to be a reputation that’s much less a assure of high quality and extra a imprecise anaesthetised sentiment equal to the sensation you get once you discover 50p down the again of the couch. Such are the side-effects of progress.
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