Optus Television
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| Division of Optus | |
| Industry | Pay television |
| Founded | 19 September 1995 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
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Area served
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Australia |
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Key people
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Paul O'Sullivan chief executive |
| Products | Optus TV featuring Foxtel Foxtel iQ (Via Foxtel) Yes TV from Fetch |
| Parent | Optus |
| Website | www.optus.com.au |
Optus Television is the cable television division of Australian telecommunications company Optus.
Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between, Optus and Continental Cablevision with small shareholdings by media companies Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and Seven Network. The Optus Vision joint venture was founded to handle residential cable television and local telephony, while its parent concentrated on corporate, long-distance, satellite and interstate communications. Optus Vision used a hybrid fibre coaxial cable network to connect homes to its network. Optus Vision added broadband cable internet access to its network.
Optus Vision used the Optus telecommunications licence as authority to build a cable network. The Optus Vision network was rolled out in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The major competitor to Optus Vision was Foxtel, a 50/50 joint venture between Telstra and News Corporation. These competed heavily in the metropolitan areas.
Optus Vision negotiated exclusive access to AFL (Aussie Rules) football Rugby League, and other sports. It also had exclusive access to Disney Channel, ESPN and MTV Australia though it always lacked the general entertainment channels that Foxtel had. Optus Vision commenced its Cable TV service in September 1995, one month before Foxtel, delivering a limited number of channels to a small number of subscribers, all of whom were connected via its Blacktown Exchange.
From 1995 to 1997, the Super League War waged between the two consortia over lucrative rugby league rights. In March 1997, Optus bought out the other shareholders in exchange for equity in itself, to float.
In 2002 Optus let go of some of its exclusive content contracts, replacing them with non-exclusive ones. MTV Australia, Disney Channel ESPN and the premium Movie Network channels all became available on Foxtel as soon as they were able.
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