Foxtel axes drama channel

FremantleMedia Australia’s prison drama Wentworth

Australia’s dominant pay TV platform Foxtel is closing a five-year-old drama channel and shifting most of its key shows to a sibling network.

SoHo, the home of Australian dramas Wentworth and A Place to Call Home and US series including Outlander, The Americans, Nashville, Shameless and Bates Motel, will go dark on September 30.

On October 1 it will be replaced by Binge, which will screen entire seasons of library shows aimed at the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics.

Axing SoHo, which launched in 2012, is designed to strengthen sibling Showcase, the self-billed home of HBO in Australia that airs Game of Thrones, Veep, The Night Of, The Leftovers and Girls, a key component of Foxtel’s drama pack.

Most of SoHo’s content, including Allegiance, The Killing, The Big C, Longmire, Rogue, Scandal, The West Wing and local drama 800 Words, will migrate to Showcase.

Some shows – such as Grey’s Anatomy, Saving Hope, Drop Dead Diva and local dramas Winners & Losers and All Saints – will move to Arena, while Chicago Fire goes to Fox 8, Bones to TV Hits and Cougar Town to 111, all part of the entertainment pack.

Binge will aim to build on the success of Foxtel’s BoxSets channel, which launched in 2014 modelled on Sky UK’s Box Sets. It offers full seasons of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, Empire, Girls, Californication, Veep and Grimm. Foxtel will announce further shows for Binge close to its launch.

As well as being included in the drama pack, Binge will be available on Foxtel’s on-demand streaming service Anytime. The appeal of the drama pack is believed to have waned this year due to competition from Netflix’s Australian service and from Stan, the SVoD platform co-owned by Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. Netflix is thought to have upwards of 1.8 million subscribers and Stan has around 600,000, versus 2.9 million for Foxtel.

A Foxtel spokesman denied the suggestion that SoHo’s content had been depleted after Stan secured exclusive deals with CBS Corp’s Showtime and US cablenet Starz.

Foxtel executive director of TV Brian Walsh said: “This move enables us to further strengthen showcase, making it the premier super channel on the Foxtel platform.

“At Foxtel we strive to provide our customers with viewing options that suit them. Since the launch of BoxSets in 2014, the service has been embraced by audiences across the country. As more and more people adopt on-demand viewing, the addition of Binge will give our subscribers even more choice of quality, must-watch content.”