Foxtel farewells 3D TV, citing lack of content
The content never got beyond two dimensions, now the images stay that way
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3D TV continues its nation-by-nation slide into obscurity and irrelevance, with Foxtel in Australia joining the long list of TV broadcasters and Pay TV providers making the weary and footsore slog to the woodshed with its once-favourite pet.
The Pay TV provider has decided that its 3D channel 201 will run down the curtain and join the choir invisible on August 27, sometime between 4am and 6am, causing massive inconvenience to the one or two Australians that believed the hype and bought the boxes.
It's yet another signal success for a technology which was supposed to give consumers a reason to part with their money, put down their iPads, mute the smartphones, get away from the Internet, and sit around in front of flat screens waiting for producers to deliver content that didn't suck.
“Due to a worldwide lack of 3D content production it is no longer viable for Foxtel to maintain a dedicated 3D channel”, says this announcement (Foxtel's own press release site being more appropriately dedicated to stoking the fires of its new Foxtel Play service).
The provider promises that there will be “occasional” 3D movie titles offered as pay-per-view on Foxtel's On Demand service, presumably to provide some tiny shred of comfort to buyers of 3D TVs in Australia.
Foxtel's Australian offering follows into oblivion the 3D channels of the BBC and ESPN into the unmarked graves of services that have been promised since the 1950s but somehow nobody ever really wanted. ®
