The long-running Australian soap opera Home and Away will soon be offering historic episodes on a new Freeview TV channel, in addition to its ongoing run of brand-new episodes on Channel 5.
That’s TV 2 is a sister station of That’s TV whereby great series including Humans, Baywatch, and Prisoner: Cell Block H will be aired. On Wednesday, January 3rd, it will go live on Freeview channel 65, Sky channel 188, and Freesat channel 181.
In honor of the soap opera’s 35th anniversary, Home and Away episodes will be broadcast, providing fans with a chance to relive the initial episodes of the program, which haven’t been on terrestrial TV since its inception.
“Over the past year That’s TV has reached new heights and we now have a schedule bursting with iconic TV shows from Benidorm to Shameless,” said Kris Vaiksalu, Head of Programming for That’s TV and That’s TV 2.
“We would want to present so many more classic TV shows, but we just don’t have enough hours in the day. I then pondered, “What would Einstein do?” We are incredibly thrilled and honored to be launching That’s TV 2 as our second archival TV station, even though it has taken a lot of work.”
Happy 35 years to us! #HomeandAway #35years #summerbay #birthday #anniversary pic.twitter.com/5NnvcrVbxO
— Home and Away (@homeandaway) January 17, 2023
Vaiksalu continued: “Our aim is to make it a complete nostalgia-fest with such iconic shows from the beginning as Home and Away, Humans, Prisoner Cell Block H and Baywatch. That’s TV 2 does what it says on the tin – it’s a second helping of iconic TV from the That’s TV team.”
Home and Away first started airing on 17th January 1988, and Channel 5 acquired the rights to the Australian soap in 2000. The channel has been airing brand new episodes ever since.
Fans were concerned about the future of Home and Away when Neighbours, which was later revived, was canceled in 2022. However, Channel 5’s director of programming, Ben Frow, stated that there was no chance the serial opera would be canceled by the network beforehand.
“It will be interesting to see what we do with it as we evolve,” he stated. It could be placed elsewhere in the five spectrum. However, because it is a life-of-series agreement, it will remain in place until its creators decide to end it.