Dan Ilic, a freelance filmmaker and comedian, and Triple J presenter Marc Fennell, distilled many of the criticisms into a satire video that used footage from Freeview's ads but with a different voice over. "With up to 15 digital channels, you can watch the same thing on up to four different channels ... you can watch sports you've never heard of , news you can't understand and even question time!" it says.

The video attracted almost 12,000 views in just a few days before it was removed from the site. However, Freeview's attempts to quash its momentum are likely to backfire as new versions of the clip have already been published on YouTube and other video sharing sites such as FunnyorDie.com, Dailymotion.com and Break.com. "I think Freeview pulled down this video as one last ditch effort in an attempt to combat new media and I think it's only the first battle in a war that they're going to lose," said Ilic. "Now i'm going to tell my friends to download the original version [of the satire video] and put it on YouTube, so hopefully there'll be a few hundred more versions of the video on YouTube and other sites by the end of the day."

Ilic said he and Fennell made the clip for a stand up routine called Massage My Medium, which they will be performing during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival between April 21 and 26. He said the show was "all about the death of television". Freeview did not return calls requesting comment, however, it is understood the satire video was removed from YouTube following a copyright violation claim from the company.

Google, which owns YouTube, will only remove YouTube videos on the basis of copyright if it is satisfied that the objection has been lodged by the original owner of the copyrighted material. Its use of copyright law to have the video removed is ironic because the footage from the ad, Ford claimed, is itself a rip-off of a Ford Fiesta ad that aired in Europe last year. Of the 15 channels promoted by Freeview, five are the existing digital free-to-air channels, another five are high-definition versions of the existing channels with mostly identical content, while the remaining five channels can be used by the networks for additional programming.

Of these remaining five channels, ABC has already launched ABC 2, while Ten has announced it will launch a channel dedicated to sport, One, on March 26. Seven has said its new channel will go to air mid-year but has not said what content it will carry.

Nine's new digital channel will launch in the second half of this year but will reportedly be limited to repeats of programs shown on Nine's main channel two hours earlier. With the global economic crisis biting and research indicating that Australians are spending more time on the internet than watching television, free-to-air networks are struggling to maintain advertising revenue on their existing channels, let alone sell enough ads to fund additional content on new digital channels.