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Gem from the Nine Network, and 7mate from the Seven Network both launched over the weekend, although not in that order.

Long before digital multichannelling got too interesting in Australia I pondered how the commercial networks would approach the tricky task of extending their brands to multiple channels. Channel 4 have done a great job naming their portfolio of channels under the “4″ brand, while the UKTV group have adopted individual brands for each of their many channels.

These two approaches are currently playing out in Australia, with the Seven Network now extending its brand name and logo to 7two and 7mate, while Channel Nine has launched Go! and Gem. Personally I think the impending launch of Eleven is the best branding we’ve seen on a commercial multichannel yet, but that said I’m pretty hot for any branding Channel Ten comes up with.

As for this weekend Gem looks pretty and is a nice start, although perhaps something you might see on an inflight channel, 7mate on the other hand is less a brand and more of a punchline, so lets just say neither of them bowled me over.

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Australian breakfast television news programme Sunrise received a major refresh this morning with new branding and a new set. The new look is neither a great step forward or back from the old, its just different enough that people might notice, but not enough of a significant improvement that anyone will really care.

Next time maybe..

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It’s been a big year for free-to-air TV in Australia. We saw the launch of ONE in March, followed by Go! in August, and today we welcome 7TWO.

Seven’s new channel promises to be the least niche-y of the new digital multichannels, which unlike youthful Go! and sporty ONE don’t seem to be actively appealing to a specific audience.

And the channel launches aren’t over yet with the long awaited launch of ABC3 on December 4th still to come.

Catch the first 6 minutes of the new 7TWO in the video above, should give you a good feel of what its all about.

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Having covered the Sydney and Beijing games already, it seems only fair to fill in the blank that is Athens 2004. These two videos, produced for the Seven Network and the Athens Olympic Broadcasting organisation respectively, prove that the timeless formula of “athletes + cultural imagery = Olympic opener” will apparently never go out of fashion.

- Another big thanks to Christian for the videos.

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These two opening titles for the Sydney 2000 games (aka “the best Olympics games ever“) show just how little creative progress has been made in the field of Olympic television branding. And while they’re not bad, you have to wonder how many more Olympics broadcasts are going to open with video of a guy jumping up and kicking a soccer ball before somebody thinks up a new idea.

The first video is from the Seven network, the Australian broadcaster of the 2000 games, and the second video is the “official” opening sequence, produced by the Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation for international telecasts.

- Huge thanks to Alex and Christian for the videos.

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The Opening Ceremony may still be a day away, but the first event is about to start in the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, which means coverage has begun, and the full Olympic look of Australia’s Seven Network is being rolled out.

The BBC have taken a very unique approach to their Olympics branding, as you’ll see above Seven have stuck with the traditional “gold-infused slow-motion footage of athletes” imagery that seems to be the norm, albeit executed in a very slick fashion.

More Olympics coverage to come throughout the Games.

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On the same day that Starbucks announced they were bailing out Australia, another iconic American brand is launching itself here, hopefully with better results.

TiVo, the personal video recorder that became a verb, went on sale around the country today. Backed by the Seven Network, and with no monthy fees, its being positioned as the anti-Foxtel, although slightly steep at $699, the theory is thats all you’ll ever pay.

Check out the iPod inspired commercial for the new device above.

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Among the commercial networks Ten HD appear to have gone to the most trouble with their branding, and the slow, steady and lackluster look of Nine HD isn’t anything spectacular.

For Seven HD however the current look is a sublime and creative execution of the networks slogan “the difference is clear”, and a huge leap forward from the ident that opened the network back in October.

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Gladiators is making its return to Australian television after a decade off-air, and while I do have fond memories of the show as an 11 year old in primary school, I’m probably less excited about it this time around.

I am however pretty impressed with the epic-of-a-promo thats been on-air recently, there are two versions of the spot, the first is for metro markets and ends with the monolithic Seven logo, and the other ends with the big G for regional networks.

The promo was filmed around Kiama, New South Wales, and was created by Motion Foundry, Tim Barrett, and Graham Donald.

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Channel Seven’s song and dance (literally) about their upcoming programming.

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Fifteen days after the Seven Network launched their digital multichannel Seven HD, regional affiliate Prime Television this evening started to broadcast the same “breakaway” program schedule on their Prime HD channel.

This means viewers in regional Victoria, New South Wales, and the ACT can now also receive the channel and its alternate programming. For more details on the schedule check out the official Seven HD site here.

My pick for the week? The brilliant Kinsey this Wednesday night at 10:30pm.

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Last night the Seven Network dipped its toe into the world of multichanneling with the soft launch of “Australia’s first new commercial television network in four decades”; Seven HD (or 7HD, or “the second Seven Network”).

The press release for the launch promises a third channel within 15 months, and fills us in with these extra details:

This “breakaway” schedule is the first step – with a complete primetime schedule for the second Channel Seven to be launched in the coming weeks. The “look and feel” and on-air presentation marketing and promotion for the new channel will be unveiled to coincide with the launch of the complete schedule for the second Channel Seven in the coming weeks.

With a third channel on the way in 2009 perhaps they should look to Channel 4 in the UK for multichannel name ideas (e4, More4, Film4 etc). Speaking of British inspirations, this current Seven HD look does have a touch of the BBC HD’s about it.

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Samantha Armytage has taken over Lisa Wilkinson’s role on Weekend Sunrise alongside Dear or No Deal host Andrew O’Keefe.

In today’s broadcast she was joined by Seven Brisbane’s Talitha Cummins on news reading duties, but I’m not sure if that is a permanent change.

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Eleven minutes! They talked about The Chaser on Today Tonight tonight for eleven whole minutes. The story basically “revealed” that some of the show is set-up (oh for reals?, because I figured Anthony Mundine hung around Mosque’s all day).

Anyway, there’s no need to defend The Chaser, no one whose ever watched the show will have learned anything new from the story. And Anna Coren questioning how much the ABC spends on the show is a joke, how much does Seven spend on you Anna?

In summary; it’s Simpsonicaly funny, its on ABC tonight at 9pm, or download it here.

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Update: Watch the Today Tonight story in full here.

Update 2: Watch the The Chaser story in full here.

First it was A Current Affair with their puff piece about The Chaser’s War on Everything. Now, it looks like Today Tonight are about to get nasty. The video is a teaser for tomorrow nights story exposing what Anna Coren calls The Chaser’s “fake street cred”.

Today Tonight asked The Chaser if they could shoot a story by coming along with them for a stunt. However, when everything didn’t go how the TT reporter James Thomas hoped for, it would appear they’ve decided to take this angle for the story.

I will post the story in full here after it airs tomorrow night, along with what The Chaser have to say about it on their show too.

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The lesson in this weeks ‘What have we learnt from current affairs’ may have been the “desperate angles” journalists go to to make a story out of nothing, but the real lesson was; How to not act like Naomi Robson… by Anna Coren.

Coren welcomed Chas and Andrew into the Today Tonight studio, made fun of cheque book journalism, and took with good humor the jabs they made about the show. And while this doesn’t make Today Tonight any less a waste of prime time television, it makes Anna Coren look a little more human. Download the whole episode here.

Update: Chas clarifies some stuff in the comments.

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Seven’s 4.30pm news has become Australia’s first news program to simulcast live on the internet. The bulletin is available at yahoo7.com.au/news and while I didn’t watch it today I understand it came with ads and all. Also on my list of things I don’t know about the service: if its available outside Australia. I’m sure the success of this will determine if its rolled out on other Seven news broadcasts.

While this would appear to be a first for Australia I have a feeling a few networks in the US also let you watch their news live online.

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Last nights Lateline probably serves as a bit more of a coherent introduction to the Sunrise/Rudd story then I mentioned in my previous post.

The introduction and story also announce the results of a Newspoll published in The Australian today which shows Rudd remaining steady as “better PM” and the ALP up 2 per cent in two party preferred.

Sunrise has had its moments in the past, from Al Gore’s gushing over their climate change campaign, to David Koch at Beaconsfield and that snow joke (which might explain why Howard’s not a fan), but when yesterday’s biggest news story was the fact that Rudd and Hockey will no longer appear in their weekly segment, it shows the power the ‘sunrise family’ might potentially wield.

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Back in January I suggested that the behind the scenes drama of Sunrise would probably make for a good show in itself. And, while the day to day Hollywood reports and weather wagons probably outweigh anything worthy of a scripted drama, when you start to get people questioning the relationship of the alternative Prime Minister of a nation to the shows producers, throw in angry war veterans, the entire Australian media, and an apparently annoyed station owner who happens to vote the other way it suddenly all becomes pretty interesting.

I like Kevin Rudd, and I like Sunrise, and quite clearly Sunrise likes Kevin Rudd. His presence on the show has raised his profile immensely, I look forward to him being the next Prime Minister of Australia, and I look forward to Sunrise however subtly taking some credit for it.

Read the press release about todays announcement below.

Sunrise heard this morning from both Kevin Rudd and Joe Hockey – who’ve been speaking overnight.

They’ve decided it’s no longer possible to continue as regular weekly guests on Sunrise.

They point to their long standing friendship and their now senior positions they hold in opposing parties.

They’ve both thanked Sunrise viewers for the opportunity to speak candidly every week.

The team at Sunrise understand their decision. Politics can sometimes be a nasty game and it was never the intention of the segment to get bogged down in that.

As such, Sunrise thank them both for their contribution and respect their decision.

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The latest from Australian regional television network Prime.

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Sunrise relaunched its look yesterday, the above videos introduce the new set; take you on a tour of their new home; and talk about the new graphics along with showing off the new weather respectively.

Sunrise has never been about news for me, and Seven probably planned it that way, I still find the subtle humour and drama of the “cast” the most interesting part of the show. It reminds me of Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and while the behind the scenes probably aren’t quite as dramatic I’d like to think it would make for just as interesting a show.

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Sunrise may be at the top of it game, but thats not going to stop them from keeping fresh and hopefully winning over what viewers remain from the fallen star that is Nine’s Today Show.

Besides a visual refresh (sets and graphics) a few new segments are being introduced, including one aimed right at the epitome of The Today Show’s stuffiness… Alan Jones;

The Other Editorial will be a daily shot at Alan Jones’ gig on Today featuring comedians such as Jonesy and Amanda, Peter Berner, Fifi Box, Paul Murray and The Sandman “covering everything from social etiquette to celebrity appraisal.”

So look out for that later this month & the new weather person (figured it out yet?).

Above is video of this mornings opener, and for contrast what it looked like nearly a year ago.

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Apple announced the iPhone early yesterday morning Australian time, and like every other Mac toting 21-year-old I obviously want one. The only problem is it won’t be released here until 2008.

That didn’t stop SBS, Seven, Ten and Nine all covering the story in their evening bulletins (what, too good to plug an unreleased product ABC?). I’m unashamedly an Apple fan (heck I own shares), but I just can’t think of another company that makes this big of a positive splash (see videos) a year out from release.

Initially it was thought the audio was from within the doco and someone looped, however it since came out that the audio is actually from footage of an convoy in Iraq thats been on YouTube since September. Footage of the audio screw up and the footage from Iraq is after the jump.

The footage from Seven below, Prime didn’t play the loop for as long, they went silent before everyone went to a 10 minute ad break to sort things out.

The footage from Iraq below, the line that found itself somehow looped on Seven occurs at about 2 minutes in.

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Naomi Robson’s five minute farewell certainly was a tear jerker (for her at least), and the cavalcade of well wisher was certainly impressive.. Kerry Stokes, and um, Steve Vizard.

Kochie and Mel’s invite to drop by Sunrise reminded me how rarely we saw Naomi outside of TT’s studio cocoon, and may be the reason that its so laughable that someone as unrelatable and insular as Robson thinks she can be Australia’s Oprah.

In summary: Fuck the autocue, I need to save a child you dummies!

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Borat talked to David Koch this morning on Sunrise at 7:50am. They chatted about breakfast television, being a sex symbol, and Melbourne Gibson. Its a shame it couldn’t have been live in studio, would have been good to see him interact with the whole gang.

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The Chaser may do a good job putting A Current Affair and Today Tonight in its place, but nothing is quite as fun as the crap these two shows come out with themselves.

So with Naomi Robson being deported from Indonesia while trying to save Wa Wa from cannibals, lets have a look at how the two rival networks covered the event.

And be sure to see the story following the Wa Wa report, its good to see so much diversity.

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Like I’ve said before Canberra only gets the SBS EPG, but on my recent night in Sydney I managed to capture Nine’s new guide, and Seven’s as well. Ten’s remains embarrassingly out of date so I didn’t bother with it.

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Spent the weekend before last in Sydney, and caught these Seven idents, you can forget there is a whole world outside of Prime sometimes. Another one below.

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Julian Morrows brief appearance on Sixty Minutes last night caught me completely by surprise (what surprised me even more was that I was watching Sixty Minutes), so I didnt get a chance to record it.

I did however have some warning that Chris and Craig were going to be on Sunrise and recorded the whole thing this morning. They talk about Chris earlier scripted appearance on Sunrise, and of course the DVD thats just come out of the first half of the current season of the Chasers War.