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Australia’s newest television station is on the air. Check out the launch and opening minutes of the new channel in this video. Now what’s launching next..

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January 11th, 2011 will see the launch of a new free to air Australian television channel aptly enough called Eleven. The new channel will be the last (for now) of the free to air multichannels and the first general entertainment offering from Ten, who currently only offer a sports channel to compliment their main offering.

A joint venture between CBS and Channel Ten the new channel is aimed at the 13-29 year old crowd, and will become the new home of The Simpsons and long suffering soap Neighbours. Eleven is part of a larger strategic change within Ten that includes extending nightly news through primetime slots previously occupied by The Simpsons and Neighbours.

As with all things the Ten Network do, this new channel has fairly spot on branding and targeting along with the programming to back it up. Something that can’t entirely be said for 7mate or GEM.

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Ahh sports.. Yep, it’s that thing I know nothing about, and the reason I’ve never been any good at inter-office small talk. That said, I do genuinely feel like I’m missing out something and wish I was able to appreciate it.

The closest I get to it is an episode of Sports Night, and that’s about as smug as you can get, and unfortunately for its nothing people want to discuss around the office.

But enough about my problems at work. We’ve got six beautiful idents from ONE HD, displaying the grace and beauty of sports, avoiding the crass and overly graphic take some other sports networks adopt.

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Australia’s newest channel just launched. ONE, the new free to air sports channel from the Ten Network officially kicked off this evening at 7:30pm.

Check out the first two minutes of the new channel on air above.

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The free to air digital multichannel revolution may finally-perhaps-kinda be upon us. From March 26th the Ten Network will be the first of the commercial networks to launch a fully fledged 24/7 digital multichannel in the form of ONE, a sports dedicated free to air channel.

Ten’s decision to launch a whole new brand for the channel, instead of simply launching ‘Ten Sports’ seems to be working. The look and feel of ONE is very polished, contemporary and inviting, no surprise though from the only commercial channel that seems to have any idea about how to brand.

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Channel Ten have rejigged their news branding, with before and after videos above, I’m sure you’ll be as dissapointed as me with the new look. And in case you can’t tell which is the new look, its the one with all the not so subtle Sony Vaio laptops and abrupt music transitions when they start talking about sport.

And you wonder why people make so much fun of broadcast news these days.

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Did you know there was an Emmy for best main title design? One company that knows all about it is Digital Kitchen, who in 2002 won for their stunning work on the Six Feet Under opener, and scored big again last year with the titles for Dexter.

Dexter made its free to air debut in Australia this week, but both seasons were already over with on subscription television, with Foxtel’s new Showcase channel launching itself on the back of everyone’s favourite serial killer.

I watched both seasons of Dexter over summer, and became enthralled with the adventures of the dysfunctional Dexter Morgan, which brings me to my question..

Why didn’t Ten just pick this up in the first place? Free to air television isn’t exactly proving its relevance by letting Dexter (and others) make their debuts on pay TV.

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The good folks at Motion Foundry have been nice enough to cobble together the whole “look” of Ten HD into 30 seconds of video for us. I still can’t receive Ten HD were I live, so I guess this is the closest I’ll get to watching it for now.

While I certainly have my problems with Ten in general (for example, I don’t watch it) the on-air graphics for Ten HD are quite appealing, and if they ever got around to playing current episodes of The Office I’d probably sit down and watch.

For more from Ten HD check out the intro and ident videos as well.

- Thanks to Alex for the video, and Jane Eakin who commissioned the design.

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As boring as it is to watch fireworks on television, last nights coverage of Sydney’s NYE celebrations did have one saving grace.. they played “No Cars Go” by Arcarde Fire!

I first heard the song when it was used in a promo for Top Gear, and have been totally enamored by it ever since, listen to the song in its entirety below:

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With just over a fortnight left until the December 16th launch of Ten HD, more details continue to emerge, including some more specifics on the first week of programming, and a new video to compliment the earlier introduction to Ten HD promo.

Unlike the first video, theres no talking (or accents) to worry about, just a cover of Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now and a concept that visualises for us how much better the world can apparently be in high definition. Again, the very slick production is the work of Jane Eakin and Motion Foundry who it seems will be responsible for the on-air look of the new network.

With Seven HD already on the air, and Ten HD just a few weeks away, its just Nine HD, not due until March next year that will round out Australia’s commercial networks first foray into digital multichanneling.

- Thanks again to Alex from Motion Foundry for the video.

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I realise this news is now a week old, but I was only just reminded that I actually had footage to accompany it. Basically, if you haven’t heard, Charmaine Dragun, a 29 year old journalist and news anchor for Network Ten tragically committed suicide last week. Read more about her life, career and battle with depression here.

A public memorial will be held on Monday, and in lieu of flowers the family is asking that donations be made to Beyond Blue.

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Less than two weeks ago Channel Seven very softly launched Seven HD, their foray into commercial multichanneling. With Seven HD on air, Network Ten looks next to launch with their service, Ten HD, which is promising 50 hours of new programming a week (is that Friday Night Lights I see in the promo?).

The above promo for Ten HD, created by Jane Eakin and Motion Foundry is a light hearted introduction to the new channel, which goes some of the way to explain to the uninitiated what the new service is all about.

With the Seven HD logo taking some inspiration from BBC HD, its no surprise that the Ten HD logo has a whiff of the ABC America high definition logo in its design. I look forward to seeing how derivative the Nine HD logo will be.

- Thanks to Alex from Motion Foundry for the video.

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The American version of The Office is without a doubt, one of the best sitcoms around. It is one month from today until the fourth season starts in the US, but tonight on Ten, you can catch the beginning of season three, which may not make a lot of sense to the uninitiated since the second season ends on a cliffhanger.. but anyway.

Ten treated this show pretty horribly, pulling it from prime time when the pilot didn’t rate well, and then playing a bunch of episodes late on Sunday nights. Well now they’re giving it kind of a chance, playing it at 10:25pm tonight after Californication.

If you haven’t seen it before, the first two seasons are on DVD, and season three is all over the net, so like I said with Weeds on 9, do yourself a favour and watch it at your own leisure, because you know Ten is just going to end up pissing you off somehow.

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Neighbours, the great Australian soap, got a revamp today. Ratings were dropping, and with the BBC not willing to pay £300m for an eight year contract I guess they decided it was time something was done.

The new look has a few new faces, loses a few old faces, will tone down the crazy storylines, and hopefully start to “look” a lot better now that its all being shot in HD.

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Motion Foundry continue their series of Channel Ten idents, this time forking off into the world of News. These are just as slick as the other Ten idents and stick with the “I believe..” concept. The black background actually feels more effective than the white backgrounds used in the other idents.

That said, I hardly ever watch Ten News, and doubt I would have seen these if it wasn’t for Alex at Motion Foundry, so thanks!

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Ten’s new idents got a serving last night for their love of imported content.

Download last nights entire episode right now from the ABC here.

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Thanks to Alex from Motion Foundry for sending me their latest creation, the new look, celebrity filled Channel Ten identity.

According to the press release the talent in these idents were shot in L.A., New York, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Using the stars of a networks shows in promos can be a risky thing, you don’t want it to look like a contractual chore, and I just can’t help wondering if shooting them “in character” was the best idea.

Channel 4 shot a brilliant series with talent stretching over heaps of their shows. But, instead of getting them to say the network slogan, or play in character, they just had them answer simple questions about life (favourite swear word, happiest moment) and the final product is a stunning and refreshing take on the use of celebrities in network promos.

I’ve always had a love/hate thing with Channel Ten, but as long as they keep feeding me Simpsons and Letterman I’ll be happy.

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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.

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I remember when I used to really like Ten, not sure what happened, but here’s what they’re doing for summer.

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You’ve probably already seen the teaser trailer, but last night in the States on Fox, and tonight on Channel Ten in Australia a new trailer for the Simpsons Movie was released.

Enjoy it here in all its watermarked glory.

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The UK and Australian opening sequences of Big Brother, is it just Australia, or do all Big Brother houses around the world get filled up with the same demographic of people? (Can’t think of a euphemism for “bogan“).

You learn something new everyday on Wikipedia, and in my attempt to bring you some sort of mildy informed commentary on Big Brother, I’ve come up with this…

In George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four, the phrase ‘two plus two equals five’ is used to describe the control “the State” has over the people of Orwell’s dystopia, and the main character of the book, Winston Smith wonders that if everyone believes it, does it make it true?

But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrie that two plus two equals four.

It turns out that Radiohead also have a song called 2+2=5, which is meant to reference the symbol of unreality from the novel.

(Thanks Craig for the UK clip)

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Its been nearly a year since I last compared the three commercial news opening sequences, and while not much has changed for Seven or Ten (except the Rowe thing), Nine have been tinkering away.

These were all captured last night, so they all compare the same stories, and they are all dominated by the backdown of the Prime Minister over the sale of the Snowy Hydro.

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The updated warnings from Network Ten, I haven’t seen the Seven ones, but both Ten and Nine now use the new classification logos. Are they being told to?

ABC hasn’t adopted the new symbols, but they still easily do it the best for me.

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Ten’s latest 60 second ident, they’re still going with the ‘what I like about you’ theme.

I’m not a fan of the “all our celebrities partying” thing, at least Channel Nine’s ‘Still the One’ song and dance had something a bit more inspired (even if it is apparently a rip of some Michael Buble video clip).

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This is a few weeks old now, but Ten have always done well by The O.C. after Nine dumped it, and although I don’t watch the show, it always seems to have cool music.

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These little 4 second pieces have been popping up just as a program goes to commercial on Ten (more succinctly known as breakbumpers), there seem to be a quite a few variations of them, most with people I didn’t recognise (Neighbours people I’m guessing).

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Network Ten’s refresh has kind of caught me off guard, but I’m slowly getting more videos together, this one is their new signposts (is that the right word?).

To see what the old one looked like, click here.

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Things have been changing over at Ten, and I know this isn’t the biggest of changes, but I thought it was interesting.

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Just some of the new promos for SVU, the footage not in 16:9 must have been supplied by the studio as promotional material, but I really like it, and the music on the first video is nice and dramatic. The second video is for a specific episode, the simple black and white graphics at the end are really good though I think.

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I’ve been watching The Simpsons for more then 3/4 of my life, longer then i’ve had the internet, and its probably been a bigger influence on me then my parents combined, what more can I say.