The first four minutes of Eleven.

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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..

Get ready to say He11o.

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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.

Six of ONE. Half a dozen of the other.

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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.

Thursday Night Lights: The launch of ONE.

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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.

ONE new channel from March 26th.

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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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Ten News changes its look, now even noisier.

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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.

Darkly dreaming of the dearly devoted Dexter.

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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.