History
The channel began life as the FX in 1995 and became available on Austar in April 1999. It was relaunched as W. in 2003, shortly before digital broadcasting began. W screened original Australian programming such as Beauty and the Beast, Love My Way, From Here to Maternity and Studio A with Simon Burke. It also had Pay-TV rights to many popular U.S. primetime drama series such as Pushing Dasies and The Wire and repeats of many other series.
Antonia Kidman, sister of actress Nicole Kidman was the face of the W channel, for quite some time and has presented a few parenting and entertainment programs for this and other channels. W2, the timeshift channel broadcasting programs two hours later, was launched in September 2006. A website for the channel was also launched in September 2006.
W. underwent a transformation in April 2009, which included an updated logo (now simply W) and several new additions to the primetime line-up. W HD was launched on 15 November 2009, on both Austar and Foxtel.
In 2012, it was announced that SoHo will broadcast the new Australian drama Wentworth, a re-imaging of the classic television show Prisoner. It will air in 2013.
Read more about this topic: W Channel (Australia)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)