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ELEVEN is on the air

"Stick around you're going to love ELEVEN," Labby and Stav tell viewers as Australia's newest Free to Air channel hits the screen.

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Australia officially has a new TV channel, as ELEVEN began programming at 11am today.

Channel hosts Labby and Stav welcomed viewers by running through some of the feature titles including Neighbours, The Simpsons, Supernatural, Nurse Jackie, Californication, Futurama and more.

“Labby and Stav here, we want you to join us weekdays from 4:00 for Couch Time, where we play back some classic TV show,” said Labby.

“That’s right we’ve got Happy Days, we’ve got The Brady Bunch, we’ve got Family Ties, and a whole stack more as well,” said Stav.

“Stick around you’re going to love ELEVEN,” added Labby.

The purple-themed youth channel then launched into a first-run episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson with the Scottish-American host dropping lots of Aussie gags in his opening monologue.

“Australians, if you’re watching this show for the first time on …what is it, Channel ELEVEN… oh, that’s my favourite channel in Australia…(swear) it is now…, ” he said.

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘Wait a minute he doesn’t sound Australian at all!’ it’s because this is how Americans speak nowadays!”

He dropped more Aussie gags throughout the show including “A dingo stole my baby.” Duh.

The show will be repeated tonight at 10:30pm followed by a new episode.

A joint venture between TEN and CBS, ELEVEN is available in metro locations on channel 11 and in regional areas on channel 55 (retune your TV to find). It is available via Southern Cross Media across regional markets in Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania; Spencer Gulf and Broken Hill; and broadcasts in Mildura by Mildura Digital Television. Southern Cross Media will also offer ELEVEN to those regions with access to the VAST satellite service.

Foxtel cable subscribers can access ELEVEN via Channel 131. It is not available yet to satellite subscribers.

The new channel boosts the number of Free to Air channels on offer in the battle with Pay Television.

Freeview CEO Robin Parkes said: “ELEVEN’S launch marks a great day for TV viewers.

“Millions of Australians right across the country can now enjoy yet another free digital multi-channel. There are now ten free digital multi-channels that have been launched since Freeview was formed just over two years ago, a period that has seen an incredible expansion in the available choice of free, quality TV entertainment.”

However the timing of the channel launch was upstaged by the devastating floods in Queensland and the aftermath of Toowoomba’s ‘inland tsunami.’ As ELEVEN launched, Premier Bligh was giving a press conference in which she advised of 8 people dead, 72 missing and a toll that expected to rise. Areas of Brisbane, where ELEVEN’s own host studio is based, were now on flood alert.

For more information on ELEVEN visit eleven.com.au

-oh, and first request of ELEVEN: can we please make the logo transparent and not solid?

98 Responses

  1. Thanks vinny, I thought that could be the case.

    Here in Caloundra on the Sunshine coast (yes we haven’t been washed away yet) we get both Brisbane and Sunshine coast TV reception. Thus we have 55 and 11 but I have noticed the Brisbane channels including 7, 9, 10 and 1 sometimes break up, where as 6, 8, 5 and 12 work fine.

    And weather related (I think) at time all the ABC channels have at time dropped out over the last few days.

  2. @ Craig – According to a podcast with David Mott, Go! loses the rights to Get Smart very soon as they only had the rights to some seasons whilst 11 will have the rights to all seasons.

    That is why Hogan’s Heroes is not on GO! anymore.

  4. i have got eleven on channels 55 and 363 but not 11 which according to my set top box is still showing up as a HD channel and thats after scanning a few times

  5. I just noticed GO! has Get Smart on (right now) but then switched to ELEVEN and it had a promo for Get Smart. First great classic TV but seriously 2 competing FTA channels with the same show!

  6. @Jezza & @Lewis

    Don’t just rescan – Delete all of your channels first, then do a full scan – I had the same problem. This will fix it

    You can lose the CBS watermark with pixel algorithm software – but they would still want to plaster their own logo

    And as usual – lets watch them scramble around changing the schedule for the next few months

  7. Still got a while to wait here in Perth. Though I was looking at the advance guide and noticed for Saturday night they have Get Smart and Hogan Heroes ….. oh ELEVEN (insert sarcasm) my favourites .. thank you so much.

  9. Nice touch with the 60 second countdown with the simpsons characters edited to count the last 10 secs. Did other channels do anything like that for their launches?

  10. I really hate those two guys. Totally cliché radio lamers. Hopefully they will only appear for those old afternoon shows from now on, I don’t want to ever see them again when I watch Ferguson.

  11. At least having having a proper into them Craig Ferguson do him own bit was way better than what GO! did, which was cut strait to the US game show! Wish I had recorded the intros now…

  13. @ Guy well Eleven is not supposed to hurt Ten’s main channel because supposedly Ten is going to be older skewing from now on although I haven’t seen any evidence of this yet. and Eleven is going to be what Ten has been. Ten’s main channel really needs a makeover and a whole new relaunch to make this happen if they want to get older audiences in and be broader skewing.

  15. Of the new multi-channels, eleven has been the one I’ve been looking forward to the most. for mine it has great potential, and will rival 7mate and Go. I’m definately not the demographic for 7two (in fact, I think it’s rubbish, and don’t think there has been a single show that I’ve watched on it during a quick flick around). GEM has a handful of shows that I watch, but eleven looks to be the goods.

    Can I ask why eleven was announced before 7Mate and GEM, but launched many months after? I have two theories – 1) that they wanted to wait for 11/1/11 (which I think is neat, but wouldn’t make me hold up a channel for months over), or 2) that they got wind of the other two channels so wanted to announce first to get the upper hand, but weren’t as ready as the others to launch…or it could be something else entirely…

  16. I feel this will hurt GO! and 7mate more than 7TWO and Gem. It will be interesting to see how it develops. Also i think that because of the young skewing this seems to have it will also hurt TEN’s main channel. I don’t get why you would do that.

    The schedule is ok but there could be a lot more content that TEN has its hands on and could be using. Maybe they are waiting for the ratings period to roll out more?

  17. I know Labby and Stav’s work well from B105, and I can’t say I think they’re a great fit, although I do like the hosting in the arvos format – very T4.
    Bit sad that their arvo line-up seems to be the same shows I was watching in the afternoon when I was a kid – and they were reruns then. Surely there have been some dodgy sitcoms in the last 20 years that they could show.

  19. David I thought youd know better the 11 watermark is solid in the late late show because it needs to cover the CBS symbol which is watermarked in they do it on all the channels when a US watermark is embedded nine even put a little splash to cover abc

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