ABC3’s Kayne Tremills and Amberley Lobo will host Countdown to 3 at 5pm on ABC1 before a live studio audience.

The cast of ABC3’s Dance Academy will perform, and there are appearances from CJ the DJ, Scotty Tweedie from Prank Patrol, Hex from Good Game SP, and Hannah Wang from Rush TV.

It will end when the PM “flicks the switch” at 6pm as the channel begins to broadcast.

The first show on ABC3 will be Prank Patrol at 6pm in which host Scotty Tweedie meets a new prankster each episode who is on a mission to prank someone they know.

It will be followed by:
6:30pm CJ The DJ
6:55 News On 3
7:05 Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab
7:35 Jeopardy
8:00 My Place
8:30 Heartbreak High

The feature attraction in the opening night line-up is My Place, based on the award winning book by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, depicting several generations of children who live in the very same spot over the course of 130 years.

The first episode “2008 – Laura” features Maddie Madden as 10yo ‘Laura’ who borrows a tinnie to muck about in the canal. It sinks, taking with it the ashes of its owner’s beloved dog. She can’t find a way to own up and say sorry. It’s 2008 and the Prime Minister is trying to do the same thing with her mob.

The adult cast in the series features Susie Porter, Dan Wyllie, Sacha Horler, Russell Dykstra, Leah Purcell and Dan Spielman plus plenty of notable actors in guest roles.

ABC3 will air from 6am – 9pm daily.

He acknowleged the success of US dramas such as True Blood, but says such high-concept shows most likely couldn’t succeed here.

“Vampires in a country town in Australia is equally valid but … [the audience] would say, ‘What a lot of nonsense – vampires in Australia?’ he said.

“It would be laughed off screen.”

Likewise fantasy or science-fiction doesn’t work locally, he says.

“They go ‘if you’re going to come all the way across the universe to invade, are you really going to bother with Australia?’” Lee said.

“That’s America not us.”

Lee says Rafters is a drama about a family, rather than being a family drama. This year there was a bit of lesson-learning about audience reactions. He doesn’t regret including recent masturbation scenes, so much as the moral outrage from some viewers.

“I thought the reaction was absolutely stupid. I thought ‘what are these people doing? Do they live in the world that I live?’” he asked.

“It scared me slightly because I just felt if they really want this thing to be just a set of blinkers, I just don’t think I wanted to do it.”

Seven got a double lesson in viewer outrage this year with Home & Away’s ‘gay kiss’ attracting headlines too. As a network drama exec, Lee had to deal first hand with both issues.

Meanwhile, Producer Jo Porter believes Australians only want to see “middle Australia.”

“I think it’s a case of tall poppy syndrome as well,” she said.

“Can you imagine a successful show where it’s a wealthy family in Australia? Australians like to see middle Australia.”

No wonder Taurus Rising never lasted….

Source: ABC, news.com.au

”No, definitely not. It’s just an issue we had with the production, which we’re trying to resolve,” he told The Age.

”If you’ve got budget overruns, you’ve got to fix it up. We’ve created 120 jobs here and trained everyone in animation and there’s no financial problems whatsoever.”

The production in question is L’il Larrakins, being produced for TEN. Ettamogah has been making industry news for several weeks now over the issue.

50 staff were ordered to leave the Brighton studios on October 21st because of budget overruns while most of the remaining staff were then stood down on November 5th.

Writers, voice-over artists and animators say they are owed more than $100,000 in unpaid wages while superannuation payments have not been made for several months.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance recently alerted its members to complaints about the company and asked for concerned members to come forward. It will take the case to Fair Work Australia, the national workplace relations tribunal.

One animator said people were having trouble keeping a roof over their heads and feeding their families.

Now, complaints have been lodged with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Cherrie Bottger, Head of Children’s Television at TEN, said recently that Ettamogah had adhered to its expected deadlines for the scripts, and that nothing untoward was apparent.

Source: The Age

Starring Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack  and Anton Diffring it takes place in a futuristic society where reading is strictly forbidden and readers are hunted down by the authorities. In this narcissistic, mindless society, the function of the firemen is not to extinguish fires, but to safeguard the public’s peace of mind by burning books.

It airs 8:30pm 28th November on ABC2.

Featuring Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Jane Lynch and even Jennifer Coolidge, it centres on a group of wannabe actors, struggling to find their break in the brutal world of entertainment. They travel to Los Angeles to find fame and fortune in Hollywood but while waiting for the world to acknowledge their talent, they are forced to support themselves earning a meagre living as caterers.

In the first episode failed actor Henry Pollard returns to work at Party Down catering. While catering a community pool party, he meets the team of aspiring stars, led by his old party animal co-worker Ron, now a clean living team leader with dreams of owning a soup franchise.

Lynch has since left the series for Glee but Megan Mullally has joined the series from Season 2.

Season 1 premieres Tuesday, 1st December at 9:30pm.

Set to take place during a Christmas party it will take out a minor character, a main character and a character who’s been around since the series’ began.

Creator Marc Cherry hasn’t disclosed just who was getting bumped off, even declining to name the sex of the character, but he did say that “the fans are going to be sad over this one, but it was a good time to end this character’s storyline.”

The actor concerned apparently stood up at a table read and told everyone what a joy it was to be a part of the show.

Don’t expect this one to stay out of the headlines. It will be like Edie’s departure all over again.

Source: NY Post

It is also the last edition of Sunday Arts. The show, hosted by Michael Veitch with Virginia Trioli and Fenella Kernebone, is to be replaced by Art Nation next year.

The rebranded show will contain news, reviews, performance, features and interviews and showcase submitted work from its Arts Gateway website and run just 30 minutes instead of its current one hour. It will be interesting to see if it has crews who will go to events and interview visiting celebrities in the way it has so far.

Today’s final episode abandons the normal format to feature highlights of the 2009 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Grand Final.

It features the three finalists as they performed at the Adelaide Festival Theatre: Sydney-based violinist Ji Won Kim will perform the Sibelius Violin Concert, while Western Australian Bo An Lu plays Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1, and David Papp from New South Wales performing Martinu’s Oboe Concerto.

It airs at 5pm today and is repeated at 7:30pm on ABC2.

• Australian Idol
• Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation
• The Einstein Factor
• Bones
• 60 Minutes

Australian Idol, The Apprentice Australia and Celebrity MasterChef all have finale episodes due.

Readers anywhere other than AEDT may consider holding off visiting if they have not seen episodes air, as per normal protocol at TV Tonight.

Hung is about to join their ranks.

The HBO series depicts Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a down and out Detroit high school basketball coach, divorced from his wife, trying to keep his family of two kids together and not doing a very good job of it.

It opens with metaphorical images of a decaying Motor City, where once-glorious manufacturing and corporate America thrived. Now buildings are empty, being torn down and unemployment queues linger. Ray tries to motivate his high school team but his mind is on other exploits: his moonlighting job as a male escort.

Thomas Jane (The Punisher, Deap Blue Sea) is a perfect middle-aged leading man, who surely cut a dashing figure just ten years earlier. As Ray he shows signs of weariness that help justify our rather surprising storyline. He can just get away with being a Romeo, yet not without showing signs of vulnerability.

When the family home accidentally burns down, Ray is at wit’s end. His apathetic Gen-Y twins, played by Charlie Saxton and Australia’s Sianoa Smit-McPhee, are more interested in rock concerts, staying out late and dressing in Emo- black. The last thing they want to do is camp in a tent in their burnt-out backyard because their father is too poor to come up with a better plan.

His ex-wife (Anne Heche) is married to a sucessful dermatologist. The new neighbour next door has a swanky house and repeated requests for Ray to clean up his eyesore home. Success is all around him but continually out of reach.

Ray joins a self-help group that convinces him he can become a self-made millionaire if he taps into his own secret weapon. Devoid of any self-belief, Ray decides to market his huge appendage, and puts an ad in a local paper to become a male escort.

What a man won’t do these days just to keep his family together…

There’s a lot of similarity between Hung and Californication: jaded middle-aged dads, dysfunctional families, sex scenes, distant wives.

While Hank Moody always boasts about his conquests, Ray Drecker leads a double life, only sustaining the career move as a means to an end.

There is truth here that rises above any instant gratification over the blatant title and bold premise.

This is a promising ensemble drama about a man who thinks with his penis for a very good reason.

Hung airs 8.30pm Wednesday November 25 on Showcase and will come to Seven later in 2010.

Rumours persist that Kim Watkins and producer Sandy Patterson were given notice on Thursday but TEN is yet to make any announcement.

TEN’s style is often to release such information late on a Friday afternoon, when there is less time to have it reported and dissected.

But nothing came through yesterday.

According to TEN guides 9AM with David and Kim continues in the week of December 6th.

The government’s view at this stage is that it’s better to get the channels on their feet.

“I know many of you are concerned that, as we move to digital-only television, the level of Australian content on free-to-air television might not be protected,” he told producers.

“So far, the digital multi-channels have not been subject to the Australian Content Standard, and I know many of you are concerned to see them launch with so much overseas content.

“While the Government is committed to preserving Australian content, we also recognise that, for commercial broadcasters, rolling out a suite of new digital channels in four years is a technical and economic challenge.

“Getting these channels to air is vital to achieving digital switchover – as those in this room know better than most, it is content that drives take-up, and new channels have to offer attractive programs.

“That’s why I firmly believe that Australian audiences will demand Australian content on all the many, varied channels they will come to take for granted in a few short years.”

But the government equally has no plans to diminish the 90 hours per annum of first run Australian drama on commercial channels.

Screentime producer Des Monaghan said he was concerned about the move because local content requirements were important for the production of Australian content.

”Australian programming invariably enjoys a disproportionate share of ratings success,” he said. ”The problem is that overseas program is effectively dumped into this country.”

At the same time, the current regulations require the networks to play local quota dramas on the primary channels -not digital. That avoids the potential situation of networks buying up NZ content, dumping it onto GO! or 7TWO and filling their premium channels with American content.

And while we may love our Nurse Jackies, Dexters and NCIS -it is Australian content that continues to dominate the weekly Top 20.

ABC3 will launch with 40% local content in early December.

Source: The Age, dbcde.gov.au

Ellen says Opie has “blazed a trail,” and that the two are now bestest buddies.

As the big O would say, please welcome Ellennnnnnnnnnnnnnn De Generesssssssssssss.

Of course E recently appeared on O’s own show after her campaign to be on the O mag cover.

Dante’s Cove is coming to GO!

The series, a gothic melodrama with sexual undertones, was produced for the gay & lesbian cable channel Here! in the US in 2005.

Set on a Caribbean island it revolves around the romance between Kevin and Toby who stay at a Hotel which has a spirit in the basement who lost her husband as a result of a gay affair in 1840.

Along there way there is jealousy, hot guys, murder, hot guys, betrayal, lust, supernatural elements and hot guys.

The sex scenes are highly charged and elaborately staged, while the dramatic scenes play out like a daytime soap (for better or worse). All up it’s like Passions meets QAF.

Later eps even included Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl.

Reviews for the show were pretty poor, but so far three seasons have been completed with a fourth apparently in production.

Nine has slated the season well, on a Monday night to follow on after a repeat season of The Vampire Diaries and Nip / Tuck.

It premieres 10:30pm Monday December 7th on GO!

The episode aired in the US this week.

But there are two other eps “Thanksgiving” and “The Fifth Stage” yet to air in the US on November 23 and 30th which could potentially go begging here.

After that debacle of episodes left on the shelf because of the Writers’ Strike one hopes we’re not going to be left with another unfinished season.

I Killed John Lennon, a Channel 4 doco, reveals a series of taped interviews that Mark David Chapman conducted with journalist Jack Jones in prison, while dramatically reconstructing key events from the day of the killing.

Using these audio tapes as the central element, the programme will recreate one of the most notorious assassinations of the twentieth century. Beginning with the assassination the programme presents Chapman’s own view of his life, and the events that drove him to commit such a dramatic murder.

Running alongside Chapman’s story will be the parallel biography of John Lennon –represented using archive material and supporting interviews.

But the film has been criticised by the singer’s cousin, Stanley Parkes, who said it glorified a murderer. Channel 4 has denied the claims, adding that the neither the killer or his family had received payment.

It airs Tuesday, December 8, at 5.30pm on the Crime & Investigation Network.