All I can say is.. bravo NBC.

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This new spot for SBS is not only visually beautifully and perfectly timed, its also surprisingly profound, and layered in meaning that only a broadcaster like this would aim for. Created from a collaboration featuring:

contributions from Animal Logic, playwright Caleb Lewis, Indigenous creative agency Gilimbaa, Jam Sydney and Ghanaian born, Australian performer Dorinda Hafner.

Produced by US Sydney, with full credits here.

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When I was in the states last year I stumbled upon an enjoyable little television programme called Infomania, that was being broadcast on an even littler network called Current TV.

Founded in 2005 by Al Gore, the network felt a bit like what would happen if the Hungry Beast kids were given their own channel (in a good way). The Emmy and Peabody award winning channel was thrust into the spotlight earlier this year with the announcement that Keith Olbermann would join the network.

Along with the arrival of Keith came a refreshed look and a brand new logo. The old logo was pretty ordinary and didn’t really say much. The new look however is simply stunning – and works just as well static or animated. It’s a truly unique channel, now with the branding to match.

Credits: Identity by Wolff Olins and on-air look by Loyalkaspar.

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The excessively clunky “ABC for Kids on 2” brand has been relaunched as “ABC 4 Kids”. Running from 6am-7pm on ABC2, this channel-within-a-channel has long deserved better positioning, if not its own dedicated slice of the airwaves.

Thus concludes the refresh of the ABC’s suite of channels with ABC1 in February and ABC2 in April.

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The on-air look of ABC2 has ranged from the interesting to the ordinary. While easily the most intriguing channel on free to air television, ABC2 has always struggled with its identity.

Thankfully this new lime-and-pink design is the most mature branding to grace the network, even if the execution of the new idents is a little sporadic (the fish look great, the knitting.. not so much).

The good folks at Motionographer and the F5 Festival have given me 2 tickets to the aforementioned creativity festival being held in New York on April 15-16.

As I’m stuck in Sydney though I thought I’d offer them up to any of my readers who will be able to attend.

The tickets are valued at $480 each, and include:

- Two full days of inspiration, learning and networking
- Re:Play Festival – An international showcase of cutting-edge film and design
- Drink tickets
- Admittance to the Official F5 After Party

So if you’re able to attend, and want two free tickets, send me an email.

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Apparently product placement (in literature at least) dates back to the 19th century, but for British television programmes its been a strict no-no.. until now.

February 28th this year was the first day of new laws allowing for commercial broadcasters to accept payment to use or display certain products. Part of the new laws require programmes that accept product placement to display a special symbol on-screen, which is what this promo is about.

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Update: More about the who, what, why of the rebrand here.

Australia’s national broadcaster has relaunched the branding of its flagship ABC1 with a focus on elevating the entertainment value of the channel.

ABC1 has had a number of looks since this site first started some six years ago. Starting with the Everyone’s ABC look, followed by There’s More To.. in 2005 and It Begins with 1 in 2008, and now this…

Keep reading for more videos from the new look.

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Inbetween Magic have created this excellent promo for Belgium based channel Prime. Set to the sounds of American folk music, this dramatic spot uses the innocence of toy figurines to distill the drama of the networks programming slate.

A great idea well executed, and with a heap of spin-off potential.

- Thanks for the tip Marc.

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The wit of David Mitchell and the profundity of Charlie Brooker have joined forces along with Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne for a new topical comedy programme on Channel 4 called 10 O’Clock Live.

In a similar vein to local productions Hungry Beast or the 7pm Project the show is a tight hour or news, chat and comedy. Visually the programmes colour palette and set design are decidedly un-newsy, and the use of Steadicam makes for a (quite literally) smooth viewing experience.

Something that’s meant to make us laugh, is somehow also making us smarter. The rise of comedy in the delivery of news is challenging new audiences to have a greater understanding of the world around them, and hopefully that’s a good thing.

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Launching on January 1st 2011, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network is a natural extension of the hyper-popular daytime talk show, and surely one of the few networks in the world built around a single figure.

With Oprah’s recent visit to Australia, the nation has grown even more enamored with the women and her message, and despite my gender-and-age I’ll happily admit that she produces an incredible show with a relentless message of personal growth, interwoven with philosophy aligned with the likes of Jung or Frankl.

Two years in the making, Philadelphia based BIGSMACK designed the new on-air look through “the numerous branding twists and turns” taken prior to the channel launch. On the technical side, the largely animated look of the network is complimented by a number of organic touches:

To create the on-air look BIGSMACK shot an array of natural elements — including light reflected through a variety of objects like crystal and Plexiglas, as well as water, glitter and particle dust — on a soundstage using a Canon 5D camera. That organic basis was then composited with digital elements animated using Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects.

The montage gives a taste of the IDs, menus, bumpers and lower thirds created for the network, along with the colour coding of the various dayparts (orange mornings, green afternoons and purple evenings).

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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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Last year it was the Doctor and his TARDIS, this year the BBC gets homely with some Christmas lights to celebrate the festive season. Meanwhile ITV1 and Five deliver some slightly less ambitious holiday idents.

- Big thanks to Craig for the videos.

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Earlier this year British soap opera Coronation Street made the switch to HD and debuted a new look title sequence. A much larger milestone for the programme is just around the corner, on December 9th the soap will celebrate 50 years on-air.

Along with a live episode and the usual dramatic storylines the anniversary is being celebrated right across British television. Even if you’re not a fan of the show I have to recommend the fantastic BBC Four telemovie “Road to Coronation Street” that details the tumultuous birth of the programme and its 23 year old creator.

I can’t help but further be enamored by the soap opera format and its clearly enormous cultural impact on British society, alas I’m not sure Home and Away lives up the same standard.

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Channel 4 have been producing some of the most beautifully executed and conceptually coherent idents on television for nearly six years now.

Yesterday they introduced three new spots (well two if you don’t count the 3D spot) with the clear stand out being the epic airplane graveyard ident.

Again, an absolute triumph in branding and incomparable to local offerings. For the full set of Channel 4 idents stretching back to the beginning look here.

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UPDATE: Fox News have responded with their own “Move Forward” spots.

American cable news network MSNBC recently unveiled a new slogan and brand positioning. Directed by Spike Lee, these new spots ask us to Lean Forward, and suggests that the “the future belongs to the fearless”.

Conceptually its a poignant and aspirational message, likely to be identifiable to those generally offended by Fox News. And while Jon Stewart isn’t thrilled with it, it’s hard not to like the idea, with comparisons to Think Different sure to arise.

Unfortunately I’m not sure the execution of these two promos, filled with stock footage and web clips live up to the gravity of the message trying to be conveyed.

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For reasons I can’t entirely explain I find nothing quite as exciting as a good long take, whether its a trip through Russian history, or some college kids making a lip dub.

You can add to that mixed bag this masterful new commercial for Johnnie Walker, featuring actor Robert Carlyle delivering a five minute monologue about the history of the famous whiskey while walking through the Scottish countryside captured in one continuous take on the 40th attempt.

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Gem from the Nine Network, and 7mate from the Seven Network both launched over the weekend, although not in that order.

Long before digital multichannelling got too interesting in Australia I pondered how the commercial networks would approach the tricky task of extending their brands to multiple channels. Channel 4 have done a great job naming their portfolio of channels under the “4″ brand, while the UKTV group have adopted individual brands for each of their many channels.

These two approaches are currently playing out in Australia, with the Seven Network now extending its brand name and logo to 7two and 7mate, while Channel Nine has launched Go! and Gem. Personally I think the impending launch of Eleven is the best branding we’ve seen on a commercial multichannel yet, but that said I’m pretty hot for any branding Channel Ten comes up with.

As for this weekend Gem looks pretty and is a nice start, although perhaps something you might see on an inflight channel, 7mate on the other hand is less a brand and more of a punchline, so lets just say neither of them bowled me over.

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British network Virgin 1 launched in 2007 as the flagship general entertainment channel of the newly rebranded Virgin Media (formerly NTL Telewest).

However with Virgin Media offloading its channel group to British Sky Broadcasting earlier this year, the new owners decided to ditch the Virgin brand (perhaps understandably from their point of view) and relaunch it as simply Channel One.

Before, after and during videos above.

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Encapsulating the scope and relevance of the national broadcaster is the goal of this new brand campaign, and having people jump into the embrace of the ABC’s famous lissajous is the approach they’ve taken.

Beautifully produced and visually distinct these new spots have the unenviable challenge of trying to represent an organisation with as much history and depth as the ABC, something any thirty second promo will struggle to achieve.

Created by Sydney agency Moon.

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Breakfast television was invented in the United States, and continues to frustrate, entertain, inform and provide moving wallpaper to millions everyday.

Three network broadcasts dominate the genre, and all three are broadcast from New York City. The Today Show from NBC defined the genre in 1952, followed by Good Morning America from ABC in 1975 and the latest attempt from CBS in the form of the Early Show in 1999.

I’m still waiting for Aaron Sorkin to dramatize the world of morning television, but until then I guess we’ll have to keep tuning into the real thing.

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The long awaited ABC News 24 has launched. Download the first hour of broadcast and watch as Australia was introduced to its first free-to-air news channel.

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Along with the launch of Australia’s first free-to-air news channel tonight, the ABC is also rolling out a new look across all its news services.

Our first look at the new branding in action is tonight with the national bulletin at 7pm, just 30 minutes ahead of the channels official launch.

Alas the new theme isn’t the Pendulum remix as hoped.

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Sydney based broadcast design outfit Tactic have been busy filling the screens of Australian subscription television channels with some great promos lately.

From the canvas to comedy, and crime to classics this diverse bunch of work is a great sample of the local creativity and the local industry.

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The ABC attempted to launch a 24 hour news channel some fifteen years ago back in 1995. It was called TNC and it was going to be a subscription television offering.

Flash forward to 2010 and the imminent launch of ABC News 24 will fulfill a long standing goal for the broadcaster, and introduce Australian audiences to its first free-to-air news channel.

This 3-minute teaser started playing a few days ago on channel 24, with the launch expected to be as soon as next week. Check back for full coverage post-launch.

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Elaborate, ambitious, dramatic and passionate are some of the words I find myself using when describing something that really impresses me.

Directed by Adam Berg, this beautiful commercial for Dulux ticks all those boxes.

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Over the past decade the Big Brother format has swept the world, and along with it broadcast thousands of hours of people sleeping. It’s had an enormous cultural impact, made this guy incredibly wealthy and at least a couple people mildly famous.

But the format has been losing steam for a while now, the Australian version wrapped up in 2008, and now in 2010 the British version is also saying goodbye.

The final season is embracing its impending death, with a strange circus themed title sequence, and a rather witty promo featuring former housemates attending the shows funeral. It’s nice that the show is acknowledging its departure from British television screens with as much dignity a show like this can muster.

- Big thanks to Craig for the videos.

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One of Australia’s longest running subscription television networks TV1 began broadcasting in widescreen for the first time last week (sounds quaint I know).

To mark the occasion they refreshed their look with a heavy emphasis on branding the various day parts, and further reinforcing the retro yet modern feel.

TV1 have maintained a consistently strong on-air brand without actually straying too far from their core look as you can see in this 2006 post.

- Thanks to Jackie from zspace for the videos.

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Bondi based Where Theres Smoke have updated their previous work for Channel [V], extending the concept while taking the whole thing in a slightly darker direction.

There is a whole set of idents based around this new look and feel, which went on-air yesterday. This is just the directors cut 30 second version.

As for the song in the clip, it’s Solitude is Bliss by Tame Impala.