In 1995, FX, then stylised as fX, was launched in Australia on Foxtel, featuring classic TV series (often branded as "Golden Years of Television"). In late 1998 fX became FX, which at the time was a channel aimed at women, unlike the international FX channels demographic, featuring shows such as
The View and
Donny and Marie. The channel became available on Austar in April 1999. In late 2000, FX was again rebranded, officially becoming "Australia's first TV channel for women". It was relaunched as W. on 1 November 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 US primetime drama series such as
Pushing Daisies 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 was to broadcast the new Australian drama
Wentworth, a re-imaging of the classic television show
Prisoner. The series started airing on 1 May 2013. The channel closed on 30 September 2016, with existing programs being moved to other channels. Most programs migrated to
Showcase, with a handful of other titles moving to
TV H!TS,
Arena and
FOX8. ==Programming==