Sydney- Australia will get its first HBO-style channel, packed with original Australian and US series, independent features and documentaries, when Showcase debuts on Foxtel and Austar on Dec. 1 2007. The premium channel is being launched by the largely Hollywood-owned Showtime, which airs three movie channels, at no extra cost to subscribers. Much of the programming is being sourced from HBO, Showtime US and fx. Five new series will be launched each week. The first week’s line-up includes Satisfaction, a Showtime-commissioned Australian drama series centreing on six sex workers in an upmarket brothel; Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) as a blood-splatter expert with the Miami police, who operates covertly as a stalker and killer of bad guys; and The Riches, the saga of a family of crooks who pose as respectable suburbanites in the Deep South, starring Eddie Izzard and Mini Driver. Other acquisitions include Meadowlands, John From Cincinnati, The Tudors, Breaking Bad and both seasons of Rome.