Corus Entertainment and Astral Media teamed up to celebrate the launch of HBO Canada at a party at Oasi Tuesday night. The event emphasized the content of the new channel with appearances by stars like Bill Paxton (Big Love) and Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), and an ongoing multimedia presentation with footage from HBO shows.

"HBO is considered an exclusive brand, edgy and ground-breaking, and that was really what we were going for with this event," said Roopa Shah, senior manager of communications at Astral Media, who oversaw the party with Corus Entertainment communications manager Lindsay Sutcliffe, and event management company Krista Slack + Aylett. The party's guest list included employees from the two Canadian media providers, as well as American HBO executives.

Party organizers used a purple, black, and white colour scheme with decor touches like a silver shimmer screen and mirror-topped cocktail tables. To build excitement about programming on the new channel, VJ/DJ Christian Skjodt mixed footage from HBO shows like True Blood and Flight of the Conchords with music, and showed the presentation on five projectors around the space.

Astral Media (Eastern Canada) and Corus Entertainment (Western Canada) announced the launch of HBO Canada in late September, the result of an expanded programming output deal with HBO. Subscribers to the providers' movie channels—the Movie Network and Movie Central, respectively—will have free access to HBO Canada starting today.