"It always seemed to me to have such great and long-running potential to produce an incredibly strong vehicle for strong female performers, which is exactly what it's doing," she says of Wentworth, which will enter its fourth season next year.

Thornton is set to become the second Prisoner actor to appear in its Wentworth offspring, but not as her original character Ros Coulson. Instead she'll appear as a wealthy cosmetics entrepeneur and murder suspect Sonia Stevens.

"It's a bit of a no-brainer for an actress to come into a show like this full of a cast whom I admire so much and who are doing some of the boldest work on television," Thornton says.

Thornton joins a female-heavy Foxtel programming roster for 2016, with Wentworth remaining the flag-bearer for home-grown productions.

Danielle Cormack, who took the Logie this year for most outstanding actress for her portrayal of Bea Smith, says the show's continuing success both in Australia and abroad, where it has been sold to 87 countries, is its grittiness.

"There's stories being told that they haven't seen on television before. A lot of stories on television tend to be quite diluted and saccharine – this show is anything but, and the calling-card is that it's a female -driven story and that's unusual."

A Place to Call Home will enter its fourth season next year after settling into its new home on SoHo after being ditched by Seven during season two last year.

Marta Dusseldorp, who spearheads the drama as nurse Sarah Adams, says the show's ratings for season three, currently airing, make it one of the highest drawcards on Foxtel.

"It shows you that there's an appetite for locally made Australian drama and that's what Foxtel does so well," she says.

Co-star Abby Earl says: "We're just really happy it's being made again. It didn't feel like it was finished.

"We're happy for the fans because they were quite ferocious in getting it back on air and I feel really satisfied for them."

One of Foxtel's hotly anticipated offerings next year will be the Jacki Weaver-Anna Torv thriller Secret City, set in Canberra amid a  political world of lies, murder and betrayal. Actor Benedict Samuel, who also stars in The Walking Dead, season six of which will also appear on Foxtel next year, plays an IT professor and says the production is packed with stunts and action.

"Anything that can make you feel like you could be James Bond is exciting to watch," he says. "It's certainly cloak and dagger."

Another home-grown drama will be The Kettering Incident, with Elizabeth Debicki and Matt Le Nevez, an eight-part thriller about a missing teen who returns 15 years later.

Foxtel executive director of television Brian Walsh said: "Our growing commitment to producing exclusive home-made signature programming for our subscribers will continue in 2016, with more Australian original series than ever before."