TV Week Logie Awards: 10 years ago

All Saints star Georgie Parker was awarded the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 44th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Crown Entertainment Complex on Sunday, 28 April 2002, and televised on the Nine Network.

It was Parker’s second Gold Logie, having also won the publicly-voted award the previous year.  She was presented with the award by Good Morning Australia host and four-time Gold Logie winner Bert Newton.

“This is a great personal thing for me, but it always reflects back to the show,” Parker told TV Week.  “Winning the Gold is exciting and weird at the same time.  I don’t really make myself accessible as a personality, so it’s interesting to get an award for Most Popular Personality.”

Her fellow nominees for the Gold Logie were Rove McManus (Rove Live), Ada Nicodemou (Home And Away), Libby Tanner (All Saints) and John Wood (Blue Heelers).

Comedian Wendy Harmer (pictured) was the host of the evening – the first female to ever host the Logies presentation solo – but as a number of other Logies hosts have found, it is one of the toughest gigs in television.  Reviews of Harmer’s performance were harsh to say the least, but even the host herself later accepted that it was not her finest work, as she told The Age in 2010:

''One of the things that happened to me was that I'd been doing radio in Sydney for so long that when I came down to talk to an audience who are in Melbourne doing TV, they basically said, 'What does she know about what we're doing?' And fair enough, in retrospect.''

''And here's the interesting dilemma. Where do you learn to do something like that? You only learn it in the doing of it.''

''Some of the advice I got from the producers was really bad. The funny part about it is that I think I would now know how to do it.''

As well as Parker’s Gold Logie it was a big year for All Saints, with the show also winning two Silver Logies – one for Most Popular Program and the other for Libby Tanner as Most Popular Actress.

After more than twenty years on television, dating back to classic soaps The Restless Years and Sons And Daughters, actor Peter Phelps from Stingers (Nine) collected the Logie the Most Popular Actor. “This is just fantastic… totally unexpected,” he told TV Week. “The Logie means people respect your work and that’s really the best thing you can possibly have as an actor.”

Network Ten’s drama series The Secret Life Of Us (cast pictured) also scored well with two Logies to its credit – Most Outstanding Drama Series and for Deborah Mailman as Most Outstanding Actress.  And with the Big Brother craze at the height of its popularity, the Network Ten show took out the Logie for Most Popular Reality Program.  As Big Brother conducted its live eviction shows on Sunday nights, the show’s host Gretel Killeen accepted the award via a live cross to the Big Brother set on the Gold Coast.

In accepting Rove Live’s award for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program, host and producer Rove McManus (pictured) dedicated the award to his “partner in life and partner in crime”, actor and TV presenter Belinda Emmett. 

Seven’s current affairs program Today Tonight had finally scored its first Logie for Most Popular Public Affairs Program – a category that its main rival A Current Affair had dominated since the category was launched in 1989, having lost out only once to Today Tonight’s predecessor Real Life.  “It’s testament to the fact that we’ve plugged away for so many years,” host Naomi Robson said.  “All the hard work has paid off.  I want to thank Seven for sticking with us.  There was a point a few years back where people were starting to say, ‘Are they going to make it?’ But here we are.”

Nine Network host Eddie McGuire (pictured) had his two shows, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the AFL-based The Footy Show, win Most Popular Game Show and Most Popular Sports Program respectively. 

For SBS current affairs program Dateline it was a double celebration, with the show winning two awards for Most Outstanding Special Report In A Current Affairs Program.  Two stories, The Dirty War and See No Evil, were equal winners in the industry-voted category. 

ABC reporter Geoff Thompson was awarded Most Outstanding News Reporter and ABC News won Most Outstanding News Coverage for its reporting of events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Veteran television journalist, producer and presenter Mike Willesee was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.  He was presented the award by his brother, fellow journalist Terry Willesee.

Adding to the glamour of Logies night in 2002 were performances by Colombian pop star Shakira, the legendary Sir Elton John and US trio Destiny’s Child.

Other international guests on the night included The Bold And The Beautiful star Ronn Moss and Frankie Muniz from sitcom Malcolm In The Middle.

Publicly-voted Awards:

Gold Logie – Most Popular Personality On Australian Television: Georgie Parker

Silver Logie – Most Popular Program: All Saints (Seven)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actor: Peter Phelps (Stingers, Nine)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actress: Libby Tanner (All Saints, Seven)

Most Popular New Male Talent: Ditch Davey (Blue Heelers, Seven)
Most Popular New Female Talent: Lisa Chappell (pictured) (McLeod’s Daughters, Nine)
Most Popular Lifestyle Program: Backyard Blitz (Nine)
Most Popular Light Entertainment Program: Rove Live (Ten)
Most Popular Reality Program: Big Brother (Ten)
Most Popular Game Show: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Nine)
Most Popular Sports Program: The Footy Show – AFL (Nine)
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: Today Tonight (Seven)

Industry-voted Awards:

TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame: Mike Willesee (pictured)

Most Outstanding Actor: William McInnes (My Brother Jack, Ten)
Most Outstanding Actress: Deborah Mailman (The Secret Life Of Us, Ten)
Most Outstanding Drama Series: The Secret Life Of Us (Ten)
Most Outstanding Mini-Series/Telemovie: Changi (ABC)
Most Outstanding Children’s Program: Round The Twist (ABC)
Most Outstanding Comedy Program:  The Micallef Pogram (ABC)
Most Outstanding Sports Coverage: Bledisloe Cup (Seven)
Most Outstanding News Reporter: Geoff Thompson (ABC)
Most Outstanding News Coverage: ABC News
Most Outstanding Special Report In A Public Affairs Program: “The Dirty War” (Dateline, SBS) and “See No Evil” (Dateline, SBS).
Most Outstanding Documentary/Series: Australians At War (ABC)

Source: TV Week, 27 April 2002.  TV Week, 11 May 2002. The Age, 1 April 2010.

Kerri-Anne dances across to Seven

Just weeks after hosting her final Kerri-Anne show on the Nine Network, Kerri-Anne Kennerley has now departed the network despite previous reports she was staying on board for “future projects”.

It ends a nine-year association with Nine as host of Kerri-Anne (previously Mornings With Kerri-Anne) although her history with the network goes back way further – as host of Midday and brief stint as co-host of What’s Cooking in the 1990s, and in the 1960s was a presenter on Everybody In at Brisbane channel QTQ9.  She was also a regular performer on Nine’s The Mike Walsh Show.

The future of the Kerri-Anne show was subject to a lot of speculation during 2011 as it was being soundly beaten in the ratings by Seven’s The Morning Show, and towards the end of the year she was on leave for several weeks while guest presenters filled in.  Kennerley later said in a radio interview that the first she knew of her axing from the show was from a newspaper article.

The irony in her departure from Nine is that she appears to be heading to Seven as a contestant in the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars, the show whose co-host Sonia Kruger has just severed ties with Seven – after more than a decade – to take Kennerley’s place at Nine.

Kruger is set to co-host Nine’s revival of the Mornings brand (with singer David Campbell) as well as the network’s upcoming return of former reality giant Big Brother.

Apart from Dancing With The Stars it is not known if Seven might have other plans in mind for Kennerley but they have been known to use the show as a vehicle for cross-network promotion, and DWTS would provide a strong platform to promote any new Kennerley venture.

Source: news.com.au, news.com.au

Another year gone… already…?

It doesn’t seem that long since we welcomed 2011!

Australian television reached a number of milestones this year: Ten years of digital TV; 40 years of Sesame Street on the ABC; Mal Walden celebrated 50 years in broadcasting and Tracy Grimshaw reached 30 years at Nine; Play School turned 45; Four Corners turned 50; TV turned 40 in Darwin; David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz celebrated 25 years together on television; and it was 50 years since the launch of regional stations GLV10, BCV8 and GMV6.

Ratings-wise, it was all about Seven, winning their fifth year in a row.  There was little they could do wrong, while at Network Ten there was not much that they could get right – even MasterChef took a battering – with Nine falling somewhere in between.

ABC’s Spicks And Specks made a dignified exit off the stage, while Ten’s Video Hits was pushed off the stage – after 24 years – in a bout of cost cutting.  ABC put the axe to Collectors, The New Inventors and Arts Nation.

Showbiz stalwarts Denise Drysdale and Kerri-Anne Kennerley signed off from their respective daytime programs.

Network Ten launched its new digital channel Eleven, and attempted to raise the bar in current affairs reporting with 6PM With George Negus (later 6.30).  It was a tumultuous year at a management level for Ten with the dismissal of CEO Grant Blackley and the appointment of interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch before James Warburton, a former Seven Network executive, takes over the role in January.  Under Murdoch’s watch, sports channel One HD was re-worked into a general entertainment and special interest channel, Ten News suffered a number of format changes, budget cuts and staff departures (including Deborah Knight and George Donikian), while Late News and 6.30 With George Negus were both axed.  Newspaper columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt was given his own show, and the network walked away from AFL after ten years.

Nine’s A Current Affair revisited some TV classics during the year, including Young Talent Time (pictured) and Big Brother (coincidentally both programs are to make a comeback in 2012).  ACA also took a trip to Wandin Valley to remember A Country Practice.  Meanwhile, Today Tonight took ‘70s sex symbol Abigail to task for no good reason.

There were cosmetic changes made to ABC1, ABC2 and ABC 4 Kids, and SBS appointed a new Managing Director.

Karl Stefanovic (pictured) won the TV Week Gold Logie, and veteran political journalist Laurie Oakes was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

After a quiet few years in drama, ABC made a stellar comeback this year with Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo and The Slap both receiving critical acclaim and good ratings.  The broadcaster also launched a new legal drama, Crownies.  SBS scored a hit with its reality-documentary series Go Back To Where You Came From, triggering a wave of social commentary on what has always been a controversial topic.

Regional Victoria and Regional Queensland made the final switch from analogue to digital television – while remote area networks Imparja and Southern Cross have only now switched on to digital transmission and Regional WA is now seeing the roll-out of the digital multi-channels from the commercial networks.

Millions watched the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton – it was an event that was hard to miss with saturation coverage on free-to-air and multiple pay-TV channels.

So what will 2012 bring?

Network Ten will hope for a better, more stable year with a new CEO and News Director on board.  Last year the network took a gamble with George Negus and more News bulletins.  This year Ten is taking a gamble with launching a new breakfast show up against Sunrise, Today and ABC News Breakfast – will this risk pay off?  And will the re-named and expanded The Project lead to improvement in Ten’s embattled 6.30 timeslot?

Also, will MasterChef be able to knock out the few dents it copped in its armour this year?  And how will Young Talent Time fare with its return after 23 years off our screens?  As Hey Hey It’s Saturday and more recently It’s A Knockout have shown, the nostalgia factor can bring high ratings but the novelty can wear off pretty quickly. 

Nine had something of a late-year resurgence this year with The Block winning ratings in its new 7.00pm timeslot and Celebrity Apprentice also bringing in strong figures.  The success of these will see Nine delve further into the reality genre in 2012 with another series of The Block, the return of Big Brother and an Australian version of singing contest The Voice.

In Aussie drama there will be more Neighbours, Home And Away, Packed To The Rafters, Offspring and Winners And Losers.  Nine will launch a new series, Tricky Business, and is set to present another instalment of the Underbelly franchise as well as its dramatisation of the Beaconsfield mine disaster of 2006.  Nine will also relive former owner Kerry Packer’s 1970s challenge to the cricket establishment with Howzat! – The Kerry Packer Story.  Ten will have a mini-series Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms as well as an updated adaptation of the book Puberty Blues.  The network is also to launch a new series, Reef Doctors, starring Lisa McCune.

Andrew Denton and Shaun Micallef are set to return to ABC with new programs – and there will be another series of Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight.

In sport, Seven becomes the sole free-to-air broadcaster of AFL for the first time since 2001, while sharing the rights with Foxtel – while Nine and Foxtel are off to London for the Olympic Games.  It will be Nine’s first coverage of the Summer Olympics since 1976.

2012 will mark 50 years of television in regional New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and in Canberra.  Analogue television will be switched off in regional New South Wales and the ACT.

The ground-breaking drama of the 1970s, Number 96 (pictured) will have its 40th anniversary commemorated with another DVD release of episodes – this time revisiting some of the few black-and-white episodes to still be in existence, as well the episodes surrounding the bomb-blast storyline of 1975.

And right here we will be continuing the theme of documenting the TV year of 20 years ago as reported in the pages of TV Week.

Happy New Year to you all and best wishes for the year ahead!

ACA casts an eye over Big Brother

Nine’s A Current Affair continues to tap the well of classic TV shows for a bit of nostalgia.  While TV shows featured to date have mostly been from the last century – including Young Talent Time, The Sullivans, A Country Practice and Prisoner – the show’s latest TV feature is from a much more recent period.

Big Brother was the brain-child of Dutch TV producers in the late 1990s and had already been franchised through Europe and the United Kingdom before Network Ten had adopted the format for Australia – and ten years ago this month the first Australian Big Brother housemates were locked away in the high-tech compound located in the Dreamworld amusement park, removed from all outside influences and placed under the constant monitoring of dozens of cameras around the clock… and viewers couldn’t get enough of it.  The show was a nightly hit for Ten and the weekly eviction shows rated particularly well.

Over 100 housemates passed through the various Big Brother houses over eight seasons, but A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack gathered together a group of thirteen former housemates – Pete Timbs, Sara-Marie Fedele, Jemma Gawned, Peter Corbett, Jessica Hardy, Tim Brunero, David Graham, Trevor Butler, Bree Amer, Camilla Severi, Aleisha Cowcher, Reggie Bird and one of the ‘Logan’ twins – and narrator and part-time presenter Mike Goldman to talk about the show, the impact it had on their lives and some of the controversies that the show created, including the silent protest by evicted housemate Merlin Luck (pictured).

Missing from the segment was host Gretel Killeen, who fronted seven of the show’s eight seasons, and network rivalry may have prevented former housemates Blair McDonough (runner-up from series one who went on to star in Neighbours and is currently appearing in Seven’s Winners And Losers), Chrissie Swan (runner-up from series three who is now appearing in Ten’s The Circle and this week was announced as a Gold Logie nominee) and Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald (now featuring on Ten’s Before The Game) from receiving an invitation to appear.

Source/Video: A Current Affair

MasterChef delivers a master win

When Network Ten announced in 2008 that it had purchased the MasterChef franchise to replace Big Brother as a major reality format, there were more than a few people that scoffed.  Who would want to watch a cooking competition in prime-time?  After all, the benchmark of cooking contests on Australian TV had been set with Ready Steady Cook – and it was well short of being a national phenomenon.

But Ten and the show’s producers, Fremantle Media, reworked MasterChef so that it bore little resemblance to its UK original.  When the show launched in Australia in April last year, it got off to a solid ratings start and as the series progressed it became a major player in the 7.00pm timeslot for Ten.  The show’s three judges, chefs George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan and food critic Matt Preston, went from being relative unknowns to instant celebrities – with Preston picking up a TV Week Logie for outstanding new talent earlier this year.

With the show’s popularity snowballing it was perhaps no real surprise that the season finale between Julie Goodwin and Poh Ling Yeow returned the highest ratings of any non-sporting telecast since OzTAM records began in 2001.  Winning the series led to Goodwin releasing a top-selling cookbook, Our Family Table, and appearing in a string of commercial endorsements as well as a regular segment on Today and a column in The Australian Women’s Weekly.  She has also about to launch a new show, Home Cooked, on the Nine Network.  Series runner-up Yeow also gained a high-profile role, hosting a weekly TV series, Poh’s Kitchen, on ABC1 and gaining a publishing deal with ABC Books.

So with the second series preparing to launch earlier this year, the rival Seven Network sought to rain on MasterChef’s parade and brought out their own cooking show – My Kitchen Rules, a so-called original format that was really just a mash-up of elements of MasterChef and a UK show, Come Dine With Me, added with the ‘State versus State’ component of its former My Restaurant Rules and pinching two celebrity chefs who had appeared as guests on MasterChef.

My Kitchen Rules never quite hit the same heights of MasterChef’s public support, but it didn’t do too badly, either, giving Seven some very good early evening ratings.  The problem is, though, that the show did little to spoil the public’s appetite for cooking shows and left them wanting more.

So when series two of MasterChef arrived earlier this year, it hit the ground running and immediately returned ratings that took some weeks to materialise in the first series. 

And, like the first series, the public’s fascination with all things MasterChef continued to grow as the series progressed, turning MasterChef into a confirmed $100 million product on the back of advertising, merchandise and cross-promotion activities.

Appearing six nights a week and hitting around two million viewers each night by the end of the series, Ten was looking at making history again with last weekend’s season finale.  So much had the show struck a chord with the general public that Sunday’s election debate between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had to be re-scheduled to avoid being unwatched up against the kitchen battle between South Australians Callum Hann and Adam Liaw.

And, sure enough, history was made again.  When Liaw (pictured) was announced as the second series winner, an average of 5.2 million viewers (across five cities and major regional markets) were watching – a number that surpassed last year’s season finale and again ranked it as the most watched non-sports program since 2001.  The program, spread over two hours, gave Ten an overall share of 41.8 per cent of the Sunday night audience – well ahead of Seven (19.0%) and Nine (15.7%) – a figure that could secure Ten the entire week regardless of whatever results it receives over the rest of the week.

The public’s connection to MasterChef has ignited its fascination and knowledge of food – like Nine’s earlier series The Block sparked a passion for home renovation – and has resonated well with children, who will recite recipes that they saw on the show, and who will no doubt provide the perfect ratings springboard for when Junior MasterChef starts later in the year.

The immense popularity of MasterChef has again seen the Seven Network taking up more food-related formats in a bid to undermine the MasterChef phenomenon, or at least try to cash in on some of the show’s success.  As well as producing a second series of My Kitchen Rules the network has bought the format rights to produce a local version of the Japanese show Iron Chef (seen here on SBS1) and is also reported to be planning a local adaptation of Canadian series Conviction Kitchen.

In the meantime, here’s hoping that with the extra kilos that we might stack on thanks to the inspiration from MasterChef, that another series of The Biggest Loser will be around in the new year to inspire us to lose them!

Source: News.com.au, TV Tonight

Adriana Xenides

Former television personality Adriana Xenides has died in a Sydney hospital after being admitted a few days ago with a stomach complaint.

Born in Argentina, model Xenides rose to fame in Australia as the co-host of game show Wheel Of Fortune. She was with the show alongside host Ernie Sigley when the Adelaide-based show began production in 1981 and continued with the show through until 1999. At the time she was recognised by the Guinness Book Of Records as the longest-serving game show hostess in the world. 

After Wheel Of Fortune, Xenides appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother and as a panellist on Beauty And The Beast.

In 2007 she appeared on Today Tonight to reveal that she was suffering from a digestive disorder thought to be genetic.

Source: Wikipedia

Bert Newton to host the Logies

TV Week is expected to announce Bert Newton as the host of this year’s TV Week Logie Awards.

The TV legend, a four-time Gold Logie winner and inductee into the Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame, has hosted the awards a record-breaking 18 times already – the last time he hosted the awards was in 1993 (pictured) but has returned on several occasions to hand out the Gold Logie and also co-hosted in 2006 as part of the celebration of 50 years of television. 

His talent to adlib alongside the best – and possibly worst – in the business, both from Australia and overseas, have earned him some of the most defining moments in Australian TV history.  In 1973, Newton had to cope with the rather emotional, and occasionally mumbling, overseas guest Michael Cole dropping the word ‘shit’ while accepting an award.  A few years later, in 1979, an innocent wisecrack from Newton almost led to blows from boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

The decision to appoint Newton as the Logies host comes after former Big Brother host Gretel Killeen received criticism for her hosting of last year’s event and in previous years before then the awards had relied on multiple co-hosts rather than a single presenter. 

Previous hosts and co-hosts of the event include Eddie McGuire, Ray Martin, Andrew Denton, Shaun Micallef, Andrew O’Keefe, Rove McManus, Fifi Box, Dave Hughes, Hamish Blake, Andy Lee, Adam Hills, Lisa McCune, George Parker, Wendy Harmer, Daryl Somers, Mark Mitchell, Don Lane, Mike Willesee, Michael Parkinson, Greg Evans, Andrew Daddo and Noni Hazlehurst.

The 2010 TV Week Logie Awards are to be held on 2 May at Melbourne’s Crown Casino and will be telecast on the Nine Network.

Source: TV Tonight

Ding Dong Denise back on daytime TV

Denise Drysdale is set to make her return to TV as a panellist on the upcoming Ten Network program, The Circle.

One of Australia’s true TV veterans, Drysdale was a performer in children’s television in the 1960s, later featuring in pop music shows Kommotion, Uptight and Dig We Must and on Graham Kennedy’s In Melbourne Tonight. 

A number of guest appearances in Crawford dramas Division Four and Homicide later led to her becoming Ernie Sigley’s sidekick on the Nine Network’s The Ernie Sigley Show.  Their popularity led to them, in 1975, winning TV Week Gold Logies for most popular male and female on Australian TV.  Drysdale then won a second Gold Logie the following year.

She also starred in the sitcom The Bluestone Boys and musical special The 20s And All That Jazz (pictured) and appeared on Young Talent Time, Cop Shop, Countdown, The Penthouse Club, The Truckies, The Don Lane Show, The Mike Walsh Show, The Daryl Somers Show and co-hosted Hey Hey It’s Saturday after the departure of Jacki MacDonald from the show.  Living on a farm since the late-‘70s, she also hosted her own weekly program in the 1980s on local channel GLV8, based in Gippsland, Victoria.

The new Ten Network show marks Drysdale’s return to daytime TV after previous success when re-united with Sigley for In Melbourne Today in the late ‘80s, the program later titled Ernie And Denise when the show went national.  Then after two years as co-host on the revived In Melbourne Tonight with Frankie J Holden, Drysdale had her own daytime show, Denise, on the Seven Network in the late 1990s.

Recently, she has appeared as a guest on ABC’s Spicks And Specks and in the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion.

The Circle, due to start on Tuesday 9 February, is the replacement for Ten’s 9AM With David And Kim which wound up in December after four years on-air.  (The last two months have seen a “best of” collection of segments from the show airing as 9AM Summertime in the two-hour morning timeslot)

Also appearing as regulars on The Circle will be Foxtel presenter Yumi Stynes, performer and TV presenter Gorgi Coghlan and former Big Brother contestant and Vega FM breakfast presenter Chrissie Swan.

Scheduled to air weekdays from 10.00am, the new two-hour show promises topical chat with audience interaction.  The existing one-hour Ten News bulletin at 11.00am will move to 9.00am.

From the outset, it appears that The Circle looks like a daytime twist on Ten’s early evening The 7PM Project, a program that also features regular and guest panellists discussing issues of the day with some audience interaction.  The Circle’s all-female panel format also appears to bear a resemblance to the popular US show The View (shown in Australia on Foxtel and Nine), and its less-successful Australian adaptation, The Catch-Up, which aired on Nine in 2007.  It will be interesting to see if The Circle can overcome these perceptions and offer a viable alternative to The Morning Show and Mornings With Kerri-Anne on rival networks Seven and Nine.

Remembering the Noughties

At this time of year, and this time of decade, comes the inevitable “lists” of some of the highlights, and possible lowlights, of the year or decade coming to a close.

So who are we to be any different?  Time to look at some of the events, programs and people that have stood out for this past decade, in chronological order:

1. 2000 Today/Millennium Live.  The worldwide celebration of the new millennium was well covered on TV, from the earliest celebrations in New Zealand and Australia and following the progress of celebrations throughout the world over the next 24 hours.  ABC was the Australian participant in the global 2000 Today telecast, and the Nine Network tapped into its worldwide resources to present Millennium Live.

2. Sydney Olympic Games.  The world’s attention was focused on Sydney for two weeks as the city presented the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in September 2000.  The opening ceremony, featuring Cathy Freeman (pictured), earned the Seven Network the highest ratings received for any telecast since 1969. 

3. Digital TV begins.  Beginning on 1 January 2001 with a whimper rather than a bang, digital TV promised widescreen pictures, high-definition, surround sound and new channels.  However, the initial roll-out of digital TV into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth came before many retailers had tuners or set top boxes to sell.  As a result the launch of digital TV was seen by only a few.  Although the original proposal was to have Australia fully converted to digital TV by 2008, this date has now been postponed to 31 December 2013.

4. Big Brother.  An invention of Dutch TV producer John de Mol in the late-1990s, Big Brother had made itself known in a number of countries before being unleashed on Australia in 2001.  All commercial networks fought to gain access to the format, but it was Ten that was to succeed and would use Big Brother as its flagship program in reaching out to the advertiser-friendly youth demographic with the reality genre.  The program turned host Gretel Killeen (pictured, with contestant Merlin Luck) into a household name and created short-term suburban heroes out of some of its contestants.  Some of the show’s more controversial moments attracted plenty of scorn from the public, added words like “turkey slap” into the mainstream, and Prime Minister John Howard at one time demanding the show be taken off the air.   Falling ratings led to the show finally coming to an end in Australia in 2008.

5. Kath And Kim.  Although the ‘high maintenance’ Kath Day (Jane Turner), her ‘hornbag’ daughter Kimberley Craig nee Day (Gina Riley) and Kim’s second-best friend Sharon Strzelecki (Magda Szubanski) were creations of the 1990s, featuring in sketch comedy shows Big Girls Blouse and Something Stupid, they got a new lease of life when ABC took up the show with eight half-hour episodes going to air in 2002.  Kath And Kim gave ABC some of its highest ever ratings over its three-series run and the show added a number of words and phrases into the language - “look at moiye”, “c’ardonnay”, “foxy morons” and “muffin top”, just to name a few – and even scored an AFI award for Best TV Drama!  Kath And Kim then led to a Christmas-themed telemovie, Da Kath And Kim Code, before the Seven Network took over the rights, producing a top-rating fourth series in 2007.  The concept was even picked up by the American NBC network to be re-made for the US market, a feat rarely achieved by any Australian series.

6. Australian Idol.  When it was announced that Network Ten was to adopt the Pop Idol franchise in Australia, there were cries that Australia had already ‘been there, done that’ with the Seven Network’s Popstars (2000-2002).  But in launching Australian Idol on the back of Big Brother during 2003, Ten had a new reality-themed hit on its hands and a couple of ‘70s pop idols, Mark Holden and Marcia Hines, were given a new profile as part of the judging panel.  The show transformed Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson from record producer to media celebrity and even gave serial breakfast radio pest Kyle Sandilands a shot at the TV spotlight before recent radio controversies saw him dropped from the show at the start of the 2009 season.  Although Guy Sebastian (pictured) is perhaps the only Australian Idol winner to go onto any sustained pop music career, other contestants to continue some level of pop music stardom after the series include Anthony Callea, Shannon Noll, Ricki-Lee Coulter (who has also co-hosted Australian Idol in later years) and Jessica Mauboy.

7. Asia Tsunami Telethon.  On 26 December 2004, a tsunami triggered by an earthquake under the Indian Ocean wreaked havoc across a number of Asian countries, with the death toll estimated to reach into the hundreds of thousands.  With such massive destruction and casualties, Australia’s three commercial networks put aside their rivalries and got together to present a three-hour telethon, simulcast across all three networks.  Hosting the event was Andrew O’Keefe (Seven), Eddie McGuire (Nine) and Rove McManus (Ten) with appearances by personalities from all three networks, including Gretel Killeen, Bert Newton, Ray Martin, Melissa Doyle, David Koch and Larry Emdur.  The three-hour telethon raised more than $A20 million.

8. Thank God You’re Here.  Working Dog Productions, producers of Frontline, The Panel, All Aussie Adventures, A River Somewhere, Funky Squad and movies The Castle and The Dish, came to Network Ten with a new twist on the improvised sketch genre.  Thank God You’re Here would place unprepared performers into an established scene and be greeted with the words ‘Thank God you’re here’ before having to improvise their way through the scene without any prior knowledge of what the scene is about.  Hosted by Shane Bourne (pictured, with judge Tom Gleisner), Thank God You’re Here became a ratings hit for Network Ten when it launched in 2006.  The popularity of the show led to the format being franchised worldwide, with adaptations in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Belgium and Italy.  After three series on Ten, the show was then picked up by the Seven Network in 2009.

9. Underbelly.  Melbourne’s real-life gangland wars of the 1990s to mid-2000s provided the perfect backdrop for a TV series.  Adapted from the book Leadbelly, by John Silvester and Andrew Rule, Underbelly debuted in February 2008 – but, ironically, except in Victoria where the series was banned by order of the Supreme Court due to pending trials.  With liberal amounts of sex, nudity, coarse language and graphic violence as well as its real-life basis, Underbelly was a ratings hit despite not showing in its home state, although the court later permitted an edited sample of episodes to be shown in Victoria later in the year.  At the time of writing the full, unedited version of Underbelly is still banned from broadcasting and sale within the state of Victoria.  A second series of Underbelly, sub-titled A Tale Of Two Cities, followed the activities of the underworld drug trade in the 1970s and 1980s.  A third series, Underbelly: The Golden Mile, is now in production for 2010, set in Sydney in the early'-‘90s.

10. Masterchef Australia.  When Network Ten announced that it had purchased the Masterchef franchise as the replacement for Big Brother, nobody thought the show would take off.  Who would watch a cooking show, six nights a week?  What sort of drama or human emotion can be dragged out over a hot stove over thirteen weeks? Doesn’t keeping the contestants in a share house look a bit much like a Big Brother-rip off?  What was Australia’s self-proclaimed youth network thinking?  But within weeks of its debut, Masterchef Australia was showing to prove its critics and doubters wrong.  There was, it seemed, plenty of human emotion and drama to be played out as contestants slaved over hot stoves in preparing high-end cuisine to achieve the status of being awarded Australia’s first Masterchef, with $100,000 prizemoney, further professional tuition and a book publishing deal.  Some well-considered casting and a charismatic threesome, chefs George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan and food critic Matt Preston (pictured), turned out a show that gave Ten the highest ratings it had seen at 7.00pm for many years and turned food preparation into a spectator sport.  The show’s grand finale was watched by over 3 million viewers (OzTAM, 5 cities), making it the highest rating non-sports telecast since OzTAM records started in 2001.  The success of Masterchef Australia has led to a celebrity version being played out this year, and 2010 will see a second series of Masterchef Australia and, apparently, a junior contest as well. 

Of course, this is far from being an exhaustive list of highlights, or lowlights, of the decade.  What would you rate as your standout highlights of the decade?

Beautiful one day, Logies the next?

The Queensland Government has reportedly made a bid for the Gold Coast to host the TV Week Logie Awards in an attempt to take the awards away from their traditional home of Melbourne.

Queensland Government representatives made the offer to executives of PBL Media, owners of TV Week and the Nine Network, to pay for the event to be relocated to the Gold Coast. 

For about the last decade, the awards have been hosted at Melbourne's Crown Casino, and while the event is confirmed for Crown next year a relocation in the future has not been ruled out.  James Packer, owner of Crown, now has a reduced holding in PBL Media so that somewhat loosens the ties between the event and the venue that had previously been firmly set.

Since their inception in Melbourne in the late-1950s (pictured), when TV Week was a Melbourne-based publication, the TV Week Logie Awards have only ever been hosted in either Melbourne or, on a few occasions, in Sydney.  Even though TV Week is now a Sydney-based publication, the awards ceremony has kept its historical connection to Melbourne.

The star-studded event is seen as a possible shot in the arm for Queensland's ailing local TV industry, particularly since its largest production, Big Brother, was axed earlier this year.  The only other prime-time national program to come from the state this year has been Nine's Gold Coast-based crime drama The Strip which delivered only average results.

While it is a romantic notion to keep the awards based in Melbourne, the fact is that the industry has changed, and so has the emphasis of the awards and the magazine's demographic.  It would be unfortunate for Melbourne to lose the night, but it has lost favour with a lot of its 'old school' fans over time and the younger viewers that the magazine appeals to now may be more inclined to support a fresher approach to the event, with less of the tradition, and a new home base.  Though critics of the move say this will only serve to give the Logies a 'tacky' image as the Gold Coast doesn't quite share the same glamour or have the heart for showbusiness as Melbourne does.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

From Big Brother to big bother

Newsflash for anyone living under a rock or on Mars for the last few days - the axe has fallen on Big Brother after eight years, over a hundred talent-starved celebrity wannabes, just about as many horrendous outfits worn by (the otherwise very able host) Gretel Killeen, and the ongoing scorn of the nation including one former prime minister who tried to do a Kerry Packer and pleaded "get this stupid program off the air."

But, like it or loathe it, if one show could exemplify the format of reality TV and the pop culture phenomenon of the decade, Big Brother would have to be it. It may not have been the first of the genre but it was the first to give rise to saturation programming and viewer involvement via telephone voting and an internet presence.

The Big Brother format, where contestants would be 'locked away' from society with every movement recorded and influenced by the leader 'Big Brother', and would be voted off one-by-one by the viewing audience, was born in the Netherlands in the late 1990s and its success led to the format being franchised, with as many as 70 different versions around the world.

With the concept being so readily adopted by viewers, particularly in the younger demographics, it seemed to be a perfect fit for Australia's Ten Network. Since the early-'90s, Ten has backed away from trying to appeal to all ages but rather focus on the advertiser-friendly 16-to-39 age bracket. During the 1990s, Ten achieved its focus largely due to imported product such as The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Seinfeld, Baywatch and The X Files, but the supply of such programs could not last forever. Ten adopted the Big Brother format after it had been successfully employed by the United Kingdom's Channel 4, a commercial network with a similar focus towards unconventional programming and youth appeal.

The premiere of the first series of the Australian Big Brother went to air on Tuesday 24 April 2001 - with host Gretel Killeen, a comedian, author, voice over talent and TV presenter, introducing Australia to its first batch of Big Brother housemates: Ben, Blair, Sara-Marie (pictured), Christina, Peter, Jemma, Johnnie, Lisa, Gordon, Todd, Sharna and Andy.

Over the next eighty-five days, while locked away in the Big Brother house situated at the Dreamworld theme park on the Gold Coast, the housemates would be challenged with physical tasks, managing a limited budget, sharing bedrooms and a bathroom and maintain a civil existence with a group of strangers, of varying personality types and backgrounds, all while under the watchful eye of 'Big Brother' and millions of Australians.

The eventual winner of the first Big Brother series was Sydney-based Ben Williams (pictured, with Killeen) who took the show's $250,000 prize and embarked on a campaign of charity work, in particular for the World Vision organisation. Series runner-up Blair McDonough from Melbourne, went on to become a soap star in Ten's Neighbours, and second runner-up, the raucous but likeable Sara-Marie Fedele from Perth, became something of a minor celebrity phenomenon with a release of a CD, a book, and appearances in other Network Ten programs such as Totally Wild. She later re-emerged as the face of smoke-busters Nicobate and as a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother and the Seven Network's Dancing With The Stars.

Other housemates from the first series to gain some public profile included Pete Timbs who later became a writer for TV Week and a radio presenter, and Jemma Gawned moved into the cosmetics industry and appeared on Good Morning Australia and Search For A Supermodel.

Another series one housemate, Gordon Sloan (pictured) later became known for participating in the 'human shield' protest in Baghdad. In 2007, the 34-year-old died after a suspected drug overdose or may have been drugged by another person.

Of course, over eight seasons of Big Brother, the show has proven to be an instant headline-seeker, whether deliberate or otherwise:

• The evicted housemate who refused to talk or co-operate with host Killeen as a political protest,
• The two male housemates disqualified from the show for an alleged 'turkey-slapping' incident (and consequently, adding that phrase to the mainstream vernacular)
• The ongoing public scorn, including from former prime minister John Howard, over 'adults only' content being shown in prime-time. (The 'AO' version was then rested the following year)
• The former housemate arrested in Queensland for alleged indecent behaviour
• An evicted contestant allowed to return after it was revealed a voting bungle led to the wrong contestant being evicted
• Producers criticised for forcing a housemate to relive the trauma of a miscarriage while looking after a baby doll as a task
• The housemate whose father had passed away while she was in the house, and producers being criticised for not notifying her, despite them following the wishes of the family
• The Mexican government lodging a complaint after a Friday Night Live task had contestants hurling liquid-filled balloons at the Mexican flag, which had been placed upside down

Over its eight seasons, Big Brother has been more than just a few hours of television a week. As well as the half-hour daily shows there were the Sunday night evictions, Monday night nomination shows, surprise evictions, intruders entering the house, intruders evicted from the house, 'adults-only' shows, talk/panel shows and interviews and even spin-offs like Celebrity Big Brother, Friday Night Live, Big Brother Up-Late and a rather forgettable pantomime. There has been live streaming over the internet and content delivered to mobile telephones, online chat rooms, forums and blogs. Big Brother was constant fodder for breakfast radio, both in content and in talent with a number of former housemates now employed in radio, and gave talk-back radio listeners a constant cause to vent their annoyance at its existence.

Thousands have been employed on the show behind-the-scenes, as well as a small cast of hosts on-camera including Mike Goldman (pictured), who was not only the voice-over announcer for the daily show, but also hosted the Friday Night Live show and had his ad-lib skills tested with Big Brother Up-Late and this year as fill-in host on the Sunday night eviction show.

And as the public face of Big Brother, Gretel Killeen had the unenviable task each week of keeping the Sunday night eviction shows under control, while having producers shouting directions through her earpiece, and while trying to control an auditorium-filled crowd of hysterical teenagers, all while trying to keep some level of conversation flowing with family and friends of nominated housemates, and the evicted housemates on-stage. It was a task that not many TV presenters would have had the ability to maintain but Killeen was tireless in her role. (How many others would have coped as well with the silent protest of evictee Merlin, pictured, on stage in 2004?)

When changes were made to show at the end of the 2007 season, after a drop in ratings, Killeen was let go from the show and replaced with controversial but not-very-likeable pair Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O (pictured). Not a popular decision given Killeen's abilities (and also Ms O's TV resume including such hits as Australian Princess, The Nation and Undercover Angels), but one seemingly made by producers to make a point that Big Brother in 2008 would be different than before.

So when Big Brother began in 2008, there were the two new hosts, there was the return of 'adults-only' via the new weekly show Big Mouth, hosted by another two unusual choices Tony Squires and Rebecca Wilson, Big Brother Up-Late was gone, and the process of nominations was changed. Added to all this was a somewhat overindulgent casting of housemates with unusual attributes, either physically or otherwise - as opposed to genuinely interesting or appealing housemates - and the reliance on "celebrity" appearances such as twerpy teenager Corey Worthington, flamboyant Carson Kressley and blonde-and-big-busted Pamela Anderson. As a result, Big Brother in 2008 became a mere parody of itself. Ratings dropped and criticism of the show increased, but Network Ten continued to soldier on in its support of the show, claiming that it was tracking well in its desired demographics. However, when federal treasurer Wayne Swan delivering his budget speech was being watched by more viewers than Big Brother, even Ten must have realised the show's time was up hence this week's announcement that the show will not return after this year's season finale.

Even though Big Brother rides off into the TV sunset early next week, it may not be gone for long. Speculation is already rife that the format could be adopted, in one form or another, by one of the other networks or even be revived by Ten at a later stage. It is hard to imagine that a show that has been such a pop culture phenomenon will just disappear without trace. Time will tell on that one.

Big Brother 2008 Final, Monday 7.00pm, Ten Melbourne (other areas/affiliates check local guides)

The Year That Was... #8: Reality check

The lights may have faded a bit on reality TV's ratings this year but the genre still has some life left in it.

Network Ten's big name franchises The Biggest Loser, Big Brother and Australian Idol all came back for more this year.

The Biggest Loser largely followed the formula of last year but this year added the twist of introducing two "intruders" half-way through the series - with one of the intruders, Chris Garling, going on to win the series. The series final also scored an audience of over 2 million, not an easy feat in this era of declining free-to-air audiences.

Big Brother (pictured) returned for its seventh series but in the wake of intense criticism last year over the "turkey slap" incident, this year's series was shown to be a lot more restrained. Gone was the adults-only Big Brother Uncut program, and despite producer's claims that the incoming housemates were all more "worldly" than their predecessors, the group of housemates appeared to be a fairly pedestrian slice of white Australia. Despite the apparent lack of diversity among the housemates there were some exceptions - such as Turkish belly dancer Demet, fiery Brazilian Daniela and Melbourne corset maker Zach Douglas.

There were some new twists in this year's Big Brother; the concept of the "white room", where potential housemates were kept in a sensory-deprived environment, was met with criticism, while other twists such as housemate couple Andrew and Hayley whose relationship was initially kept secret, and was also tested when producers introduced Billy, a former boyfriend of Hayley's, into the house.

The producer's also copped criticism and headlines when housemate Kate Gladman was forced to confront the trauma of a miscarriage when the housemates were given the task of looking after baby dolls. More headlines followed when the father of housemate Emma Cornell had passed away while she was in the house but producer's decided against advising her of his death, in accordance with the wishes of Cornell's family and of the dying wishes of her father.

Producers also copped a serve from none other than the Mexican Government when one of its Friday Night Live games had contestants hurling goo-filled balloons at an upside-down Mexican flag.

Then after one of the longest Big Brother finales on record, due to a close vote between Cobram hairdresser Aleisha Cowcher and self-confessed 'drama queen' Zach Douglas, 21-year-old Cowcher won the series with a prize-money of $450,000.

But Big Brother's biggest twists came after the finale, with announcements that host Gretel Killeen (pictured) is to be replaced next year by Sydney radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, the adults-only "uncut" series will be back, and that Big Brother Up-Late with Mike Goldman won't return in '08.

Ten's Australian Idol returned for a fifth series, though the spotlight - or at least the headlines - seemed to be on the judges rather than the contestants. With ratings down in comparison to earlier series, it was probably no coincidence that a lot of the reported 'tensions' between judges appeared in the Sunday newspapers, giving the show ample media exposure leading up to the regular Sunday night show.

The series final of Australian Idol, which saw Melbourne's Natalie Gauci win the title, appeared to be dogged by technical hitches which wouldn't have helped its ratings - scoring only 1.4 million viewers compared to last year's finale watched by 2.1 million.

Over at Seven, they continued to mix the reality genre with variety with two more series of Dancing With The Stars (hosts Daryl Somers and Sonia Kruger pictured), another series of the singing contest It Takes Two, and the new Australia's Got Talent.

Coupled with US import Ugly Betty, Australia's Got Talent spearheaded Seven's Sunday night schedule early in the year. While the program is actually an adaptation of an overseas format, viewers could have confused it as a one-hour version of the Red Faces segment from Hey Hey It's Saturday - also as one of the show's judges was Red Faces icon Red Symons. The series was to be won by 12-year-old singer Bonnie Anderson.

Dancing With The Stars scored controversy from within its own network when Today Tonight ran a report questioning that funds raised by the show's SMS voting were being properly funneled to their respective charitable causes. Despite the stories, Dancing scored very well in the ratings, though did not match the numbers of previous series. Celebrity winners were Kate Ceberano in series six, and actor Bridie Carter in series seven later in the year.

Following the end of series seven of Dancing, host Somers decided it was time to move on. There were media reports that Somers had left after being refused some pressing demands on Seven and the show's producer Granada International. Other reports suggested that there was still some unease at Somers working for Seven chief David Leckie, the same executive that axed Somers' long-running Hey Hey It's Saturday at Nine in 1999. A replacement host has yet to be found for Dancing, though rumours suggest that former Home And Away actor Tim Campbell (also a former Dancing contestant, and host of National Bingo Night), Deal Or No Deal host Andrew O'Keefe or even Somers' former sidekick Sonia Kruger could take the coveted role.

In between Dancing With The Stars' two series this year was another series of It Takes Two which ran very successfully last year on Sunday nights, and continued to score well for Seven this year. The singing competition, hosted by former Sunrise weatherman Grant Denyer and Gold Logie winner Kate Ritchie, was won by All Saints actor Jolene Anderson (pictured).