Mr Scott, head of the national broadcaster since 2006, was recognised “for distinguished service to media and communications, and to the community through advisory and governance roles with a range of social justice and educational bodies.”
Before becoming Managing Director of the ABC, Mr Scott had a background in the print media industry and has served as a board member for charities including Wesley Mission.
A total of 376 Australians were honoured in this year’s list.
A player for the Cats from 1948 to 1958, Davis later became captain and coach of the then VFL club. He coached the team to their premiership in 1963 – their last Grand Final win for over 40 years. He lived to see the team take the premiership in 2007 and presented the team with the premiership cup when they won again in 2009.
He was inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame in 1996.
But Davis’ contribution to football wasn’t just on the field, he was also a passionate commentator and was a key figure in the development of television coverage of the game. Joining the commentary team at HSV7 in the late 1950s, Davis went on to many years as part of the World Of Sport team and, with Lou Richards and Jack Dyer, presented the late night favourite League Teams.
He later appeared on Sportsworld and Seven’s Footy Panel before leaving Seven in 2001.
Lewis Martin, General Manager of HSV7, said that Davis was a television pioneer:
“Bob Davis was not only a great football personality on Channel Seven, he was a television pioneer and his legacy can be seen today in sports entertainment television. He was and always will be a beloved member of the Seven family from who we learned a great deal. Bob will be sorely missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Margaret and the Davis family.”
AFL chief Andrew Demetriou paid tribute to the Geelong legend:
"He coached his beloved club to a premiership in 1963, but perhaps his greatest contribution of all was to take our game into lounge rooms every weekend, as television developed in this country, and forged a powerful bond between our players and our fans. On behalf of the AFL and our clubs, I wish to pass on our deepest sympathy to Bob’s wife Margaret and his family, and the Geelong Football Club, and to thank them for Bob’s wonderful service to our game."
Last week, Richards' former football club put out a call to the AFL Commission to have his legend status officially recognised in the league's Hall of Fame despite the fact that statistically he is ineligible.
But today, 15 March, is Richards' 86th birthday and The Age's Real Footy website today pays tribute to a larger-than-life character of the game who has continued to entertain fans in covering the game for newspapers, radio and television since the 1950s.
As a columnist for The Sun newspaper he was nicknamed 'Louie the Lip' and he went on to cover the then Victorian Football League for radio 3XY, followed by 3DB and then on television at HSV7. Richards' association with Seven would last almost thirty years through his football commentary as well as his colourful contributions to the long-running World Of Sport (1959-87) and the late-night favourite League Teams. Richards, and his on-air sparring partner Jack Dyer, also appeared in a comic cameo on drama series Skyways. When HSV7 lost the rights to cover VFL at the end of the 1986 season, and the station was taken over by Sydney interests in 1987, Richards' media career took an unexpected turn when he later turned up at rival channel GTV9, even though the channel had no broadcast rights to the VFL.
Nine put Richards to work presenting a football segment on National Nine News as well as co-hosting the Sunday edition of Wide World Of Sports with Max Walker, and later the Sunday edition of The Footy Show which was seen as a throwback to the halcyon days of World Of Sport with frank discussion of Australian rules and studio segments including the handball competition.
Recent years have seen Richards' health deteriorate and, as a result, his involvement in The Footy Show being cut back to cameo appearances, although he continued to present the handball competition as a pre-recorded segment. But Nine has decided that it is time for "Louie The Lip" to formally retire from the program but, should he be able to, will be welcome to make guest appearances. And in a legacy to "Louie", the program will continue to name the handball competition in his honour and the program's player of the year will still be awarded the Lou Richards Medal.
Source: Real Footy
Main picture: The Age
Happy the War bride
When Alice Morgan and Michael Watkins (Megan Williams and John Walton, pictured) walk down the aisle together on The Sullivans, the bride's dress will bring back happy memories for one viewer, Mrs Emmett of Victoria, who wore the same dress on her own wedding day in 1943 and offered it to Crawford Productions for use on the series. The wedding of Alice and Michael took place at Melbourne's Church of Our Lady of Victory in Camberwell but, unlike a real wedding, took a full day of rehearsals and filming before Alice could say "I will." The wedding episode of The Sullivans screens this week on GTV9 Melbourne and later in October on TCN9 Sydney and NWS9 Adelaide.
Blinkity blinks!
Most quiz shows give contestants a chance to show how clever they are. Not so, with ABC's new show Micro Macro, as host Noel Ferrier (pictured, centre) says it will show them up with not a clue as to the answer. An adaptation of a European format, Micro Macro will put two teams of celebrity panelists against each other in a quiz of visual puzzles relying on the quickness of the eye. Among the regulars to appear on the show will be Carol Raye, one of Ferrier's companions on Blankety Blanks, and personality Jimmy Hannan, who is more familiar to viewers as a game show host rather than contestant.
The pause that refreshes
This Day Tonight host Clive Hale (pictured) finds there's nothing like a bit of meditation to calm those pre-program nerves, but he's never meditated in the studio, always at home. But since he and wife Elizabeth moved from Adelaide to Sydney so he could take over as host of the NSW version of This Day Tonight, he's often had to give his daily meditation a miss. "I'm determined to get back into it. TV is a high pressure industry and it's fairly unnerving talking into a lens," he told TV Times. Despite the show's increased ratings since Hale took over the hosting role, This Day Tonight is set to finish up later in the year.
The call of the wild!
TV channels are often inundated with phone calls from viewers asking about certain programs or to give feedback - sometimes constructive, but sometimes just illogical! One such phone call went like this:
Caller: "Why have you taken off The Restless Years?"
Receptionist: "But this is Channel 7, and that program is on Channel 0."
Caller: "I don't care. Just tell me why you've taken it off!"
Viewers have also had cause to call up Sydney's TCN9 to complain about The Mike Walsh Show. Rival station TEN10, which used to screen the show, still gets viewers complaints about the program, and ATN7 and ABN2, neither of which have ever screened it, also receive complaints about it!
And in Melbourne, one young viewer calls up HSV7 when The Flintstones is repeated, and always asks to speak to Fred Flintstone, but responds angrily when told that Fred is not available. A Perth woman also called up STW9 to ask if she could borrow a couple of palm trees, as seen on Gilligan's Island, for a Hawaiian party.
Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
"After the never-ending stream of cops and robbers and doctors and nurses, the classic The Importance Of Being Earnest was like a welcome oasis. As it was heralded by TV Times as the movie of the week, earning a four-star rating, one might wonder why good family entertainment such as this could be shown at midnight. Perhaps TEN10 are aiming at giving the dole payees, who don't need to rise at 6 or 7am, a little culture." V. O'Hara, NSW.
"Richard Peach and Richard Morecroft both look great and do a great job of newsreading. And thanks for presenting us with a weatherman, who tells us about the weather. Better than the over-glorified, shiny females of the commercial stations." A. Voake, SA.
"Having watched The Truckies' episode 'Country Music', I register my disgust with the series. Having virtually endured the previous episodes (because we haven't a choice of channels), the 'Country Music' episode I found most distasteful. If ABC is hoping to sell the series overseas I now add that it will certainly paint a sad and sorry picture of our Australian male, and our truckies in particular." W. G. Walker, WA.
What's On (September 30-October 6):
HSV7's live telecast of the 1978 VFL Grand Final is not listed in the program guides, possibly not confirmed at time of publication, but a full replay is scheduled for 6.30pm Saturday night.
Following the Grand Final, Penthouse '78 presents a special edition to celebrate 1000 episodes of HSV7's World Of Sport, featuring highlights of over twenty years of the world's longest running sports show. Joining host Ernie Sigley is World Of Sport host Ron Casey and regulars including Bill Collins, Fred Villiers, Jack Elliot, Rollo Roylance, Lou Richards and Gus Mercurio.
Sunday morning and afternoon on HSV7 is dominated by the Hardie-Ferodo 1000, over nine hours of live coverage from Bathurst Raceway in NSW.
Monday afternoon marks the debut of ATV0's new game shows Pyramid Challenge and Perfect Match and variety show The Steve Raymond Show.
The documentary The Last Tasmanian features on ATV0 on Wednesday night, a two-hour presentation tracing the genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines, starting with the arrival of white man in 1803 and culminating with the death of Truganini - the Last Tasmanian - in 1876.
Sunday night movies are Sharon: Portrait Of A Mistress (HSV7), Soldier Blue (GTV9) and the premiere of US series Dallas (ATV0) with the first series of five episodes to be screened over three nights. ATV0 follows Dallas with a special presentation, Television's 22 Years, hosted by Steve Raymond (pictured) and featuring guests Graham Kennedy and Johnny O'Keefe.
Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 30 September 1978. ABC/ACP
Every city is parochial to some extent, but for some reason, Melburnians are just that little more precious about their city - especially if there are seen to be influences from Sydney.
This attitude to all things local was never more evident than the year 1987 - when the media shake-up not only saw all three Melbourne commercial channels change hands, but more horrifying was the thought that 'their' HSV7 had been taken over by a Sydney-based outfit.
Since it was licenced in 1955, HSV7 was owned by the Melbourne-based media giant Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) which published newspapers The Herald and The Sun (hence the call-sign HSV, the "V" stood for Victoria), and owned the once-dominant radio station 3DB.
For its first 30 years of broadcasting, HSV7 maintained a strong local presence in Melbourne. The other commercial channels GTV9 and ATV0/10 did too, but HSV7 would be less influenced by interstate factors and was heavily identified as being very much about Melbourne. Being the major broadcast partner in Australian Rules VFL was a major part of that local identity, but HSV also had strong links to Melbourne with locally-made shows such as World Of Sport, Video Village, The Happy Show, Homicide, Sunnyside Up, The Penthouse Club, the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal and Seven National News which during the '70s was Melbourne's dominant news bulletin.
But changes to media laws in the mid-'80s sparked a flurry of activity among the industry. In 1986, Rupert Murdoch had made a successful bid to gain control of HWT, but in doing so had to relinquish the group's radio and television interests. 3DB ultimately ended up owned by the Australian Radio Network who re-labelled the station 3TT - and these days it is known as Mix 101.1.
HSV7 had been sold to the Fairfax group, a Sydney-based media empire that owned ATN7 and newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age. The fact that HSV had been sold from its traditional newspaper owner to end up with a rival newspaper publisher must have been an indication that a major generational change was about to occur. And it did.
The three things that most closely linked HSV to the city of Melbourne - World Of Sport, Mal Walden and the station's 'Hello Melbourne' station identification - were all dumped mercilessly by the Fairfax management.
And it was no doubt convenient for Fairfax that HSV7, at the end of 1986 under its previous management, had lost the rights to VFL when it was outbid by production company Broadcom.
World Of Sport had launched in 1959 as a Saturday morning program, but later moved to Sundays, and by the time it had been axed in 1987, it was reportedly the longest running sports program on TV in the world. The program was never known for its sophistication or high production values, but it was a weekly habit for generations of Melburnians.
Mal Walden had been with HSV since the early '70s, having come across from 3DB. An early stint as a game show host on Jeopardy was followed by a cadetship in the newsroom which ultimately led to him being appointed chief newsreader in 1978 when longtime newsreader Brian Naylor moved across to GTV9. On the night of Friday 27 March 1987, Walden was told just minutes before going to air on Seven National News that the bulletin would be his last. A tearful Walden informed viewers at the end of the bulletin that he had been sacked.
While Seven National News had been rating behind its rivals National Nine News and Eyewitness News, it was nothing compared to the fallout that was to follow. When Seven National News was re-launched the following month as a one-hour format with newsreader Greg Pearce, recruited from Perth, ratings fell to virtually zero. The bulletin was soundly being beaten by a kids' cartoon series Inspector Gadget on ABC, and even by whatever multi-cultural offerings were being broadcast on SBS. The revamped bulletin also lost the support of the Victorian regional channels which up until that time had all carried Seven's news on relay from Melbourne, and in one fell swoop, all switched their nightly news relay to National Nine News.
When Walden was thrown a life-line by former Seven colleague David Johnston at ATV10, that station's Eyewitness News recorded a massive ratings spike as Walden was given a minor presenting role of a five-minute human interest segment Mal's Melbourne. Walden was later promoted to co-newsreader alongside Johnston and new recruit Tracey Curro in 1988. In 1995, he was appointed Ten's chief Melbourne newsreader when Johnston went back to Seven.
And in an industry where image is everything, the theme 'Hello Melbourne', while adapted from an American jingle, seemed to perfectly sum up HSV7's relationship to Melbourne. Launched by HSV in 1985, it was a catchy theme that struck a chord with viewers. Going into 1987, the theme was updated with a new animated logo sequence (pictured, above). Enter the Fairfax management, and suddenly the signature tune and the new station identifications were gone and the slogan 'Hello Melbourne' was demoted to being a mere caption on a generic Seven Network station identification that sucked out any enthusiasm for the brand. A few months later, even the 'Hello Melbourne' reference was cut from the station identifications.
Melbourne viewers had felt that HSV had simply left town in the wake of all that was happening. World Of Sport was replaced by Sydney's Sportsworld, a program that was no doubt more polished in presentation, but did not have the personality or tradition of World Of Sport, and being from Sydney, did not have the primary focus on Aussie Rules football The local current affairs program Day By Day was replaced by Terry Willesee Tonight fed down the line from Sydney, and the late-night news edition Newsworld was replaced by the Clive Robertson version which was adopted around the network. In the case of Newsworld, that was a change that seemed to bear some fruits as Robertson's laid-back and sarcastic style gave a new perspective in news presentation and would last for some years.
Though obviously relishing the opportunity to kick a rival when it's down, the Nine Network's 60 Minutes featured a story highlighting the mood surrounding the changes at HSV7 with reporter Jana Wendt chatting to apparently-typical Melburnians, as well as Mal Walden, Nine's Brian Naylor, Ten's David Johnston (co-incidentally a former colleague of Wendt's when she was a newsreader at Ten) and even Seven executive Phil Davis and new newsreader Greg Pearce.
The 60 Minutes report though did raise a certain point. Sure, HSV7 was now being run by Sydney interests, but its rivals Nine, Ten, and even 'aunty' ABC were being run and influenced by Sydney-based decision-making for years. And Melbourne's favourite son, Graham Kennedy, also gave a rather blunt assessment that Melbourne has to get with the times - television can not survive as a purely-local medium, it has to rely on a networked format to survive and if that meant losing some local jobs, so be it.
But barely a few months after the Fairfax-led upheaval at HSV, there was a change again, this time from Melbourne-born entrepreneur Christopher Skase buying up the Seven stations HSV7, ATN7 Sydney and BTQ7 Brisbane for $780 million. Skase was seen as the white knight to save HSV7 from its perilous state. Although Skase predicted the station's recovery would take some years, within months of his buying the network, the rights to VFL coverage had come back to Seven, the news was getting a revamp with the signing up of Eyewitness News presenter Jennifer Keyte and returning to its traditional half-hour format, and Melbourne radio broadcaster Derryn Hinch had signed on to present a nightly current affairs program.
Seven was coming back to Melbourne but it would be some time before the scars of the Fairfax era would heal, not helped either by the later Skase controversy that would follow in the early '90s.
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