1. New TV making (or reporting or commenting on) the news.
Lots of eyes watching since Ten announced Adam Boland as the Director of Morning Television. He’s been teasing all through his tweets and Facebook updates with hints at plans and copious meetings – finally this week it paid off: Ita Buttrose was announced as a cast member of “Ten’s new, panel-based mornings show” to much fanfare and even greater speculation. Does this mean the former home of The Circle will become a facsimile of The View? More to come – like everything else about the show though Boland has confirmed it will see screentime in 2013. Who’s going to be a busy boy then?
Seven have announced they’re joining the “mummy news” circuit with former Today Tonight reporter Sally Obermeder as host of The Daily Edition. It’ll be news discussion laden with entertainment fluff, co-hosted by Kris Smith, Tom Williams & Monique Wright. The press release boldly declares the show will “take a leadership position in providing live content to an audience waiting to be entertained”. No timeslot or start date yet announced but you can be sure it’s there to spoil the audience of Nine News Now.
2. Game of Thrones serves up a wedding surprise.
No question Game of Thrones is the biggest show on television at the moment and the penultimate episode of season three revealed the fans of the show can be divided into two clear camps – those who’ve read the books and those who’ve only watched the show. The now infamous Red Wedding scene that rounded out episode nine is a stunning piece of theatre delivered well and punctuated by the reactions of those in the second camp that didn’t know it was coming. Those prescient enough to surreptitiously film the moment make it even more delicious…
3. People get to work again.
Breakout Australian drama hit Wentworth, airing on SoHo, has been picked up for a second season in 2014 – testament to the amazing work from the cast and crew and all the team at Freemantle Media Australia. House Husbands also secured a third season on Nine for next year ensuring their Aussie drama schedule maintains some life and (necessary) momentum.
The ABC made two return series announcements as well – The Doctor Blake Mysteries deservedly gets a second season of its 1950’s whodunnit Oz Drama (meaning, if nothing else, Craig McLachlan won’t have to resort to stand up again for some time). In a more curious call Tractor Monkeys has been called back for season two and we’ll get to see it in the later part of 2013. Hopefully the lumps and bumps that made season one so kludgy have been ironed out and Monty Diamond has done some research so that she doesn’t look as dumbstruck as she did often throughout the first run (Mel B had more of an idea who the Dancing With The Stars contestants were, and that’s saying something).
4. Lowest. Drama premiere. Ever.
It sat gathering dust in the Ten archives for so long those who cared started to think they didn’t know what to do with it. Now that it’s seen the light of day Reef Doctors has suffered an indignity almost worse than never being seen – it launched into a supremely crowded timeslot that saw it only draw 357,000 viewers across the five capital cities. Some perspective: Being Lara Bingle launched with 925,000; The Shire with 913,000; and Everybody Dance Now with 572,000 (sure, they’re not drama shows, but… well, you do the math).
5. The Bananas survive the chop.
Someone suggested the Bananas In Pyjamas had been cancelled. The ABC PR team are swift if not humourless:
ABC TV confirms that it will continue to broadcast Bananas in Pyjamas, one of the globe’s most popular and iconic children’s programs.
The latest series has 156 new episodes, with the current block of episodes premiering in May this year. In order to make the most of our significant investment in the hugely popular program, we will continue airing these episodes to a new generation of Australian pre-schoolers, as has been our standard practice in children’s television for more than two decades.
Another series of Bananas in Pyjamas will go through the usual commissioning process to determine future production of the program. This process does not relate to current Government
funding.In 2012 ABC4Kids was the highest ranking children’s television service for pre-schoolers aged 0 – 4 and we acknowledge the invaluable contribution Bananas in Pyjamas has made to that
success.