Category Archives: on the show

Further to the “news” item that WIN would be showing Brady Bunch in the afternoon and why they would bother sending out a media release about it, a dedicated listener informed me of WIN boss Bruce Gordon’s current battle with PBL Media/Nine over content deals and pointed me to a Fairfax article from this morning:

“We’re out of contract and they keep threatening to turn us off,” Mr Gordon said. “We said, ‘Go ahead: take your programming off’, and we think it would be a lot of fun if they did. We can program this network. When I bought this network in 1979, there were no affiliation agreements.”

PBL Media, owner of the Nine Network, wants WIN to pay 40 per cent of its revenue in return for programming, up from the 32 per cent it pays under the current agreement, which officially expired on July 1.

Mr Gordon wants the fees reduced to reflect poor ratings, and to bring them into line with the 29 per cent of revenue that WIN’s main regional competitors, Prime and Southern Cross Broadcasting, pay their partners at Seven and Ten.

Apparently it is worthwhile to boast about putting on 35 year old repeats if it means you’re sticking it to the big boys.

WIN calls Nine’s bluff on program supply — The Age

US publication TV Guide has just published a list of what they consider to be the top 30 Cult TV Shows of all time.

I don’t know about you but I can’t understand how The Simpsons gets in there but Arrested Development misses out. Then again, they don’t seem to have listed any criteria or even seek to define what a “cult” show might be.

Of course, magazines have a tendency to create lists in the hope they will be talking points. In that way this list is no different to Who Weekly‘s most intriguining people lists. Similarly, it was probably created in a half-hour meeting with people just shouting names at someone writing them on a white-board.

For your perusal, here’s the list: TV Guide Names the Top Cult Shows Ever

More to my report this week on the Chaser’s serious complaint, I came across a little something in the Australian which I’ve not been able to find in their online version.

It started out talking about their pranks being newsworthy and finding their way into the nightly bulletins before they get a chance to air them on the show proper – this happened with the West Coast Eagle mascot more than a week before it turned up on the Chaser.

The article goes on to talk about the Chaser podcast being number 1 on iTunes Australia and how the download doesn’t include a number of items from the version that went to air:

The Marcus Einfeld sketch is missing due to him being subsequently charged for 13 criminal offences;

The Qantas ad pisstake; and

Andrew Hansen’s musical tribute to Naomi Robson, Goodbye Plastic Face.

The article also talks about the Mercedes Corby suit against TT, et al., stating that Jodie Power has been named in the suit and that Stuart Littlemore QC is Corby’s barrister. Did I mention this could get interesting? As a former host of Media Watch (before it was a crippled piece of dross), with a particular focus on the ethics of tabloid TV, Littlemore’s involvement should make it even more so.