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Matt Okine speech left out of ARIAs broadcast

Updated: "I don't think there are any women in the Comedy category," Matt Okine told the ARIAs -but it didn't make it to air.

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A speech by Matt Okine highlighting the lack of woman in ARIA nominations was cut from the TEN broadcast.

“I don’t think there are any women in the Comedy category,” Okine told the audience at The Star in Sydney.

“I don’t think there are any women who are, like, featured artists on tonight’s show even, apart from Tina Turner, (I mean) Tina Arena obviously.

“There are a couple of women who are featured guests but other than that there’s no-one. I’d feel stupid if I didn’t use this opportunity to say something about that.”

Fairfax reports his comments didn’t make it into the nearly 3 hour edited presentation.

Updated: A TEN spokesperson said, “The decisions on which awards are broadcast are made by the ARIA Board, not by Network TEN.”

Meanwhile in a lengthy acceptance speech for her Hall of Fame award, Tina Arena took aim at radio stations over their ageism.

“I want to still acknowledge that ladies over 40 are still in the game,” she said, noting Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez and Annie Lennox.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, ladies, because we will decide when it’s time for us to stop.

“Radio please don’t try and meet your Australian quotas because you have to, exceed them because you really want to,” she said.

7 Responses

  1. They cut Lee Kernaghan’s speech to shreds also. He had just started his acceptance speech and then all of sudden the crowd was cheering and his speech was over.

  2. I don’t watch award shows anymore. Too many embarrassing and/or political speeches which show disrespect to occasions which should be about celebrating excellence and not political correctness.

    1. Also, the composition of award nominees is relative to what’s out there. Maybe there just wasn’t that many potential female comedy nominees? (happy to be proven wrong – i would have no idea). The last thing I would want to see is token nomination of female artists primarily because of their gender rather than a true appreciation of their work.

  3. Tina Arena’s speech was beautiful. She took aim at a few things but was respectful all the way. A case of you win more friends with honey than vinegar. I especially liked that she said thanked Australia for not making her a celebrity and treating her as an artist.

  4. I wish Ten will air some (or all) of the smaller categories even if it means the telecast goes beyond 3 hours.
    Matt Okine’s speech can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=qYxFKJ51fmA

  5. These smaller categories are never aired, it’s nothing to do with the speech.

    Plus what about Courtney Barnett? She cleaned up almost every award!
    The Veronicas, Jess Mouboy, Kylie Minogue, Tina Arena etc erc

    Anyway ARIAs have slightly improved, poor Osher had to say sound pretty lame jokes though

  6. I realise that not all speeches can make it to air. But it seems some views are censored. I suppose 10 would like to host the ARIAS again.
    As for ageism and Aussie quotas. I find it astounding that big TV and radio need quotas. There should be a moral obligation to represent the Aussie culture through aural and visual mediums.
    I don’t know what the minimum quotas are, but should be higher than 50%. And for TV that should be drama, not just news and reality!

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