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Brits directed the ARIAs

When the original director of the ARIA Awards was tied to the X Factor, the job was handed to a British team.

A team of British TV creatives was brought to Australia for the broadcast of the ARIA Awards.

The FremantleMedia broadcast on the steps of the Sydney Opera House attracted widespread criticism after it boldly staged award presentations surrounded by ARIA industry guests. While those in attendance reported a great atmosphere, the television broadcast was labelled a mess. Only the musical acts were deemed a success.

While FremantleMedia have considerable experience producing at the Opera House, with years of Australian Idol finales under their belt, the original director Simon Francis was already seconded to the live X Factor broadcast, also produced by FremantleMedia on the same night.

Francis’ name even appeared as Director in credits in ARIA booklets published by Sunday newspapers earlier this month.

The ultimate job for television direction of the ARIAs broadcast was given to Julia Knowles and her team from the UK, who have previously worked on the MTV Awards with Producer, resident Aussie Ean Thorley. Staging decisions were part of a wider creative team effort.

Industry sources told TV Tonight it was often a challenge to crew up for big-ticket single events, especially in the second half of the year when most crews are already attached to other projects.

Seven declined to comment on whether it insisted on Francis remaining with X Factor on ARIAs night.

A FremantleMedia spokesperson told TV Tonight, “Simon Francis is one of the best directors in Australia and was linked to the project in the early stages. He was committed to The X Factor, which was a direct clash with ARIA‘s, and subsequently unavailable.”

15 Responses

  1. So what it was directed by Brits? I would say 90% of Australian TV is made by British production – X factor, Idol, Materchef – the majority of Oz production houses are made up of Brits, Propserpo, fremantle, Shine, you name it. 90% of Australian TV formats are from where – oh Britain. Prey tell David Knox, when was the last time there was a successful format imported from Oz across the world eh?

  2. JB, you are absolutely right saying the awards were ‘a complete disgrace and an embarrassment’, but to say it looked like the MTV awards? They are slick, tight, relevant, funny and hugely entertaining – nothing like the recent ARIA’s.

  3. The broadcast was inexcusably bad. It embarrassed the Australian music industry and has definitely harmed the ARIA brand. It will take a long time to live this debacle down.

  4. p.s. Love that Rebel Wilson was flown in at the last minute from L.A. to help! She was never advertised as a co-host but clearly was. I would;ve loved to have seen her do more ‘sketches’ like the MTV awards, but I guess there wasn’t time.

  5. I think the issue was that anyone who was creative was only flown in for the week of the actual ARIAS…whereas they should’ve been working for weeks in Sydney on this event. There’s not a lot you can do in only a few days, with a lot of rain preventing rehearsals. The only things that were properly rehearsed were the music acts, which is why they stood out.

  6. Is this is good way to excuse the Company from doing a shocking job? Blame people they imported to do it? Are we that bereft of production talent here?

    So now they stand condemned on two fronts, bad production and an inability to support local talent. Shame.

  7. Well that explains why it looked like the MTV Awards. It was the team who did the MTV Awards. The awards were a complete disgrace and an embarrassment to the industry. I think this was probably the last straw and the public have all but given up. Just send the ARIAS back to the industry, get it off tv.

  8. Seems rather convenient to scapegoat the ring-in director and production team, for the mess that the ARIA awards became. How the event was going to be staged and covered, camera wise, would not have been a last minute thing. From having directed multiple camera productions, i know that the ‘set’ or concept for the event is one of, if not, the first thing you nail down.

  9. it really was a mess, who knows what the international guests, particularly Eric Stonestreet, who had to suffer the indignity of being interviewed by Ricki Lee, are going to tell the folks back home about us.

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