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Sound Relief 2 to Queensland’s rescue

Nine raises over $10m for flood victims as a second Sound Relief event is announced.

Entrepreneur Michael Gudinski last night announced Sound Relief 2 would be staged to help the victims of the Queensland floods (and hopefully WA floods too).

He announced the charity benefit live on Nine’s Flood Relief Appeal: Australia Unites.

The first Sound Relief, staged in 2009, saw two mammoth rock concerts staged in Sydney and Melbourne for the victims of Victorian bushfires and 2009 Queensland floods.

Nine’s live appeal raised $10, 278, 552 at the close of its broadcast, hosted by Eddie McGuire, Leila McKinnon and Karl Stefanovic.

It may have finished 90 minutes late, but the event attracted celebrity names to its phone room while performers including Tina Arena, David Campbell and Kasey Chambers provided the entertainment.

Nine News reporters gave live crosses from several towns that had been inundated by the floods.

Politicians, CEOs and charity execs were also part of the line-up at Brisbane’s Suncorp Piazza, which itself fell victim to the relentless weather.

The Flood Appeal follows Nine’s bushfire appeal in 2009.

A date and venue for Sound Relief 2 are yet to be announced.

Donations: qld.gov.au/floods

38 Responses

  1. In the Fraser Coast Chronicle today it has the story of a young Australian mother Selena Lightbody whose baby was born on Thursday and has 2 other young child has been denied money from the Premiers Flood Appeal as her husband earns over $1000 dollars a week. There home is wrecked and so is the truck he owns. No doubt many people will never see the money it will be spent on lunches and trips and pay for those running the Committee. It is about time these appeals were stopped.
    There is millions in the Bushfire Fund where people who lived in caravans were never given new ones.

  2. dear peeps…as a veteran of telethons let me enlighten you…they are done for these reasons in order of priority:
    1- cheap to put on as payroll celebs must appear as required
    2- cheap to put on as non-payroll celebs want free publicity
    3- cheap to put on as you only need 5 cameras
    4- cheap to put on as they accrue ‘local programming’ points..

    see cheap and easy… way to go telethons !!!

  3. Was it mentioned when Sound Relief 2 might happen?
    Midnight Oil reformed for the first one, so I’m hoping another big name band might for this one too…

  4. I think I am entitled to my opinion on Hosts abilities and likeability, regardless of the show or event they are hosting. I probably touched a nerve as some people really like these hosts and used the flood as an excuse to stick up for them.

    I think most people were like me and didn’t watch it because of who was hosting and I think the ratings for the night back me up. Do we really need telethons in order for us to donate anyway, I think not! We all watch the news and know what is going on in our country.

    In terms of hosts, I give credit to the ABC and Ten for always developing new talent and the quality of journo’s and hosts seem to be a lot better then 9 and 7, who seem to use the same old people to host everything. I’ll stand by my comments thanks, regardless of the personal attacks!!

  5. The big thing may be, that we may need another telethon soon, especially with recent events, like the Toowoomba/Lockyer flash flood yesterday (along with the risk of Brisbane river flooding (with Wivenhoe full), and renewed flooding in places like Condamine) likely to cause more heartache for a state that has suffered so much already…

  6. Last night wasn’t that good a broadcast to be honest with you. So glad that that amount of money was raised because i know people who live in the effected areas and this will help them a lot however it wasn’t Channel Nine who raised it, it was the appeal. See this is what networks seem to not understand. They are just broadcasters of events but Nine always seem to turn it into them. Just the plugs made me sick to the stomach. They do it every chance they get.

    Seven do telethons well. Just look at Perth and Melbourne. They too make it all about them too (all networks do and i think Nine are the worst offenders) but at least they make it good entertainment at the same time. Nine was a dullfest. Sorry. I am still waiting to see what Seven’s plan is. Are they going to even do one?

    All debate aside the amount of money will go to good use. Its going to be a long hard process of putting the pieces back together it really is.

  7. Well done Australia for putting our hands in our pockets and giving money!!
    I can’t wait for Sound Relief, for another chance to raise money and celebrate the Aussie spirit, I did it in 09, and this will be just as good, tho I get the impression it might be Country Dominated.
    To the Telethon- yes, it was painful to watch and cringe worthy, but All telethons are! I remember the gems from the 80’s with Darryl Sommers, that’s why they should only be dragged out for occassions such as this. The chemistry of the Hosts, esp Carl and Ed, was laughable and like a train wreck, wanted to turn away but couldn’t.
    Good Luck Qld, WA and Nth NSW, our hearts are with you

  8. I want to say that while it is great that we as Australians raised so much money for those in need, I agree about the hosts being not up to standard. It seemed to me that Eddie was on screen over 50% of the time, cracking crass jokes about one legged people swimming in circles, or talking about football or some other non relevant thing. It wasn’t the Eddie chat show, it was a telethon to raise money for an important cause and I feel more attention and screen time should have been paid to that cause and the people suffering.

  9. “@Dan, how disrespectful of you, this was about the Qld floods and giving back, not a time for assessing hosting ability.”

    That’s ridiculous. Yes floods are terrible, but this is a television blog. Dan simply commented on the choice of hosts. He was in no way disrespectful to flood victims.

  10. Dan’s comments may be ill-timed, but seriously, they really were a personality-free panel of hosts. I applaud Nine for putting the telethon, but it seems like the network’s more interesting talent were answering the phones. As serious as the situation in Queensland is, the idea of a telethon is surely that the people at home donate money for being entertained.

  11. To the self-righteous, holier-than-thou commenters – get off your high horses. I don’t see how you could interpret a comment on the television production in isolation as a sign of disrespect to flood victims. I am by no means downplaying their suffering or taking anything away from the money raised, but I believe comments such as Dan’s are fair game. All the comments attacking him are merely self-gratificaiton.

  12. Harsh comments Dan… who would you suggest…could you do it? easy to sit on the sidelines and throw stones… and yes who cares about fotbal when its about the floods…you boofheads…

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