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Logie voting campaigns pay off

Aggressive Logie voting campaigns have paid off for in this year's nominees, especially those in morning television.

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Just two of last year’s Gold Logie nominees are in the race for Gold in 2011 after changes to this year’s voting.

Only Rebecca Gibney and Adam Hills, in his fourth shot at Gold, have made the cut.

Previous favourites have missed out on Gold including Shaun Micallef, Wil Anderson, Esther Anderson, Paul McDermott and even former winners including Ray Meagher.

In their place are Jessica Marais, Asher Keddie, Karl Stefanovic and Chrissie Swan.

The changes included trimming the number of nominees to 6 -it has been 8 since 2006- and the elimination of voting via magazine coupons, in favour of online votes.

In switching to online voting some networks have undertaken aggressive campaigns, not dissimilar to Oscar “For Your Consideration” strategies.

Morning television shows were particularly focussed on voting campaigns. Karl Stefanovic was one of the personalities Nine was pushing via TV advertising with “Vote for Karl” reminders. TEN’s The Circle has also been reminding its audience to vote. But while 2011 may be seeing more focussed campaigning, it isn’t necessarily new. 2009 saw Neighbours actor Ian Smith heavily pushed by TEN, which landed him a Gold nomination.

Swan’s appearance in the Gold and Most Popular New Female Talent sees her year in television soar. While the New Talent candidates cannot be submitted for Outstanding or Popular Actor/Actress Awards, few would have expected a Gold nomination in their first year.

New Talent is always a perplexing category. Last year Charlie Pickering was nominated, despite him having co-hosted an entire season of The Mansion for the Comedy Channel. Female winner Carrie Bickmore had been a regular on Rove. Of this year’s nominees, Swan was runner-up on 2003’s Big Brother, Firass Dirani was a lead in Power Rangers Mystic Force, Ryan Corr was part of Blue Water High and Eddie Perfect has been a regular guest on Spicks and Specks and The Sideshow.

Last year TV Week Editor Emma Nolan explained the criteria for New Talent nominees to TV Tonight.

“Actor/actresses, presenters, judges or reporters who made their major TV debut on an Australian-made television show in 2010. Criteria also require that the person has featured in at least three episodes as one character, reporter, presenter or judge. This may not be their first appearance on Australian TV. It will be their first major role,” she said.

Packed to the Rafters leads with 15 nominations, with Angus McLaren a glaring omission. Offspring has 7 (but not Most Outstanding Drama) and Underbelly: The Golden Mile has 6 nominations.

Rush, Rake, Hawke, Sisters of War, Neighbours and Home and Away were nominated alongside Rafters, Offspring and Underbelly for either Most Popular or Most Outstanding Drama. Missing out were Tangle (another glaring omission), Spirited, Rescue, Sea Patrol, Bed of Roses, Cops L.A.C and Dance Academy.

In its final season City Homicide was again snubbed.

The Pacific was not eligible.

Pay TV’s nominations were acting nods for Tangle, plus Camp Orange, XIX Commonwealth Games coverage and SKY News‘ Election 2010 coverage. Significantly, Grand Designs Australia landed a nomination in the Most Popular Lifestyle category over and above such shows as Poh’s Kitchen, Collectors, Home Cooked! With Julie Goodwin and Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam.

But Selling Houses Australia missed out entirely as did Spirited.

Another change this year was to include Community TV programs in the mix. None made the nominee list -strongly suggesting there was never any need to exclude them in the past.

Still the Logies has never been about reflecting the shows that are actually the highest rating on the box.

2010’s most popular television show MasterChef has one nomination, as Most Popular Reality Program. It had better win.

FOOTNOTE: In the TV Tonight Awards in January, Gibney, Hills, Swan and Keddie all polled strongly with readers.

40 Responses

  1. I’m glad that Chrissie Swan, Adam Hills and Asher Keddie are nominated and good luck to them, but I would have loved to have seen Shaun Micallef and Paul McDermott nominated too.

  3. I really don’t understand why people are questioning Chrissis Swan’s Gold Logie nomination. You only have to tune in to The Circle (if you can), to see Chrissie’s appeal.

  4. The ‘Best New Talent’ category is shonky. If the performers have been on children’s series or pay tv shows then they should not qualify. This is dodgy.

  6. You would have thought with the HHiS “army” being so organised as to cause some Channel Nine shows to flop, that they could have managed more than a single paltry Logies nom for their precious program. Again, “they” have spoken. Again, “they” have said nothing.

  7. I like Chrissie Swan – she has a great sense of humour and is a great co-host.
    But being nominated for a Goldlogie on a show that attracts just 70 Thousand viewers ?
    No wonder so few take our television award night seriously.

  9. Reckon we should go back to three hosts to wrest credibility back to this year’s Logies – my choice would be a triple dose of Wendy Harmer, Shaun Micallef and Andrew Denton, with Ja’mie King on the red carpet and Jonah back stage.

  10. Chrissie did say this morning that the voters have caused outrage and its there fault that she was nominated. She said people saying who is Chrissie Swan and she doesnt deserve a gold logie nomination blame the voters. She had a sense of humour abuot it. The circle have already started vote for Chrissie campaign. She also said she has the biggest chest out of her fellow best presenter nominees.

    I think if Chrissie won she would be really grateful for it and her speech would be so funny.

    Anyway the voting was open to everyone so if you want your person nominated then vote fro them.

  13. This could only happen because we have no talk shows or even entertainment style shows in prime time. So the closest thing we have to it being done well, ie the circle, was always going to benefit. People complaining about it are just silly. Apart from Micallef and Hills who has been on a TV show and is talented enough to ‘deserve’ it?

  15. Popularity award shows have enough credibility issues with the Internet. They don’t need it becoming a best campaign contest. That said I think we can expect a lot more next year. They obviously work. Especially from 7 who didnt seem to do any campaigning and probably cost them. If 7 did just a 5 sec plug for the logies around mels funeral on PTTR I think they could have got hundreds of thousands of votes right away especially for Hugh Sheridan who missed out on gold and angus mclaren who missed out on silver.

  17. City Homicide has the best cast, best script writers, best acting, such a shame it never got recognised.

    Why is everyone surprised with Angus McLaren missing out? I actually find him to be the weakest in the show.

  18. Angus McLaren has been really good on Rafters this year, I was sure he’d be a shoe in for an award. Selling Houses Australia should have been nominated too, much better than many other lifestyle/infotainment programs.

  19. 3AW radio this morning was seriously questioning why/how Chrissie Swan managed to make the short list. I have no strong opinion either way, but I am disappointed that Shaun Micallef did not make it, he would be an absolute shoo-in for me.

  20. Reading some of the online comments on other sites about Swan is just not justified. I am willing to bet most of those people have probably never watched the circle. Personally I have only seen the show a couple of time, however her on screen presence is fresh. Good on her and all the rest of the nominees.

  23. Despite lamenting some omissions, the peer voted prizes indicate a pretty healthy industry. Comedy really is given short shrift – The Librarians was overlooked also. The Jesters likewise. Dramas have been prolific on air, but only a few recognised. Having watched the Logies since the 70’s, I admit it is always a sport to mock them, but they are still a celebration of our industry and our most beloved performers, however the voting procedures elicits the contenders. We can be very proud of our shows.

  24. An interesting List this year, very diverse….and gee, I must not watch enough TV, or watch it at the ‘right’ time, as I genuinely did not see even one spruik for Stefanovic

  25. I’m just wondering how all the other presenters at Nine are feeling given they only campaigned for Karl. You’re right about aggressive campaigning. The Circle went all guns blazing asking people to vote for them. They had more asking to vote for bits than editorials on some days.

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