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AACTA Audience Award nominees snub Pay TV and SBS

'Audience Awards' for the inaugural AACTA Awards fail to draw up an adequate list of nominees.

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The inaugural AACTA Awards, the revamped AFI Awards, take place on January 31st and will include three Audience Awards voted through News Limited newspapers.

News Limited notes, “As part of the transformation of the AFI‘s annual awards night, our readers will vote to decide the winners of the Switched On Audience Choice Award for Best Television Program and Switched On Audience Choice Award for Best Performance in a Television Drama.”

It claims nominees for the best performance categories were chosen by “the nation’s leading producers.” Asher Keddie even appears twice.

16 TV program nominees were drawn from OzTAM figures, over the official ratings year, acknowledging excellence in drama, reality TV and mini-series.

But the three lists completely snub the Subscription Television sector.

That means acclaimed shows such as Cloudstreet and Killing Time are shunned. Grand Designs Australia is nowhere to be seen (and it even managed a Logie nod in the Popular categories).

SBS is also ignored. Sorry East West 101. Sorry Go Back To Where You Came From.

BEST TELEVISION PROGRAM
Australia’s Got Talent
Dancing With The Stars
Home and Away
MasterChef
My Kitchen Rules
Offspring Season 2
Paper Giants
Packed To The Rafters
Sea Patrol
The Block 2011
The Slap
The X Factor
Underbelly Razor
Wild Boys
Winner and Losers

BEST PERFORMANCE (MALE)
Home and Away – Steve Peacocke
Offspring, Season 2 – Matthew Le Nevez
Packed To The Rafters – Erik Thomson
Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo – Rob Carlton
Rescue Special Ops – Les Hill
Sea Patrol – Ian Stenlake
The Slap – Lex Marinos
Underbelly Razor – Jeremy Lindsay Taylor
Wild Boys – Daniel MacPherson
Winners & Losers – Tom Wren

BEST PERFORMANCE (FEMALE)
Home And Away – Samara Weaving
Offspring, Season 2 – Asher Keddie
Packed To The Rafters – Rebecca Gibney
Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo – Asher Keddie
Rescue Special Ops – Gigi Edgley
Sea Patrol – Lisa McCune

Let me put it bluntly: this list is rubbish.

I’ll just leave it at that.

AACTA Awards organisers need to sort this out in future if they want the “Audience Awards” to have any industry credibility.

31 Responses

  1. @David, couldn’t agree more with your sentiments. That list is completely ar*e about. Whatever credibility AACTA was attempting, they’ve lost it already, from those who care about TV anyway!

  2. Just a quick peruse of the list says everything. Sea Patrol was embarrassingly bad in the acting department, particularly Ian Stenlake who was totally wooden. Rescue Special Ops was also very ordinary, particularly Les Hill.

    And there were far better performances in The Slap than Lex Marinos’.

    But popular awards are always pretty awful – a demonstration of how many people have no taste!

  3. Bad way to start the new format, having acting nominations featuring Wildboys, Rescue, Sea Patrol and Home and Away just makes it look embarrassing. This is our Golden Globes equivalent, which actually works, because not having East West 101 is like the Globes not having Breaking Bad.

  4. Channel Nine is screening the AACTAs. Until these popular awards were announced, there was barely one nomination for a show that appeared on commercial tv. These viewer voted awards have just been put in place so nine viewers actually give a rats about some of the awards, rather than just all the ‘worthy’ nominations. I’m sure nine were p*ssed when the noms came out and they realised all they’d be screening was people saying- ‘and the award goes to…SBS/ABC/FOXEL’ all night.

    1. Steve: Not sure it is Nine-driven. I believe News Ltd. has previously had an audience-voted award with AFIs. I just think they should be fairer, or leave the nominees blank so people can make their own choices.

  8. And here we thought these awards were gonna have more credibility than the Logies, but they’re just as crap. No Melissa George, Jonathon Lapaglia for The Slap. No Rush, Callan Mulvey, Catherine McClements… Instead the terrible acting in Rescue Crap Name get nominated, and probably the worst actor and one of the reasons Wild Boys was so bad, Daniel Macpherson gets nominated.

  10. Chris Lilley not getting a nomination for best male performance makes a farce of the whole thing.
    The popular/best thing doesn’t make any sense either.
    If it’s best, then why is Daniel McPherson nominated?
    If it’s popular, then why is Lex Marinos nominated?

  13. If viewer numbers were a prerequisite for being nominated Jason, then Channel Seven shows and Nine would dominate. It’s about quality, surely.
    Also, audience awards are just as credible as so called “critic” awards, which always tend to favour non-commercial shows (ie they favour SBS and ABC shows).
    In the end, all television shows are made for people to watch, so what is wrong with the audience having their say on which shows are best? Of course, some people here will criticise that view no doubt. But it will be flawed logic doing so. How can anyone argue that TV shows are made for TV audiences?

  14. Ok I’m in the uk apparently I know nothing(@david Knox), I’m watching cloudstreet over here at the moment and it’s good, but I have to disagree,we in the uk loved rescue and sea patrol, the acting was not bad, they were good programmes, I think your all just too critical about “great acting” Good grief if you had to put up with eastenders and coronation st every day trust me you’d know what bad acting actually was!!!

  15. Actually, Cloudstreet received an AACTA nomination for ‘Best Visual Effects’, and won the ‘Outstanding Achievement in Television Screen Craft’ as per the official AACTA website.

  17. David, you’re missing 4 actresses from the female list!

    The lists aren’t comprehensive, but hopefully the right winners come out on top! I’d vote for Offspring, Paper Giants, The Slap, Matthew Le Nevez, Rob Carlton and Asher Keddie…

  19. Could FreeView have had a hand in this?

    This is why all award shows are crap, both here and in the US. There have been complaints in the US for years that it’s always the same shows being nominated and rarely do new shows get a look in.

    How ironic if the AACTA Awards are only telecast on PayTV LOL

  21. Thanks David – really great to have a TV commentator who calls it as he sees it. Agreed – these “audience” lists are just a mess and how can the AACTA awards have any integrity if they ignore the amazing drama being produced on STV? Cloudstreet is nothing short of a masterpiece. And why are we awarding best international everythings? They have more than enough of their own awards – what’s that about? Some king of cultural cringe? It’s embarrassing.

  22. I agree! No Cloudstreet? Best TV – DWTS what the – Was a huge Rescue fan but please, even I know the acting was dreadful. My oh my, what a sad, sad list.

  23. David, audience awards never have any industry credibility – exhibit A: The Logies. If the nominees are based on ratings, what do you expect? The intersection of artistic merit, and popularity is a rare one.

    The real quibble should be the name of the awards. Instead of “Best” they are more correctly “Most Popular” (as voted by people who still buy the dead tree version of Limited News papers).

  24. I agree David. Not only that, but I still fail to see why tv comedy and documentary are not included on the same night as tv drama and light entertainment. For all the pomp and fanfare that these are now our Academy Awards, I hope such bizarre choices don’t condemn them to becoming just another an irrelevant awards exercise.

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