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Nine defends vaccination promo after lack of diversity

First vaccination promo from Nine cops a bucketload over a lack of diversity.

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Nine has defended a recent network promo in which network personalities encourage COVID-19 vaccination.

The “Our shot” promo includes Scott Cam, Liz Hayes, Eddie McGuire, Karl Stefanovic, Rebecca Maddern, Tom Steinfort, Allison Langdon, Richard Wilkins, Tara Brown, Leila McKinnon, Erin Molan, Peter Overton, Georgie Gardner, Shaynna Blaze, Hamish & Andy, and singer Amy Shark.

But Nine copped a bucketload of criticism on social media for a lack of diversity amongst its cast.

Michael Healy, Nine’s Director of Television said “As we are in the midst of a global pandemic, 9Network is continuing to support community awareness regarding COVID and to be informed about the vaccination, this is our shot for Australia to be connected again.

“It is an internal initiative and there will be a number of promos rolled out during this campaign”.

Last week Nine also began on-air IDs with the hashtag #GetVaccinated as a community message.

Sure, this wasn’t the best casting, but Nine appears to be the first network to offer up airtime for an important campaign.

39 Responses

  1. Damned if you do…damned if you don’t….
    So easy to be a keyboard warrior these days and jump all over anything and everything…

  2. It does seem they didn’t do their research. Reaching the immigrant communities is very important if we are to reach herd immunity but to be fair you are probably not going to reach them through some network ad. In the UK volunteers literally need to talk to them face to face and it helps if the information is in their first language, gives them more confidence to get vaccinated. Maybe Nine should just stay out of things they clearly do not understand.

    1. So why can’t Nine make an ad that reaches their demographic, and SBS make the ads to reach theirs (I think they are already). Is it only important to reach non-white communities? I would have thought that each media organisation plays a part in such an important campaign, and communicates where they can.

    1. Of course Commercial TV is racist. Look at A Current Affair, any one non – white get the usual xenophobic treatment. “Diversity” is an unknown word in TV land, hence most presenters are white and one dimensional. Australia has changed, but most of the TV Execs and decision makers are still living in the Sixties where ” White Australia” was supreme.

  6. “So start a conversation with your doctor about your shot” Such a weak worded climax.

    Just get the friggin shot people. Not particularly a criticism of 9, any encouragement is good encouragement. But why is Australian culture so afraid to show any urgency? I think the vaccine hesitant and the “I’ll just wait and see” people should be shamed as selfish.

  9. 9 should keep the on air ids permanently but make the slogan a network slogan like “still the one” or something similar like in the past

  11. I love that the very people who call for diversity reduce the people on the screen to skin colour…the very thing they tell everyone not to do.

  13. Let’s make it law that all media organisations must have an employee base that exactly mirrors the ethnic demographic profile of the Australian population. So basically, “Anglo white” people ~75%, “Euro white” people ~12%, “Chinese Asian” people ~4%, “sub-continent non-white” people ~2%, “First Nations” people ~2.5%, and ~4% “other” (presumably representing the sum total of every single other ethnicity extant in Australia). That’d be fair, right? Really simple to implement, enforce, monitor and maintain too. It would certainly address the ongoing objections of social justice / diversity protestors (esp. white ones). Of course for true diversity, particularly in terms of on-air presentation, all of these categories would need to be further broken down into their component parts so that, for example, all 48 Asian countries and all 500+ indigenous nations felt equally represented. Simple.

    1. And everyone will need to submit a DNA test with their resumes to ensure they are ethnically diverse enough to fill the role, irrespective of their experience or qualifications.

  14. Moving right along, how about we focus on counting jabs than skin colours.

    There needs to be a lot more diversity when talking about diversity than the simplistic outrage on Twitter which often any contextual analysis of reality.

  15. What is with this fascination with seeing everything in the prism of race? Where does this end? We are fast entering countering racism with another form of anti white racism…

    For the record Leila McKinnon is Iranian born, Scott Cam is Italian (I guess his dalliance with the fed govt is what has upset the twitterati) sure they could’ve and should’ve had more people of color on screen, but to rubbish the whole thing is a bit of a stretch.

  17. I think the Nine Network shouldn’t be lecturing to us about getting vaccinated, I think they should just focus on delivering high-quality programs for the Australian audience…

  18. …but they doing wrong mate. Its just hard to watch, but I’m not surprised. I think Nine still stucked in the white Australia era…..

  19. Ah yes. Twitter represents the entire community. This is why the media particularly around politics is so far down the road from actual public opinion.
    Let’s cut the crap and focus on the positive that this is a advertisement that encourages vaccination at a time mis-information has lead to low vaccination rates. Great job Nine.

  20. Seems to me that no matter what you do these days there are people who will complain about it. How about just concentrating on the actual message for once.

  21. Firstly, it’s narrow minded to say there’s a lack of diversity when even among “white” people, there are numerous different ethnicities and cultures. Then it’s also going to depend on the location or suburb as there is variation from maybe about 40-98% in regards to persons born overseas or might be from a non-European background. Many of the Nine personalities are from a time going back decades when there was a lot less migration and cultural diversity in Australia. And lastly, Nine should have a few staff or personalities now that could have been included to show greater diversity. I really don’t think this happens on purpose, but it’s good to be mindful that it’s important for people to see some sort of reflections of themselves on TV.

  23. Seriously it’s 2021. I can’t believe networks are still making these mistakes. Hire diverse people and show them in television to represent our nation on TV! And I mean multicultural, abled and less abled, neurodiverse and those of different sexualities!

    1. That’s what I was thinking. If Nine only used contracted Nine personalities, and don’t have any diversities on contract, I guess they aren’t gonna pop up in their promo.
      They could’ve gotten one of their diverse NRL players at least.

    2. I was thinking exactly the same thing and then I read your comment. Nine isn’t exactly known for its diversity. This ad just reinforces it.

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