25 years of Today Tonight – as recalled by Graham Archer, Leigh McClusky and Frank Pangallo
Today Tonight was a ride that its presenters will never forget – Frank Pangallo, Leigh McClusky and Graham Archer have shared their sometimes bizarre memories of 25 years on screen.
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From foot-in-the-door tabloid TV to crusading advocacy journalism, Today Tonight leaves a powerful legacy from its 25 years on air.
A local ratings juggernaut
Graham Archer, Former TT Chief
I recall arriving at the Channel 7 Gilberton Studios on January 4, 1994 and introducing myself to the receptionist as the producer of a new program I couldn’t name. It didn’t have a name.
It didn’t have a studio, equipment, staff and no office and we were due to launch in 25 days. We made that deadline and continued producing TV for 25 years.
Any successful business is the sum of its parts. I was fortunate to find some of the best television people who shared the excitement of being at the vanguard of such a bold new venture. Countless great people, many behind the scenes, contributed to the success.
In the early days those in front of the camera included Ian Henschke, Frank Pangallo and of course our host Leigh McClusky. The other early notable was Natalie Charlesworth who’d worked with me as a researcher/producer at Nine. Together we were pioneers in hidden camera stings.
Natalie is now a Federal Court judge while my experience with the law remains on the other side of the bench. They plonked us in a transportable hut next to the helipad. When it landed the place shook like the rear-vision mirror of a Volkswagen and filled with blue fumes sending the asthmatics rushing for the door. Our competition was the national juggernaut A Current Affair hosted by the much-loved labrador of the loungeroom, Ray Martin.
We were local, we were relevant, but would that be enough. No, it wasn’t. Without ratings supremacy we wouldn’t survive, and if we failed there’d be no second chances.
With fearless Frank Pangallo as the master of sniffing out shonks, fraudsters and felons, we were off and running.
It’s easy to be cynical about “foot in door” journalism but it’s almost always the result of ordinary people being abandoned by the law, consumer affairs, and any other so-called watchdogs. People rang to say, “The police told us to contact Today Tonightbecause they can’t help us.” Numerous families benefited from the program’s interventions.
It’s also easy to characterise Frank in one role, but he took on a host of targets including big banks, government and exposed elder abuse bringing changes to federal laws many years before the royal commission.
It took 2½ years before we won our first night of ratings. Another year and a half before we were the most watched program, and for the past 18 years the show has won every single ratings week.
This is the greatest ratings success in Adelaide TV history.
We tried not to take ourselves too seriously. We had a weekly football tipping segment to which we’d invite guest tipsters, regardless of their knowledge of football. One week we went through the Adelaide phone book and invited as many Ray Martins as we could find. We ended up with seven on our panel.
Before the 1997 AFL Grand Final we drove down Ackland St, St Kilda, with bullhorns on the roof playing “We are the pride of South Australia” to be pelted with eggs and flour.
We returned to Melbourne the next year with a stuffed kangaroo on the bullbar of a Hummer. The legacy of which we are most proud is our serious investigations. These came at some personal and ratings risk and certainly financial risk for the Seven Network, which backed us time and again. These were all team efforts, never just the work of one person. I’m convinced there’d be no Mullighan Inquiry into institutional child abuse without the “Takeaway Children” series we pursued for years.
That also brought legislation changes ending the statutory limitation on sex offences committed prior to 1985. Many victims have benefited as a result.
In 2004 we exposed the political travel rorts scandal and were raided by the Federal Police. No national or international outrage came to the defence of Today Tonight in Adelaide. The “nipper” lifesaver victims of paedophile magistrate Peter Liddy would have received nothing in compensation had Today Tonight not spent years chasing down his hidden assets.
We also took on particular failures of the justice system, the Henry Keogh case being the most notable. This and related cases led to our advocacy for an amendment to the appeal laws which now provides an avenue for those wrongly convicted to return to court.
What we lose now as a state with the end of Today Tonight is irreplaceable. A voice which spoke for the underdog, the unrepresented and the unpopular is now silent. The program which entertained, sometimes infuriated, but always tried to take the local perspective is now no more.
From a small hut to a TV powerhouse
Leigh McClusky, The Presenter
I remember walking into the studio to present the very first episode of Today Tonight in January 1995 and thinking, “how on earth were we ever going to beat the juggernaut that was A Current Affair ?”
We were a new and passionate – but very small – team of journalists and producers facing a mountainous climb to get anywhere near the top of the ratings.
When we started at the old Channel 7 site at Gilberton, there was supposedly not enough room for us in the main building, so our inglorious first home was a portable ATCO hut dumped in the carpark.
I couldn’t help but wonder whether management at the time were also more than a little nervous about how long the program might last, before the ATCO hut could be shipped back.
But last it did, for a record-breaking 25-year run on South Australian television.
Until today.
I’d arrived at Today Tonight after three years of hosting the SA edition of The 7.30 Report on the ABC, and quickly became immersed in a team that was prepared to do “almost” whatever it took to get the story … and beat the opposition over at Channel 9.
We very quickly bonded in our universal passion to beat ACA. It drove us every day.
And every morning when the ratings came in – and we had edged just that fraction closer – was a joy.
TT has often been pilloried for being “tabloid TV”. But I would argue it was good TV that read the pulse of the South Australian audience and was proudly and passionately local.
You can’t produce authentic local TV out of a Sydney studio.
So, slowly, we were increasingly invited into loungerooms all over SA as their choice to watch at 6.30pm. And the ratings built, until we had finally toppled ACA for the first time and then won our first complete week of ratings in March 2001.
That was the start of an unbeaten run and, deliciously, now we were the juggernaut.
Over the years, I was proud to have presented some of SA’s most compelling and important stories honed by the likes of Graham Archer, Frank Pangallo, Ian Henschke, Hendrik Gout, Paul Makin and a host of other hardworking journos who graced our office and made such an impact.
I had the privilege of interviewing hundreds of people from politicians trying to avoid a question, to visiting stars looking for publicity and average South Australians with a story to share or who needed a hand.
And along the way, we also had plenty of laughs, including those notorious Benny Hill chases of dodgy car dealers and fraudsters.
My tenure with TT ended in 2007 as I awaited the arrival of my twins. Rosanna Mangiarelli stepped into the role she has so successfully driven since then.
So, thanks TT, it was quite a ride and I won’t forget you.
The five stories hard to forget
Frank Pangallo, The Journalist
DIGGER THE GREAT WAR DOG
I produced this for the ANZAC centenary. Digger was a stray dog adopted by Sgt Harold Martin – SA’s first volunteer for the Great War. They served together at Gallipoli and then the Western Front. Digger was shot, gassed and performed heroic deeds in the trenches and over the top to assist wounded Diggers. The story led to Digger this year being posthumously awarded the UK’s Blue Cross – the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross. There is now a statue in his honour at Kilkenny Croydon RSL.
AGED CARE ABUSE
We conducted a hidden camera investigation and discovered widespread neglect of elderly residents at a Kensington aged care home in 1997. The owners injuncted the story and we fought it through the courts and were able to screen it six months later. It went to air nationally prompting the then-prime minister John Howard to introduce reforms in the aged care sector to make them more accountable.
BANKING MALPRACTICE
In 2005 I produced a series of stories on the ruthless and unethical conduct of the National Australia Bank against customers. The bank threatened to pull $7 million from advertising with the network. Our boss David Leckie stood by us. The story resulted in a significant compensation payout to some of the victims.
BLIND MAN’S BLUFF
Australia’s worst serial Casanova conman with victims across five states. He pretended to be blind to fleece vulnerable women he met on dating sites. I tracked him down in Hobart in a “romantic” sting and when we surprised him with cameras he led me on a merry 2km chase up and down stairs, over fences and through the streets of Hobart. I pulled a hamstring trying to keep up.
THE LEGLESS PLAYER COACH
I won an SA Press Club award for this touching human interest story we shot in South Africa in 2010 at the soccer World Cup. There was a small AFL competition in the impoverished area of Alexandria. The coach of one of the teams had lost both legs as a child yet still managed to play the sport he adopted – Aussie rules. He would put the stubs of the legs into the footy boots and wear them back to front. The oversized boots belonged to his hero Aaron Sandilands, of the Fremantle AFL club.