Steve Price: Why we can’t switch off Covid-TV
The 2021 equivalent of Big Brother is more addictive and a bigger ratings success than any reality show. With a cast of egomaniacs and Big Brother-style losers, we just can’t switch off Covid-TV.
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Watching the original reality TV show Big Brother on Network Ten when it first came to Australia was a guilty obsession for most and a ratings bonanza.
Host Gretel Killeen had to put up with a household full of obnoxious show-offs who became more and more annoying and impossible to like.
One by one these 20-somethings were eliminated as the viewing public voted them out of the house. Eviction was brutal for some and welcome relief for others.
The 2021 TV equivalent of Big Brother is more addictive, more invasive. and has become an even bigger ratings success than any previous realty TV franchise.
It’s called Covid-TV and I hate it, but I simply can’t turn it off. I can’t avert my eyes and ears.
Covid-TV airs mainly on Sky News and ABC 24 and during its peak season it can go to air any time between 9am and 11am. The cast involves various state premiers and their sidekicks the chief health officers of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland with the odd appearance by South Australia.
The content of Covid-TV is vital for millions of Australians – last count 13.7 million – across three states who are living under a variety of lockdown regulations.
Each episode updates suffering Australians with a series of numbers that can be crucial to their lives, dictating whether schools will be open, if aged care facilities are safe, if the local hotel, club or restaurant can welcome you in and whether you can go to the MCG or Marvel Stadium.
It also informs you whether it’s possible to visit a relative interstate or take a break in Queensland and play border bingo for a couple of weeks.
Covid-TV should be a quick watch, full of vital information, but it has become a hard watch because it’s now been hijacked by an annoying cast of egomaniacs, TV novices and Big Brother-style losers.
Of course, this all started with series one last year when Dan Andrews and his puffer jacket took out first prize for the most annoying person of 2020.
Season one winner Daniel then had an unfortunate accident and until recently was unable to come back and defend his title – he wasn’t missed.
To his credit, though, he didn’t criticise the new cast members and they have turned Covid-TV into an absolute circus.
The show has gone national in recent weeks with the disastrous outbreak of the virus in Sydney.
Rather than the media information exchanges these TV appearances were designed to be, they have become infantile shouting matches as reporters attempt to get meaningful information out of increasingly rattled politicians.
Some of these media types reckon it’s a live audition for their bosses watching back at base camp and their chance to impress with how rude they can be.
From the main cast, the cover-ups and defensive dodging on legitimate questioning are adding anxiety to an already fed-up population looking for leadership.
Late this week for example the Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley – a latecomer to the show — couldn’t as usual avoid letting his inner trade union self bubble to the surface to throw barbs at the Prime Minister.
For a bloke who sat in on the disaster that was hotel quarantine in Victoria last year it was a bit rich, and he deserves on that appearance alone to be voted off the show.
The NSW version of Covid-TV is even more of a circus. The once golden girl of state politics, Premier Gladys Berejiklian, – now presiding over a more than four-week lockdown – has lost her star status.
She takes to the stage at exactly 11am every day – not a second before or after. Gladys escaped the Covid house last weekend but unfortunately for her was snapped without a mask.
Her appearances are often overshadowed by her Health Minister Brad “bullyboy” Hazzard, who thinks it’s below him to actually answer any of the questions he is asked.
In a bizarre twist late this week he took to installing FM radio loudmouth Kyle Sandilands as the stand-out candidate to encourage people in Sydney to get vaccinated.
Google Kyle and taste and you might agree with me he isn’t a great role model.
The Queensland version of the show has a contestant called Dr Jeanette Young, who in one episode blew up her State’s vaccination roll out by suggesting she didn’t want a 19-year-old girl dying from Astra-Zeneca on her watch.
She is due to leave Covid-TV to take up the position of Queensland Governor.
Her South Australian counterpart Nicola Spurrier famously told the Covid-TV audience if they were in the crowd at an Adelaide Crows game they should duck if the ball came near them.
If she stays in the Covid-TV house she could be a dark horse for the 2021 title. Dr Brett Sutton is the Victorian version of Young and Spurrier.
He’s well-groomed and possibly more suited to one of those reality shows where you marry someone you met half an hour ago than Covid-TV.
Sutton seems to think he’s never wrong, but his main alliance was with last year’s winner Daniel, so he might struggle.
Like all good and bad reality shows the cast of Covid-TV have one thing in common. Unlike most of their audience they are all very well paid and in most cases their salary packages have increased from last year’s show to the 2021 version.
And like most reality TV it’s hard to turn off, but I’ve decided it’s bad for my health and I need a break.
I’m off to watch Farmer Wants A Wife.
Australia Today with Steve Price can be heard live from 7am weekdays via the LiSTNR app.
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Originally published as Steve Price: Why we can’t switch off Covid-TV
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