Why Karl’s a shoo-in for the annual Take The Piss awards (aka the Logies)
The former Today host can be expected to draw sympathy votes from far and wide for this year’s Gold Logie — not least from men who envy him his hot new wife
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The countdown is now on for Australian television’s annual Take the Piss Awards — a night of glamour, mischief and bullshit that recognises the power of social media to subvert the traditional voting process of the television awards night historically known as the Logies.
Three years ago I pronounced on this page that the Logies were dead.
Then in its 58th year, the TV awards night had been lumbering for decades under the misapprehension it recognised the best of the TVs industry’s best and finest when in fact it largely just helped host broadcaster Nine to a big night of ad revenue while simultaneously recognising the ability of glorified newsreaders to read autocues, of carpenters, race car drivers and footballers to stand on their studio marks and Rebecca Gibney.
Though the industry had tried for years to ignore the ascent of US content monster Netflix, the sharp decline in local TV production budgets and the fragmentation of the market due to the popularity of handheld screens, the reality was it could not — that fact finally brought home to all in 2016 when SBS World News weekend newsreader Lee Lin Chin was nominated for top gong, the Gold Logie.
Were Australians taking the piss nominating Chin? Yes they were. Not out of Chin per se, but out of the industry and the awards night both.
It was a brilliant joke enjoyed by all because Chin’s nomination had little to do with her being the “Best Personality” on Australian television, as defined by the criteria for the Gold Logie. Chin’s nomination came down to one thing — the sheer ridiculousness of it.
Playful social media users were soon on board for the laugh and before you knew it the associated Zeitgeist propelled the tiny cartoonish Chin onto the Logie’s nominations list.
Beer lover Chin was eventually beaten to the top award by commercial TV newcomer and non-drinker, Waleed Aly, of Ten’s The Panel.
Were Logies’ voters also taking the piss voting for Aly? Some almost certainly were while others were likely protesting the number of whites on Australian television and sticking it to an angry scrum of media columnists who had mocked Aly’s nomination.
A year later in 2017 the Gold Logie went to actor Samuel Johnson for the mini-series Molly — a decision that looked, on the surface at least, like it could be the result of considered voting but probably had more to do with Johnson’s cancer fundraising efforts.
Johnson deserves an award for his fundraising efforts — as does anyone who devotes their life to easing the suffering of the sick — but did he deserve both Gold and Silver Logies for the four-hour drama Molly? Probably not.
The mini-series wasn’t very good but we can thank it for delivering the clumsiest Take-The-Piss moment of 2017’s Logies when Ian “Molly” Meldrum, the subject of the mini-series, made his way uninvited onto the Logies’ stage to give an impromptu speech that puzzled both the Logies’ producers and drunks watching from bars around the country.
To this day no one knows precisely what Meldrum said.
In 2018 a man without a show took home the top gong.
Grant Denyer’s game show, Family Feud, was axed by Ten in the months prior to the Logies yet, with the help of ABC funny man Tom Gleeson who ran a guerrilla #Denyer4Gold campaign, Denyer went home with the Gold — something that had to irritate the popular and overlooked Gold Logie bridesmaids Tracy Grimshaw and Amanda Keller.
Which means, of course, that much to Grimshaw and Keller’s chagrin, one man is a virtual shoo-in for Gold in 2019.
Karl Stefanovic, ousted from Today in December, can be expected to draw sympathy votes from far and wide — and a large swag of them from Aussie men who envy Stefanovic his hot new wife — though maybe not his dumb hat.
It would be the ultimate joke wouldn’t it — if the guy who almost blew up his career showing off to his mates at his flashy wedding in Mexico won TV’s biggest award? And on Logies’ host broadcaster Nine too — the same network that benched Stefanovic in the first place.
Does it get any more Australian than that? A vote for a piss take and a square-up all in one.
The question now is — is there anything Nine can do to prevent Stefanvic’s win at its Take The Piss Awards? It would seem not.
About the only person who could stop Stefanovic at this point would be Kerri-Anne Kennerley, who made only a handful of appearances on television last year but this month won the sympathy of the nation following the death of her beloved husband, something broadly covered by media.
And maybe Dr Susan Carland, Waleed Aly’s wife, who has declared her interest in a Logie on the back of her two week stint as host of SBS children’s quiz show, Child Genius.
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