Logie Awards: TVs night of nights making a big comeback

After being wiped out by the COVID-19 crisis last year the Logie Awards are set to return in 2021.

The Logies, Australian television’s most enduring and celebrated awards, are on track to return this year after the COVID-19 crisis saw them cancelled in 2020.

Not only was the famous gala ceremony scuttled last year, the actual awards themselves were shelved meaning that 2019 Gold Logie winner Tom Gleeson is still Australia’s current gold statuette holder.

Tom Gleeson won the most recently awarded Gold Logie in 2019. Picture: AAP Image/Darren England

After the void of 2020, the institution that is the Logies is quietly getting back up to speed with planning underway on exactly what form the event will take this year.

In recent weeks TV networks have been busily submitting stars and show bios to be considered for inclusion in the voting shortlist for each of the Logie categories.

While no date for the awards has yet been confirmed, and it is still to be determined if there will be a gala celebrity studded event for the announcement of the winners, what is clear is that unlike last year the gongs will be handed out and the stars of the small screen will be celebrated.

The Logies moved from Melbourne to the Gold Coast in 2018 after the Queensland government locked in a four year deal with TV Week and its then owners Bauer Media to host the show business event.

Hamish Blake and Andy Lee have been regular Logie nominees. Picture: Supplied

The deal was to cover the Logies from 2018 – 2021.

Channel 9 remains the broadcast home of the Logies.

Last year’s event was to have been held at The Star on the Gold Coast on June 28.

In announcing the cancellation of the Logies, Bauer Media (now ARE Media) group publisher Fiona Connolly promised “to stage an even bigger event on the Gold Coast in 2021.”

“The 2021 Logies will be an epic event that will take into consideration the 12 months of television just past, as well as all programs that will air for the remainder of this year,” she said in April last year.

Logie HQ confirmed on Friday that the network submissions had taken place but said it was too early to talk about a date for the awards.

Former Gold Logie winner Scott Cam. Picture: Supplied

While it is a bit of a sport to take pot shots at the Logies, make no mistake, networks love winning them and so does talent. The acknowledgment and publicity that comes with winning is appreciated despite social media naysayers and snarks.

The Logie Awards were first held in 1959 with Graham Kennedy presenting the winners on his show In Melbourne Tonight.

Kennedy was responsible for the name Logie, the name being in honour of the Scottish engineer John Logie Baird who invented television.

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