Leigh Sales in running for weekly talk show on ABC

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and MP Kate Jones at the 61st TV Week Logie Awards in 2019 - the last before the pandemic - at The Star Gold Coast. Picture: Jerad Williams

The Queensland government is showering the major TV networks with cash, as it makes a concerted attempt to ensure the Logies stay in the state beyond 2022.

A letter obtained by Diary from the event’s organisers shows the major networks are being offered $1000 a head for each network talent, including the likes of Gold Logie nominees Karl Stefanovic, Sonia Kruger, Hamish Blake and Melissa Leong, who they will ferry up to the Gold Coast for the Logies ceremony next Sunday.

The Logies are resuming after a three-year hiatus forced by the Covid pandemic – and Annastacia Palaszczuk clearly wants to make this one count.

The letter from a project manager for the event’s organiser, Rizer, makes it clear that generous subsidies will be allocated to each network, although they will only be paid out for Logie nominees and other network stars: “Each talent/nominee that attends the event unlocks $1000 in funding capped at the amount advised previously,” Rizer writes.

Diary understands that each major free-to-air network, including the ABC, Seven, Nine, Ten and SBS, are allowed to claim the $1000-a-head subsidy for up to 75 network personalities attending the Logies. That means each network will be able to claim back up to $75,000 in expenses if they bring their network stars along.

The Logies are moving from The Star casino at Broadbeach to the larger Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, especially to allow the networks to inject more star power into the event. As a consequence, it will have an audience of 900 people this year, compared with 700 people when it was last held in 2019.

The event’s organiser has also told the networks that the total subsidies they are given will be “calculated in the week post-event, once we review the final guest list” – after which “an invoice can then be raised to Rizer for payment within 21 days”.

Diary also understands that Tourism Events Queensland is offering TV networks an added incentive if they run ads that promote the Logies and its role in the ceremony during prime time.

With up to $75,000 already being paid to each network, we’re told this extra incentive payment could see the Queensland government subsidise the major free-to-air networks for up to $100,000 each.

The government’s cash splash for the benefit of the major free-to-airs is particularly interesting, given the Logies are in the last year of a three-year contract with the Queensland government on the Gold Coast. We’re told the event is the subject of rival city bids to lure the event away to Perth and Melbourne, where they would be most likely to head to Crown Palladium in Melbourne (the previous venue) or Crown Perth.

Still, we hear even the Queensland government’s generous subsidies won’t touch the sides for the networks.

Apart from anything, there’s the cost of hiring out big hotels. This year, Nine is booking out The Star, Seven the JW Marriott and Ten the Gold Coast Sofitel.

In total, we’re told the price tag this year for flying, feeding and accommodating on-air talent, producers, dedicated hair, make-up and wardrobe teams on the Gold Coast, as well as holding expensive afterparties, will add up to between $300,000 and $350,000 for the big networks. And that’s not even including the stars’ reputedly legendary post-Logies room minibar costs …

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Leigh Sales’ pitch for an ABC talk show

Ever since Leigh Sales announced at the start of the year that her reign as host of 7.30 would end, there has been rampant speculation about her next move once she formally departs the show at the end of June.

Now Diary hears that the odds have shortened considerably around the ABC on Sales starting her own weekly talk show in 2023. We’re told that secret planning around a once-a-week celebrity interview show with Sales as host first started as far back as five years ago within the ABC.

We hear that at the time, there was a widespread belief around Ultimo that the ABC lacked a non-political prime time interview show since the days of programs like Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope, which ran between 2003 and 2008, and Michael Parkinson’s eponymous interview show (which, incidentally, the ABC has recently been repeating late at night).

The feeling around Aunty for some time has been that Sales could fill the void by providing a kind of “cross between Denton and Oprah Winfrey”.

Leigh Sales with Paul McCartney.

During her 12 years in the host’s chair, Sales has broadened the attraction of 7.30 beyond local politics with interviews with huge international and Australian names, including in-depth chats with pop legend Paul McCartney (who she has since nominated as her favourite interview subject), Hillary Clinton, comedian Ricky Gervais, ex-FBI boss James Comey, Blanche d’Alpuget and the late Shane Warne.

At the same time Sales has broadened her own personal appeal beyond both politics and Aunty, through her podcast series with fellow ABC identity Annabel Crabb, ‘Chat 10 Looks 3’. The series has been running since 2014 and has become an industry in its own right, even spawning a series of live shows around the country featuring Sales and Crabb.

And it was in an episode of Chat 10 Looks 3 a few years back that Sales dropped the biggest clue into her long-term ambitions to become the next Oprah, Barbara Walters, Parkinson or Denton.

“I’ve always thought at some point I’d love to have a (talk) show … where the whole show is just one interview,” Sales said on the ­podcast. The sort of show that has been looked at in the past for Sales has been a combination of high-level international leaders, celebrities and, in particular, musicians, given her well-known love of music and the success of her interviews with A-list musicians like McCartney and, more recently, Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl.

Any future Sales talk show would also most likely make a strong bid to regularly lure international women with star power, of the ilk of Michelle Obama, Jacinda Ardern, Princess Mary and Amal Clooney.

But first, Sales is set to take a well-earned break after her frenetic 12 years at the helm of the ABC’s flagship current affairs show.

That would most likely mean that the departing 7.30 host’s reinvented role with the public broadcaster would not commence until 2023.

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Palaszczuk the red carpet Premier

Queensland may be in the middle of a crisis in its health system, with pressing affairs like a commission of inquiry launched last week into the underperformance of the state government’s forensics DNA Lab (as revealed by The Australian’s investigative journalist Hedley Thomas), and burgeoning problems with ambulance ramping.

Annastacia Palaszczuk and boyfriend Reza Adib at the premiere of Elvis on the Gold Coast on June 4. Picture: Getty Images

But none of those issues will get in the way of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s seemingly endless thirst for the red carpet.

Even by Palaszczuk’s standards, the 2022 social calendar has particularly hectic for the celebrity Premier and her laparoscopic surgeon boyfriend, Reza Adib.

The pair have been near inseparable at most of Queensland’s exclusive events. Whether it be proudly posing with Baz Luhrmann and Tom Hanks for red-carpet photos at the Elvis premiere on the Gold Coast a week or so back, attending a Moet et Chandon-sponsored ball together a few days earlier, or living it up at Saturday’s Stradbroke Handicap at Eagle Farm, the pair have been blazing a trail across Queensland’s biggest social events for much of the first half of the year.

Who could forget the Queensland power couple’s memorable (and international headline-making) appearance together at a high-powered Olympics conference in Sydney – where Adib was afforded all of the status of an IOC member, with even name signs printed for him.

Reza Adib, left, and Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Gambaro Moët et Chandon ball last month. Picture: Supplied

And still, there’s an even bigger gig on the menu next Sunday: with Palaszczuk and no doubt her partner making yet another grand entrance at the Logies, as TV’s night of nights makes its much-trumpeted and heavily subsidised return (after a three-year coronavirus delay) on the Gold Coast.

The Premier will rub shoulders with a who’s who of Aussie TV, including the likes of self-described “Queenslander” and Gold Logie nominee Karl Stefanovic.

With such glitzy distractions, as Palaszczuk makes a point of being photographed for the social pages with everyone from Hollywood movie-makers to local TV stars, why worry about trivial matters like having some of the worst ambulance ramping numbers in the country?

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AFR hack deletes Twitter after Turnbull book

Writing a boldly named book about a former prime minister can clearly be a delicate affair — especially when you’re dealing with the often fickle crowd who inhabit social media.

The Australian Financial Review’s senior correspondent Aaron Patrick tells Diary he’s planning to delete his Twitter account this week over a book he has just written.

Why?

Because Patrick, who is generally unafraid of stirring the pot to cause a bit of controversy, is bracing for a particularly brutal backlash from the social media crowd over his new book about Malcolm Turnbull. Maybe it has something to do with the book’s title: Ego: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party’s Civil War.

Aaron Patrick.

With a name like that, Turnbull – who has been something of a darling among the Twitter set for his strident criticism of defeated fellow Coalition PM Scott Morrison – is likely to attract some vocal support from prominent members of the Twitterati once Patrick’s book is released. And conversely, based on past form, they could have some particularly unvarnished and unflattering assessments of the AFR senior correspondent’s talents.

Patrick volunteered to Diary last week: “I’m planning to delete my Twitter account in the coming week – because the book deals with sensitive issues, and Twitter is not a place where these types of issues can be discussed in a sensitive way.”

We can only imagine what Twitter would have thought of the Harper Collins book’s original title. Diary hears Patrick had planned to call his book ‘‘Revenge: Malcolm Turnbull’s War on Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party’’, with booksellers even promoting that title to valued frequent readers before it was changed.

Patrick himself is tight-lipped on the reasons for his decision to soften the book’s title.

But whatever drove it, the ex-PM won’t be the only person watching closely when the book is released on Wednesday.

Some senior journalists who were key players in attacks on Scott Morrison’s government are likely to take more than a passing interest in Patrick’s take on them. Diary hears there are several honourable mentions of some prominent names in the media, as Patrick explores the role some journos played in the destruction of the Morrison government.

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Ita and Olle’s common ground

Never one to mince her words, ABC chair Ita Buttrose is delivering the Andrew Olle Media Lecture on Friday night. And not surprisingly, there’s likely to be plenty to keep the gathered throng interested.

For one, Buttrose is well known to have some strong views about journalism as a profession.

The ABC chair is understood to have long been an admirer of the late Andrew Olle, and is said to see him as an example that other journalists should follow.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose. Picture Kym Smith

Buttrose is said to be a big believer in the Olle philosophy of never letting his own personal beliefs influence his work. In his time as a TV and radio host, no ABC viewer would have been able to decipher which way Olle voted, for example.

In an era where journalists aren’t shy about expressing their personal opinions on platforms like Twitter, Buttrose is a big advocate of Olle’s philosophy of not letting passionate personal beliefs get in their way of impartially reporting stories.

Buttrose is a staunch defender of journalism as a profession, despite its well-chronicled status right down the bottom of lists of “most respected” occupations, where it wallows with the likes of politicians and used car salesmen.

Buttrose is also said to take the view that journalists – who she sees as often adversarial towards each other across the media divide – need to defend each other more, believing that the similarities between journalists of all organisations are greater than their differences.

There is no better illustration of this than Buttrose herself, who has worked across most of the country’s major media organisations, including Nine, News Corp, the former Fairfax and the ABC.

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Nine rushes 60 Minutes episode to air

Nine wasn’t about to waste a second chance to screen an important 60 Minutes episode that had been injuncted by the courts last month – even if it meant taking the unprecedented action of rushing it to air on a Thursday, rather than a Sunday night. The Adele Ferguson special had been the subject of a legal stoush involving prominent cosmetic practitioner Joseph Ajaka that had seen him attempt to force 60 Minutes and the Nine papers to hand over the story before it aired.

Adele Ferguson.

Initially, in May, the NSW Supreme Court made a last-minute initial document discovery order in Ajaka’s favour, which meant the 60 Minutes episode couldn’t air. That decision was heavily criticised by some of the country’s top journalists across the media divide, with The Australian’s Hedley Thomas and The Age’s Nick McKenzie among those saying that it set a dangerous precedent against public interest journalism.

The initial decision was immediately appealed by Nine, with the order ultimately being thrown out last Wednesday. A frenetic 24 hours followed, with Ajaka refiling for discovery before that bid was thrown out late on Thursday afternoon – effectively meaning he could no longer stop the story going to air.

Still, Nine was taking no chances after the latter decision was handed down, racing the Ferguson story to air on Thursday night.

Nine insiders say the reason that the story was rushed to air – belatedly bumping RBT from Nine’s schedule – was to ensure that the public was “fully informed” as early as possible about the practices of these clinics.

That left viewers with the rare scenario of three 60 Minutes instalments in the space of a week. There was, however, no time to promote the episode, with the first inkling coming at the end of the Thursday night 6pm news bulletins, when it was announced that there would be a “special” 60 Minutes episode screening that evening, half an hour later.

But the lack of advance publicity for the story was compensated for by a surge of social media commentary. Ferguson said: “This was a story that needed to be told, and it had already been delayed way too long.”

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