The coronavirus has wreaked havoc with the scheduled tour to parade Malcolm Turnbull’s keenly awaited new book, A Bigger Picture, Diary can reveal.
What was to have been a country-wide tour for Turnbull, starting in Sydney next month, has become, well, something much more virtual.
Diary hears the former PM’s book was due to be launched at an invite-only event on April 20 at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, before a ticketed event later that night at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre. Similar ticketed talks were to follow in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Geelong. The whole tour was set to culminate with a speech by Turnbull at the National Press Club in Canberra on April 23.
But of course, in the current situation, such events are clearly impossible.
Despite the turmoil, Turnbull is holding firm and not putting back the book’s launch date. We’re told that’s because the one-time Bulletin journalist thinks a lot of people will want to read it while stuck at home in lockdown.
Diary also hears that thoroughly modern Malcolm is also planning to hold separate live-streamed virtual “events” on Facebook in lieu of physical launches.
Those internet sessions will be specifically tailored to audiences watching on the web in all of the cities he was going to visit. Just as with AFL games tailored solely to a TV audience, Turnbull’s web sessions promise to usher book launches into a new era.
Alberici emerges
She’s back! Last week Emma Alberici made a long-awaited return to the ABC’s screens to file a story in what seems to have been her first yarn in some months.
So you’d naturally imagine that, as the ABC’s “chief economics correspondent”, Alberici’s comeback story would be something to do with the historic coronavirus-driven collapse of global markets.
Er, not quite. Instead, in her own words, her story was about “the Italian and Nigerian mafias”. A worthy story, perhaps, but maybe not one for the ABC’s chief economics guru to be fronting last week of all weeks, right in the middle of the financial story of a lifetime.
Diary is reliably informed Alberici actually flew out to record the Foreign Correspondent story last year — at a time when Italy was still blissfully unaware of the viral carnage to come.
So it’s fair to say that Alberici’s mafia yarn had something in common with the coronavirus: a long incubation period.
Meanwhile, Alberici hasn’t exactly been prolific in filing economics stories in the last year. The last one Diary could trace through the ABC’s own website was in July 2019 about “the economic cost of unpaid work”.
But her previous story before that, in June 2019, was the modern-day classic: “When my hand met the stick blender, I understood stress can be deadly”.
If the ABC website is right, since the beginning of 2019, she has filed a grand total of nine stories. Those include her high-profile, non-economic Foreign Correspondent story from last year that also required an Italian trip: “Secret Sardinia” from January 2019, which claimed that an Italian government cover-up was “putting lives at risk”. If you recall, that story — claimed as a scoop — attracted controversy when Italian filmmaker Lisa Camillo alleged 28 instances of similarities with her own 2018 film, Balentes, on the same topic.
Unfortunately, Alberici’s trips to Italy are off for a while now. But fans starved of regular Alberici content are in for a fresh treat on Tuesday night. She’ll be popping her head up on Foreign Correspondent yet again: this time talking to Italians by Skype about the impact of the coronavirus.
Ita’s confusion
There is confusion even at the highest levels of the ABC about the immediate future of Foreign Correspondent amid the current international chaos.
On Friday, ABC chair Ita Buttrose told Nine newspapers: “Some shows will need to be suspended for now, like Foreign Correspondent.”
Er, not so fast. Diary is now told Foreign Correspondent is definitely not under suspension. An ABC source told us on the weekend: “We can confirm Foreign Correspondent will be completing its full season this year. There is no suggestion of the program being cancelled.”
Many episodes have already been shot, and the show can also “revisit and update previous stories”. Diary understands many ABC correspondents in crucial posts will definitely be remaining in their stations. David Lipson, James Glenday and Kathryn Diss will stay in Washington, Sam Hawley, Linton Besser and Bridget Brennan will remain in London, Bill Birtles will stay in Beijing and Jake Sturmer will remain in Tokyo.
But we’re told other ABC correspondents in less core centres have been given the option of staying in their posts, or coming home in these uncertain times.
Doyle for Armytage?
“S am Armytage’s absence from Sunrise has nothing to do with coronavirus, and nothing to do with tensions on the set.” That’s the message that a clearly frustrated Craig McPherson, Seven’s no-nonsense news supremo, was driving home yesterday.
David Koch has moved to five days a week on the top-rating Sunrise as Armytage has taken leave after a three-month respiratory infection. In her absence, newsreader Natalie Barr has stepped up as Koch’s co-presenter.
Armytage is likely to be off work for three weeks at this stage. The word from McPherson is that her co-presenters are “sympathetic” to her plight.
Still, if Armytage’s illness was to last any longer, there is a ready-made and much loved like-for-like replacement at Seven who has done the exact same job before.
That’s right, folks: Sunrise’s long-time co-host Melissa Doyle!
Doyle, of course, lost her job as host of Sunday Night at the end of 2019, but still has a year left on her contract and would no doubt love the work. Could there be a more perfect stand-in for Armytage?
Guardian uproar
The internal rumblings over a controversial column by The Guardian’s British columnist Suzanne Moore — which many of her colleagues slammed as transphobic — continue.
Now, in a tweet from last week simply headed “Boom”, Moore has released a Guardian-dominated list of 338 names, including many Australian staff, who signed a letter condemning the column, which argued that biological sex was a material fact, and that the oppression of women was “innately connected” to their biological reality.
The extensive list of signatories to the letter released by Moore included Guardian Australia’s culture editor Steph Harmon, associate news editor Jo Tovey, senior business reporter Ben Butler, lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman, opinion editor Bridie Jabour, Melbourne bureau chief Melissa Davey, indigenous affairs editor Lorena Allam, and fellow journalists Stephanie Convery, Svetlana Stankovic, Josh Taylor, Ben Smee, Naaman Zhou and Michael McGowan.
The publication of Moore’s much-discussed column allegedly contributed to the resignation of a transgender Guardian UK employee earlier this month.
The letter claimed that the Guardian’s “pattern of publishing transphobic content has interfered with our work and cemented our reputation as a publication hostile to trans rights”.
Moore responded last week: “This letter does not name me but associates my articles with walkouts. I have never heard of most of these people.”
The Voice substitutes
Big changes are coming to Nine’s marquee singing show, The Voice, as a direct result of the coronavirus crisis, with substitutes to come onto the show’s much-vaunted coaching panel.
That’s because the show’s two biggest names, singing superstars Kelly Rowland and Boy George, are currently locked down in the US and Britain respectively, with little chance of return to Australia.
Diary can now reveal that Nine has bitten the bullet by rapidly ruling the pair out as coaches for the rest of the series, although they will apparently continue to make appearances by video link.
Instead, two new and as-yet unnamed Australian names will join The Voice’s panel to replace Rowland and Boy George when the live performances screen in coming months.
But the locked-down pair won’t be scrapped from the show altogether. Diary hears they will feature prominently in The Voice’s already-recorded blind auditions and battles with fellow coaches Delta Goodrem and Guy Sebastian.
And that wasn’t the end of The Voice’s dramas last week. Sebastian had to bolt back from LA to beat our travel bans, and is currently in self-quarantine.
Code red
Diary has got wind of a Qantas-like bombshell announcement that we are assured will be made in coming days, involving one of Australia’s biggest sporting codes.
We’re told the announcement, just like last week’s one at Qantas by Alan Joyce, will involve the mass standing down of staff, although they won’t be immediately made redundant. You heard it here first.
Bachelor at a distance
“It’s like a Victorian-era version of The Bachelor.”
So says one Ten source about the current season of Australia’s quintessential dating show, as it cautiously tiptoes into the brave new germaphobic world of social distancing.
We’re currently three weeks into production of the new season, and by all accounts, Ten is proceeding with a very “safe” environment for the show.
Safety is all-important to broadcasters and their shows at the moment. Any case of COVID-19 on set could delay productions for weeks and months, or even cancel them altogether.
In the Bachelor world, safety means having a doctor around every day, plus “limiting the number of visitors to the set, managing crew numbers, ensuring no international travel and practising good hygiene at all times”.
But our Ten insiders are cagier when it comes to discussing if new Bachelor Locky Gilbert is giving his bachelorettes less kisses and more elbow taps. “Kisses are only a small part of the show,” one told us. “It’s really about the journey to the end of the show when you find out who he chooses. And people right now are crying out for feel-good TV.”
ABC’s stay of execution
The ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, had a big announcement last week: that he won’t be making an announcement!
Anderson was to have released his long-awaited plan for 200 job cuts at the ABC this week. But as The Australian revealed on Wednesday, the coronavirus has given him the perfect reason to kick that can down the road.
It was always going to be a thankless job for Anderson to announce the cuts as part of his long-awaited five-year plan. Now he doesn’t have to, after his email to ABC staff last week outlined “my decision to postpone the announcement until we are through this period”. “Your patience and professionalism are, as always, greatly appreciated,” he wrote.
So, a stay of execution for ABC staff from news to entertainment programming and administration.
But if he takes a leaf out of the BBC playbook, Anderson might be able to use the unprecedented situation to save some dough anyway, without the pain of a formal announcement.
The Beeb announced that it was suspending production of its legendary soap, EastEnders, “until further notice”, along with several other scripted shows, including Casualty, Doctors and Holby City. It will instead move to a war-like footing, with coronavirus-dominated programming moving to the forefront.
This will definitely be a big money-saver for the BBC. So could some upcoming ABC dramas face the same fate?
Anderson was giving little away in his email. He would only say that he would come back to staff with “more information on the five-year strategy announcement as soon as we have returned to normal levels of activity”.
Closing down Sales
The coronavirus has succeeded where many politicians have failed: by silencing Leigh Sales.
The 7.30 host’s scheduled speaking gig at the new Sydney Media Club last Wednesday fell victim to world events, with club president, caricaturist Rocco Fazarri, revealing to prospective attendees that the gig was off.
“The decision has been made in light of the intense demands on media organisations as the COVID-19 story develops from minute to minute,” he said.
Fazarri, ever the optimist, appeared hopeful the Sales event could still be a goer at a future date. The Sales event had been “postponed”, not cancelled.
For all our sakes, let’s hope he’s right.
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