Starke Reality: BishBoot, Breaking! and Bill: How the media covered the 2019 Federal Election

Whether last night brought you elation or despair, or simply made you hungry for sausage in bread, one thing is certain: The television coverage of the 2019 Australian election was insane.

• Scott Morrison wins the 2019 Federal Election
• FOLLOW LIVE: The wash-up of the 2019 Federal Election
• Bill Shorten concedes defeats, stands down as Labor leader

Whether last night brought you elation or despair, or simply made you hungry for sausage in bread, one thing is certain: the television coverage of the 2019 Australian election was reliably insane.

We might not be able to depend on exit polls anymore (apparently), but if there’s one thing you’re guaranteed of on election night it’s that our commercial TV networks will go overboard with gimmicks in an effort to jazz up what is essentially a night of people in suits counting out loud.

Channel 9 had panellists sitting in a headache-inducing red and blue set with more screens than Harvey Norman, stars on every available surface and BREAKING NEWS continually flashing in the background.

The place looked like it had been decorated by the Avengers.

They also had the “BishBoot”: an animated red stiletto on a giant mechanical foot that swung into action for every losing candidate, literally booting their face off the stage.

It was apparently an homage to Julie Bishop’s now famous “resignation red heels”, which led to some slightly awkward moments, given she was on Nine’s panel.

Fittingly, the bizarre robo-heel got its first go kicking Tony Abbott out of Warringah — an absurd end to an absurd political career.

The Channel 9 "BishBoot". Picture: Twitter

While Nine went for American-inspired razzle dazzle, Channel 10 tried to be the “fun ones” with their Studio 10 Aussie Poll Party, a rooftop barbecue featuring John Williamson singing “Hey True Blue”, Sam Dastyari cooking vegan snags and Ding Dong … being Ding Dong. Throw in the promise of keeping franking credits and it was every Boomer’s dream bash (except for the vegan snags, probably).

With the footy running on their main HD channel, Seven provided the night’s only option for those who wanted to watch the election untroubled by high definition video. So, no one, basically.

Although given panellist Alan Jones rocked up wearing head-to-toe lime green, the decision to broadcast solely in standard definition may have been a safety measure to protect viewers’ vision.

Seven’s set (if you could see it, through the blur) had a strange backdrop of what I assume were the halls of Parliament House, but could just as easily have been a Windows 95 screen saver.

Things were slightly slicker over on the ABC where Leigh Sales led a team of panellists on giant curved desks that looked like the Starship Enterprise, while Michael Rowland stood awkwardly next to a “political wheel of fortune” - a computer generated spinning circle of politicians’ faces that resembled the most boring game of roulette of all time.

Sky News had Peta Credlin as the sole woman on a very cramped desk full of men in suits, while SBS sensibly ignored the whole thing in favour of running yet another episode of River Cottage Australia.

Honourable mention goes to Channel 44 which, in conjunction with other community stations around the country, presented live national coverage of the election done entirely by students.

Sadly by the time Bill Shorten was putting us to sleep with his midnight concession speech, and ScoMo was reaffirming his pledge to “burn for us”, the BishBoot was nowhere to be found.

Perhaps we can bring it back for Question Time?

Originally published as Starke Reality: BishBoot, Breaking! and Bill: How the media covered the 2019 Federal Election