TV

Some Old “TV Insiders” Are Whinging To The Daily Telegraph About Waleed Aly And Lee Lin Chin’s Logies Noms

The fact that they only specifically criticised the two non-white nominees is a total coincidence.

by Sinead Stubbins  5 April 2016

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Judging by The Daily Telegraph, the Australian television industry is just a swirling cesspool of insidious fat cats who hate change and want everything to stay just as they were in 1979, when Bert Newton was calling Muhammad Ali “boy”, The Sullivans were winning every industry award and Paul Hogan was the craziest motherfucker on TV.

Today a supposedly “well-placed TV insider” has harshly criticised the 2016 Gold Logie nominations—which to recap, included Waleed Aly, Carrie Bickmore, Scott Cam, Lee Lin Chin, Essie Davis and Grant Denyer—saying that it was no longer representative of Australia’s tastes. No, the fact that he only specifically criticised the two non-white nominees is a total coincidence.

The unnamed insider then presumably slithered back into his nest to hide away from the prying eyes of mortals.

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“The source was neither seen nor heard from again.”

The insider went on to say: “The Logies are an embarrassment. It is a complete joke. What has Waleed ever done? Because he does an editorial slapping someone down every now and then, does that qualify him for a Gold Logie? And is The Project successful? No.”

Well to be honest, The Project is pretty successful—it seems to be able to engage with young people and social media in ways that other current affairs shows can’t (and of course, Carrie Bickmore has been nominated for the Gold Logie four times now and won it last year, and The Project‘s lack of ratings has never come up before).

But before we write off this insider, ho ho, what do we have here! The Daily Telegraph actually quotes a second TV insider, who is absolutely a different person and not just the first racist guy who was still spouting stupid opinions over a five o’clock shandy. Who knew that the Australian TV industry was so big that it could hold these multitudes of bigoted insiders! The second guy says that basically, the internet has ruined everything because we don’t even know what’s popular anymore.

“The thing with the Logies these days is it’s nothing to do with how popular the show is but how well you run an online campaign or how much traction a show has on social media,” he said, with a burp. “Lee Lin Chin has developed a huge cult following on social media and that seems to have got her the nomination… you have to wonder how many of those people who voted for her actually watch SBS World News.”

Well, Lee Lin Chin was actually also nominated for The Feed, but to be fair the insider probably isn’t very familiar with that show either.

So in conclusion, the things that are ruining the Logies are popular people on unpopular shows, social media and diversity cult fans. If you missed it yesterday, Karl Stefanovik and Lisa Wilkinson were criticised for a very strange segment on The Today Show in which Karl said that Lisa was “too white” to be nominated for a Gold Logie, to which she replied “I got a spray tan… still didn’t make it”. Apparently Lisa Wilkinson has clarified this bizarre statement since, but some people on Twitter are still understandably flabbergasted.

So, ah… who’s looking forward to the Logies?

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