The 61st TV Week Logie Awards

Tom Gleeson‘s campaign for the Gold Logie has paid off!

The comedian, who hosts Hard Quiz and appears as a regular on The Weekly With Charlie Pickering, collected the Gold Logie at the 61st annual TV Week Logie Awards, held on Sunday night at The Star Gold Coast.

It was Gleeson’s first time nominated for the Gold and he fought off opposition from some other first-time nominees: Eve Morey from Neighbours, Sam Mac from Sunrise and Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia. Also competing for the Gold this year were Rodger Corser (Doctor Doctor), Amanda Keller (The Living Room and Dancing With The Stars) and Waleed Aly (The Project).

As his game show namesake, Gleeson went ‘hard’ in campaigning for the Gold, in much the same way he campaigned for Grant Denyer to win Gold last year. It was a campaign that is reported to have put the other nominees off side. In his defence, Gleeson said that of the shows represented in the Gold Logie nominees list, Hard Quiz rates the highest, which, essentially justified his award for what is Most Popular Personality On Australian Television.

His acceptance speech alternated between sincere and savage. He acknowledged the support of Hard Quiz production crew, viewers and contestants and accepted the award as a win for comedy and for ABC — neither of which have scored a Gold Logie win since Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald) did it in 1976, a win which was also the culmination of a comic campaign and that inspired Gleeson’s efforts.

He also also cynical towards the industry and reflected that it is “dying” in the face of increased competition from other media such as streaming platforms. He also threw a few barbs at some of his fellow nominees and at Denyer, who was recently critical of Gleeson’s campaigning for him last year. It is a fine line between humour and smug, and perhaps his speech crossed that line towards the latter in part.

He summed up his speech by imploring everyone to “lighten the f*** up!”, and perhaps not to take the whole thing quite so seriously.


YouTube: Channel 9

The other Gold Logie of the night, the TV Week Logie Awards Hall of Fame, went to journalist Kerry O’Brien, whose career has spanned four networks and five decades. ABC was where he spent most of his career, including hosting The 7.30 Report, Lateline, Four Corners and many election nights. His acceptance speech was an emotional one and encouraged protection, not decimation, of the ABC. His speech took on the national challenges of reconciliation and climate change.

Perhaps more significant this year was that Australia’s two highest rated networks, Seven and Nine, did not fare well in the awards. Seven did not score a single win, while Nine shared the award of Most Popular Actress for Deborah Mailman with ABC. Streaming platform Stan, owned by Nine, also won two awards.

This shift possibly a reflection on programming trends, where the emphasis on commercial network prime time rests on reality shows and anything else is just a lower rung. Awards for news and current affairs, drama, comedy, children’s, lifestyle and light entertainment went to ABC, to SBS, to Ten and to Foxtel because Seven and Nine, despite their high ratings led by reality shows, are giving these other genres a lower ranking.

There were music performances by Jessica Mauboy, Guy Sebastian, Delta Goodrem and boy band Why Don’t We.

International guests were the cast of sitcom Young Sheldon. Their brief appearance, to introduce a single award, would hardly have justified their airfares.

Tracy Grimshaw introduced the In Memoriam segment with a tribute to Mike Willesee, and which saw the passing parade of those that we have lost in the last year accompanied by classic footage of a piano performance by Geoff Harvey, who died earlier this year.

In ratings terms, the four-hour TV Week Logie Awards telecast was watched by an average of 866,000 (5 cities, OzTAM) in overnight preliminary numbers. It was a slight increase from last year’s 852,000. The Red Carpet Arrivals as the awards prelude was watched by 799,000.

The Nine Network won the night with a share of 38.9%, followed by Seven (27.2%), Ten (14.8%), ABC (14.0%) and SBS (5.1%). Nine’s primary channel was the highest rated individual channel on 28.4%, almost ten points clear of runner up Seven (18.7%)


YouTube: Channel 9

Publicly-voted Categories:

TV WEEK GOLD LOGIE – MOST POPULAR PERSONALITY ON AUSTRALIAN TV
Tom Gleeson (Hard Quiz, ABC)

SILVER LOGIE — MOST POPULAR ACTOR
Luke McGregor (Rosehaven, ABC)

SILVER LOGIE — MOST POPULAR ACTRESS
Deborah Mailman (Bite Club/Mystery Road, Nine Network/ABC)

SILVER LOGIE — MOST POPULAR PRESENTER
Costa Georgiadis (Gardening Australia, ABC)

GRAHAM KENNEDY AWARD FOR MOST POPULAR NEW TALENT
Dylan Alcott (Invictus Games Tonight and The Set, ABC)

MOST POPULAR DRAMA PROGRAM
Mystery Road (ABC)

MOST POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM
Gogglebox Australia (Foxtel/10)

MOST POPULAR COMEDY PROGRAM
Have You Been Paying Attention? (10)

MOST POPULAR REALITY PROGRAM
MasterChef Australia (10)

MOST POPULAR LIFESTYLE PROGRAM
Gardening Australia (ABC)

MOST POPULAR PANEL OR CURRENT AFFAIRS PROGRAM
The Project (10)

MOST POPULAR TELEVISION COMMERCIAL
Dundee: Australia’s Tourism Ad In DisguiseTourism Australia

Industry-voted Categories:

TV WEEK GOLD LOGIE — HALL OF FAME
Kerry O’Brien

MOST OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Wentworth (Foxtel)

MOST OUTSTANDING MINISERIES OR TELEMOVIE
Bloom (Stan)

MOST OUTSTANDING ACTOR
Scott Ryan (Mr Inbetween, Foxtel)

MOST OUTSTANDING ACTRESS
Jenna Coleman (The Cry, ABC)

MOST OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR
Frankie J Holden (A Place To Call Home, Foxtel)

MOST OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jacki Weaver (Bloom, Stan)

MOST OUTSTANDING ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM
Have You Been Paying Attention? (10)

MOST OUTSTANDING CHILDREN’S PROGRAM
Bluey (ABC)

MOST OUTSTANDING SPORTS COVERAGE
The 2018 FIFA World Cup (SBS)

MOST OUTSTANDING NEWS COVERAGE OR PUBLIC AFFAIRS REPORT
“Out Of The Dark” (Four Corners, ABC)

MOST OUTSTANDING FACTUAL OR DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM
Ron Iddles: The Good Cop (Foxtel)

MOST OUTSTANDING REALITY PROGRAM
Australian Survivor: Champions Vs Contenders (10)

Source: TV Week

Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2019. The Data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM.

Program performance and ranking information subject to change when not based on final program logs.

Permanent link to this article: https://televisionau.com/2019/07/the-61st-tv-week-logie-awards.html

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