Why the Big Bother?
Big Brother is returning to the Gold Coast. It’s not my thing, but I can think of one good thing about it. Plus: Tim Arvier’s shock move to the ‘dark side’.
I was in an Uber early in the morning the other day and was listening to Nova 1069 because that’s what the driver was playing on the car radio.
I was impressed with the little I heard and thought the show had changed for the better since I last heard it (also when I was in an Uber). Back then, in the very early days of the retooled Breakfast line-up, the hosts were talking over each other; it was loud and somehow disorganised. Now it seemed calmer and more coherent, but still upbeat and fun.
But the voices sounded different — and that’s when I realised it was school holiday/ non-rating period, and I was listening to Mel Tracina and Matty Baseley rather than Ash Bradnam, David “Luttsy” Lutteral and Nikki Osborne.
Now, I’m not knocking the regular show — it’s no. 1 in the market right now, so it’s obviously found its groove — I’m just saying I liked what I heard that day.
All this is taking the long way around to remind you that Tracina, who also features on Channel 10’s The Cheap Seats, will be hosting the rebooted Big Brother, which will be made somewhere on the Gold Coast (maybe at Dreamworld, maybe not) soon.
I’m not a fan of Big Brother — and its recent reincarnations haven’t set the world on fire ratings-wise — but if anyone can breathe some new life into a tired format, maybe it’s Mel.
I’d also like to see local lad and BB veteran Mike Goldman — who makes some very funny videos for social media and has some serious acting and voice-over credits — play a role.
The people at Paramount/10 need a breakout hit given the network’s other former tentpole programs have either been cancelled or are fading fast, and its latest initiative (10News+) has, ahem, not performed to expectations.
Speaking of flops, if you are interested in a long list of programs that technically had no viewers at all, TV Tonight has that here.
Tim’s TV time is up
It’s a well-trodden path, but it’s always a loss to journalism and a small blow to the public’s right to know when good political reporters move to “the dark side” of government PR.
So it is with Tim Arvier, the 9News Queensland political editor who has taken up a “crisis management” role with the state government. (Raising the question, of course, of how many crises they are expecting.)
Arvier’s move is said to be amicable, with him staying on at Nine to mentor staff for the rest of this month. I imagine that the Nine honchos are especially relieved that he’s not moving over to Channel Seven, as had been rumoured. (The Australian reports that his public-sector pay package will be significantly more than he’d get at Seven.)
A cynic might note that those on the government benches would also be happy, not just to have a top media professional on their side, but to have deprived a news platform of someone who might otherwise be digging into stories they’d rather keep hidden.
Would Arvier have stayed at Nine if he’d been offered the anchor position (vacated due to illness by Andrew Lofthouse) that Joel Dry will be taking up in August? We can only speculate about that…
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