Opinion

The Encore Score: The Logie Awards

Encore ScoreAhead of Sunday night’s Logie Awards, Amanda Meade looks at the numbers to see which celebrities might take out Australian television’s top awards. 

The TV Week Logie Awards, a celebration of Australian television, is a wild and colourful beast.

Everything from the highbrow Four Corners to the homely Better Homes and Gardens is feted at the industrys so called night of nights when young starlets mingle with investigative journalists and comedians with childrens TV presenters.

Dan Ewing

Dan Ewing

Steve Peacocke

Steve Peacocke

The awards dont always coincide with what some viewers think is the best television and the most popular shows dont always win. For example, not many ABC viewers would know who Steve Peacocke and Dan Ewing are. But TV Week, which owns the awards, is full of pictures of the hunky Home and Away stars each week and for that audience they are household names.

The Encore Score is a ranking of on-air talent across TV, radio, film and the media which charts how widely more than 1,000 Australian celebrities are recognised, as well as how positively and negatively they are perceived.

When we compared Encore Scores of Australian TV personalities to the nominees for Most Popular Personality and Actor awards we found a lot of parallels: most of the nominees for Silver and Gold Most Popular Logies also have high Encore Scores.

Five of the Gold and Silver Logie nominees have very high Encore Scores of over 100, two are over 50 and three over 20. Rebecca Gibney (231), Hamish Blake (183), Adam Hills (150), Julia Morris (124), Andy Lee (121) and Scott Cam (104)  have all been nominated for Silver and some for Gold and they are among our highest ranked TV stars on the Encore Scores.

LogiesIf Encore Scores were a measure of Logies success the front runner this year would be Gibney, the star of Packed to the Rafters, which ended last year.

Gibney has an Encore Score of 231, and is extremely popular among women (254) and older viewers (25-54).  She ranks second only to movie star Hugh Jackman who has the highest overall Encore Score.  Gibney won the Gold Logie in 2009 as well as Most Popular Actress award. She was also nominated for Gold in 2010 and 2011.

Offspring star and Gold and Silver nominee Asher Keddie has a high Encore Score of 98 and is much more popular among female viewers (166) than male (30). Keddie won the Gold last year despite Offspring not being among our highest rating dramas, because ratings are not always the only indicator.

If high ratings was a pre-requisite for a Logie, why is Ten presenter Carrie Bickmore a Gold Logie nominee this year again? Bickmores star power failed to save Tens So You Think You Can Dance from oblivion and the news program she co-hosts, The Project, falls outside the top 50 TV shows each week.

Carrie Bickmore

Carrie Bickmore

But Bickmore has something elusive that make people vote for her. She is immensely likeable because of a mix of professionalism and raw emotion that is on display on The Project. This year she is nominated for a Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on TV as well as for a Silver for Most Popular Presenter. In the Encore Scores she does reasonably well, with a score of 43 and a high score of 70 among female viewers. She is more than twice as popular among younger viewers than older, reflecting the demographic of The Project.

Nine will air the 56th TV Week Logie Awards on Sunday (April 27) at 7.30pm, beginning with the red carpet arrivals hosted by Nine personalities Sonia Kruger and Jules Lund. They’re starting earlier this year after last year’s awards dragged on too late because they were screened after The Voice.

Despite the inclusion of peer-voted Most Outstanding awards, which judge talent rather than popularity, the Logies suffer from a credibility problem.

But the broadcast is always popular and the fashions and the winners fill the news pages. While its not as cool as an Emmy, no TV star ever turned down an award — popular or outstanding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.