ABC promises ‘nation-defining’ content for 2020
Content with more Australian faces, voices and stories than any other network is what ABC is promising for 2020, with the public broadcaster announcing local dramas, current affairs and factual programming on its slate for the next 12 months.
A docuseries with Bruce Pascoe, the writer of the award-winning novel Dark Emu, a new Shaun Micallef project, a documentary series on child abuse in the Catholic church, and returning favourites including Hard Quiz, Mad As Hell and You Can’t Ask That are all on the lineup for 2020, with director of entertainment and specialist Michael Carrington promising the broadcaster would be bold with its choices.
There’s more Australian content coming from the ABC in 2020
“Australian content helps define who we are as a nation and the ABC is the engine room of Australian creativity, putting more Australian faces, voices and stories on screen than any other broadcaster,” Carrington told the room at the ABC Celebrate event in Sydney.
Claiming that the ABC brings “more local titles to audiences than Seven, Nine, Ten and SBS combined”, Carrington name-checked the broadcaster’s Federal election coverage and Old People’s Home For Four Year Olds as programming highlights in 2019.
“The ABC is the creative voice of Australia.
“In 2020 we’ll be bold in our content and creativity, not shirk from controversy or critics, not shy away from taking risks as we entertain, educate, inform and inspire,” Carrington concluded.
Dark Emu, a two-part docuseries made with Pascoe, Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra and Adam Goodes documentary The Australian Dream are set to hit screens in 2020, alongside returning series Gardening Australia, Catalyst, Compass, Back Roads and Landline.
Hamish Macdonald was named as the new host for Q&A, replacing Tony Jones who will be leaving for China. Sarah Ferguson, who will also be heading to China to become the ABC bureau chief in the country, spoke at the event about her upcoming series Revelation, which takes cameras inside the trial of Catholic priests for the first time, and will see Ferguson interview convicted paedophile priests.
Ferguson promised a “big, red, sharp sting in the tail” for the conclusion of the series, but was unable to provide more detail.
Craig Reucassel, whose series War On Waste now claims 61.8m coffee cups were saved from landfills and 20% of Australians have become mobilised to make significant improvements to their household waste habits, returns with Fight for Planet A: The Climate Challenge and Big Weather.
Reucassel’s impact on Australia is hard to measure, although fellow ABC personality Annabel Crabb teased it was now impossible to walk into the ABC without a keep cup. Suggesting that anything announced at an upfronts event will need to come true, Reucassel jokingly announced himself as the new host of Insiders and the new Bluey for 2020. Bluey will return next year, although without Reucassel, as will Insiders.
“In a world overrun by global media giants, Australian stories have never been more important. Equally, the ABC has never been more essential to the Australian people,” said Carrington. Joining those Australian stories in 2020 is Shaun Micallef’s On the Sauce – a look at Australia’s drinking culture – and two more series of Mad of Hell, which Micallef promises neither he, nor audiences, are bored of yet.
New dramas Stateless and Fallout will join Mystery Road, Harrow and The Heights, and You Can’t Ask That and Further Back in Time for Dinner will return also. They’re joined by Gruen, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, Anh’s Brush with Fame and Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery.
Hard Quiz, Rosehaven and Black Comedy are all back, and will be joined by Reputation Rehab with The Checkout’s Kristen Drysdale and Zoe Norton Lodge.
ABC Radio will be announcing its program and presenter line-ups for 2020 in early December, but Sydney breakfast hosts Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck confirmed at the event that “nobody had told them they wouldn’t be returning”.
topics
ABC
ABC Radio
Adam Goodes
Craig Reucassel
Dark Emu
Hamish Macdonald
Hard Quiz
Michael Carrington
Q&A
Sarah Ferguson
Shaun Micallef
Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell
television
The Australian Dream
Tom Gleeson
Tony Jones
TV
upfronts
You Can't Ask That
A new Shaun Micallef project, and they announce and promise “the broadcaster would be bold with its choices”. How many times do we have to see Micallef, in a ‘brand-new project’. The definition of bold is showing a willingness to take risks; confident and courageous. Having the same person in a ‘brand’ new project is not taking risks.
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“Nation-defining”. Isn’t that code for Socialism? Or some -ism, whatever. That’s backed up by “Annabel Crabb teased it was now impossible to walk into the ABC without a keep cup”. If that’s not Right-Think, then I don’t know what is. If I’m not allowed to walk into a building without my wokeness on display in the form of a plastic sippy cup, then just call me Alan Jones.
And ‘Ferguson promised a “big, red, sharp sting in the tail”’ – Red like the USSR flag I presume? Or that Dolph Lundgren movie “Red Scorpion”? I could go on but I’m too triggered. The whole article is riddled with SEO terms for Q&A panellists.
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Ok Boomer!
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ABC = Australian Broadcasting Communism
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Ok Boomer
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Bit rich to make the nation defining claim, who at the ABC feels entitled to define our nation – by all means pose a question & discuss it, just dont dress up opinion as fact.
ABC opinion on many matters have not always stood up to scrutiny.
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Okay boomer
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Cringe
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Editors – does this comment adhere to your usage guidelines?
The intent seems to be to say ‘I’m dismissing your comment because you are too old’. If that was said about pretty much any other sector of our society, it would be deemed inappropriate.
For example – I’m dismissing your comment because you’re a woman / because you are gay / because you have curly hair / and so on.
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Now you and the other two below who said the same thing are the originality of the Oz advertising industry writ large. I look forward to a raft of TV campaigns using this very catchprase in about say 9 months’ time.
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There have been compelling questions raised about Pascoe’s indigenous heritage by the Daily Telegraph, and Pascoe has thus far refused to respond. I get the ideological leanings of that paper, but a genealogist traced his roots and if that research is accurate it does seem to cast serious doubt on Pascoe’s claim to have had a single great-grandmother being indigenous (which is a pretty weak link to claim indigenous heritage as-is, having one in eight of your great grandparents being indigenous.) If this becomes a wider news story, will that affect ABC’s decision on the documentary? There have also been serious and compelling claims made against Pascoe’s assertions in the book (there’s even a website “Dark Emu Exposed”) that seems set up to debunk many of his claims, but the bigger question is what if he in fact has no actual indigenous heritage at all? What would ABC’s response be – to still proceed and credit him as an indigenous author even if “technically” he isn’t?
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““Nation-defining”. Isn’t that code for Socialism? Or some -ism, whatever.”
Trumpism ?
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