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Gruen set to return to ABC on August 3

One of the ABC’s best performing series Gruen is set to return to the airwaves on August 3 at 8.30pm, the ABC has confirmed.

GruenThe show’s 12th season will again star host Wil Anderson along with Network Ten executive Russel Howcroft and advertising executive Todd Sampson as regular panelists, looking at the ads and communications as the Olympics and US election campaigns heat up.

Regular segments including The Pitch, where Australian creative agencies battle it out over difficult briefs, will return.

In May the show won Most Outstanding Entertainment Program at the Logie Awards.

“Nine years after thinking ‘we really hope this oddball panel show survives its first week’, Gruen returns as one of the ABC’s best and most beloved programs. It’s a delight to welcome the team back. May they continue to call bullshit on the cynical messaging that surrounds us,” said ABC’s head of entertainment Jon Casimir.

Host Wil Anderson said: “Yes we missed the election, but knowing Australia we will have another one by the end of the series.”

While the show has had many incarnations since it debuted in 2008 – The Gruen Transfer, Gruen Planet, Gruen Nation, and Gruen Sweat – the show settled on the simple title Gruen for the last series which kicked off a year ago. It is produced by CJZ.

The last series rated well in its last series, regularly winning its timeslot.

On the eve of its 2015 return Anderson told Mumbrella: “It’s been the laziest eight year show ever. We’ve been going for eight years and haven’t even reached 100 shows.

“I think the one thing about this show that’s always worked well is that none of us ever thinks about any of those things. When it was conceived we thought it was something that would be lucky to do eight episodes, never mind it being this successful. It’s a passion project for everyone involved in it.”

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