Question Everything definitely cancelled: ABC
Question Everything, starring Wil Anderson and Jan Fran, won’t be back for a fifth season, the ABC has confirmed to Mumbrella.
The quiz-panel show launched in 2021. It was created by Anderson and produced by long-running Gruen producers, CJZ.
Nick Murray, the EP of Question Everything from CJZ, told Mumbrella it was disappointing to be taken off air, and noted the importance of the ABC’s support as the local production industry grapples with fewer opportunities.
“The ABC has been wonderful in supporting locally developed and produced programs like Gruen and Question Everything,” he said. “Australian shows and ideas are an endangered species now, so we appreciate the support of the ABC for original Australian programs.”
The ABC declined to comment beyond confirming the show is not being renewed for another season.
Murray said the team is proud of the show, particularly its platforming of emerging talent.
“We did an enormous amount of work training both on-air talent and new writers through our various training initiatives. We put 43 new performers and 27 new writers through the training and intern schemes on Question Everything. It’s great to see them popping up on other shows now. There aren’t many opportunities anymore for writers and performers to cut their teeth on entertainment programs, so I hope that will be an enduring legacy of Question Everything whether or not it returns,” he told Mumbrella from a TV conference in Edinburgh.
Anderson and Fran could not be reached for comment, however Murray said of the duo: “Wil and Jan were terrific to work with, and the team loved doing a topical news-based show. We had a lot of fun.”
On the show, Fran and Anderson were joined by a rotating panel of guests each week. The guests were tasked with taking “a look at the week in fake news, false claims, scams, frauds and lies, dissecting the news, and sorting out the fact from the fiction”. The most recent season ran from October to December last year.
At launch, then ABC head of entertainment Nick Hayden said of the show: “I don’t usually trust press releases. They’re spin from the media elites trying to sell you something, wake up sheeple. But Question Everything truly will replace all the fake news in the world with facts. I read that on Facebook.”
Hayden has since gone on to work as a senior advisor on strategic communications and media in the Treasurer’s Office, and now heads up media and communications for Climate 200.
Fran, at the time, said: “I cannot wait to get started. Question Everything is our chance to take a microscope to all the misinformation that we are bombarded with every day to see where it starts and how it spreads.
“At least, that’s a rumour someone sent to me on WhatsApp.”
Anderson continues to tour the country with stand-up comedy and hosts various Listnr podcasts including Wilosophy, 2 Guys 1 Cup, and TOFOP. He also hosts and executive produces Gruen, which has been on the air in various iterations (including Gruen Sweat, Gruen Planet and Gruen Nation) since 2008.
Fran, meanwhile, recently launched Ette Media with Antoinette Lattouf.
Antoinette Lattouf and Jan Fran launched Ette Media in June
Lattouf was sacked by the ABC in 2023 while filling in as a mornings radio host on ABC Sydney. She took the national broadcaster to court alleging that ABC executives were motivated to get rid of her in response to her political opinions about the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The court found the ABC breached the Enterprise Agreement and the Fair Work Act, and that the sacking was unlawful.
Ette Media aims to offer “media literacy and critique that helps you get to the real story”. An Ette Media spokesperson told Mumbrella it is an “independent Australian media company built for a new era with the mission to spot spin, unpack headlines and pull apart the news to expose all the tricks the decision makers use to keep you distracted, diverted and politely misled”.
Lattouf told Mumbrella: “There’s clearly an appetite among audiences for a breakdown of broken news, in a way that is honest, accessible and somehow still funny despite how depressing the status quo can be.”
As part of this, Lattouf and Fran host the We Used To Be Journos podcast. Ette Media said the podcast “combs through the sketchy editorial decisions, suspect sources, and thinly veiled bigotry to unveil how the media sausage is made”.
On the podcast, both Lattouf and Fran have been critical of the media’s positioning of various geopolitical conflicts in recent months. They have separately spoken out about how segments of the media, including the ABC, frame the actions of Israel, and the way headlines, language and spokespeople are chosen and given prominence.
Mumbrella understands Murray was informed the program was not being renewed early this year.
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