Music’s not so trivial pursuit

Humble panel shows are not entirely the domain of the ABC, as SBS kicks off the sixth series of RocKwiz tomorrow night.

Host Julia Zemiro spoke to TV Tonight about the success of SBS’ home-grown panel show, now a TV survivor in an always-expanding genre.

“Australians haven’t reinvented the wheel,” she said. “The ‘panel’ show’s been going for ages in England, with Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and That Was The Week That Was, Have I Got News For You? It’s not hard to copy but then you have to kind of make it your own.”

This year SBS is extending the show to 24 episodes across the series.

“They’ve been very good in pretty much giving us a green light every year. I think the only thing that’s changed is how many episodes they’ve been each series.

“At first we did 12, then we did 10, then we did 19. It’s been a real mixture, we don’t really care as long as we can keep making them.”

Part of the charm of RocKwiz, aside from Zemiro herself, is the show doesn’t overshoot its ambitions. Its mix of music questions, fun and teamwork is integral to show’s success as the television equivalent of a pub trivia night.

Zemiro was coy on the roll call for this series, but she did admit, “it’s the usual mix of young mix of young and old, girl and boy.”

The first episode features husband and wife team Shane Nicholson and Kasey Chambers.

“We also really look hard to put somebody new on the scene. And I tell you what, as soon as we put somebody on that nobody’s ever heard of, they’re the next big thing within the next 2 months. So any young, newbies that are out at the moment, they’ll be on the show. I’ll say that much.”

Not much has changed across the life of the series, except for the length of the episodes recorded at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel.

“The first few series we had 25 minute episodes, then we went to 45 minute episodes and now we’re back to 35 minute episodes and everyone’s very happy with this new 35 minute format. It was too short to start with and then it was a bit too long and now we think we’ve got it just right.”

RocKwiz airs 9:20pm Saturday on SBS.