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Queensland one day, Victoria the next.

The Bligh Government denies it's had formal discussions to woo the Logies northward. Who's telling porky pies?

Despite yesterday’s news that the Logie Awards are being lured by the Queensland government, a statement from Premier Bligh’s office has denied there is any bid.

So who’s telling porky pies now?

The Australian reported that the Nine Network’s owner, PBL Media, had confirmed it had received approaches from the Queensland government to relocate the Logies to the Gold Coast. PBL Media chief executive, Ian Law said it was “a possibility” and there had been “some incentive” offered to relocate the event.

But a Bligh statement later yesterday said “The Queensland government has had no formal discussions regarding any relocation of the Logies event.”

But the story first emanated just before Christmas when A PBL source told The Daily Telegraph: “It was informally put to Nine to move next year’s awards up to the Gold Coast and it was considered to be a good, fresh idea….The idea was informally put to Nine executives in a recent meeting with Queensland Government officers, who offered to offset costs of a relocation.”

Yesterday Nine confirmed the 2009 event will be at Crown Casino.

The Queensland industry lost two significant television productions last year in Big Brother and The Strip, when it wasn’t renewed. That hits the workforce hard (especially Big Brother). The Screen Producer’s Assosication conference will relocate to Sydney for 2009 -2011.

In The 2007-2008 Screen Australia Production Report it as calculated that $131m was spent on production in Queensland compared to $250m in Victoria and $239m in New South Wales. No wonder somebody was having talks, informal or otherwise, to put Queensland back on the production map. Sea Patrol is now its number one network production, but that’s not enough to plug the drain.

Maybe Queensland could kill two birds with one stone here.

Just put the Logies on the Dreamworld eviction stage, get Gretel Killeen to host and we can vote out the worst celebrities one by one.

That’d rate through the roof.

Source: AAP / The West

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