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Google: Don’t blame us for Logies leak

Leaks Start Here. Herald Sun denies publishing Hamish Blake's name as Gold Logie winner, but Google insists it wasn't them either.

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It just wouldn’t be the Logies without a scandal of some sort.

This year that fell to the Herald Sun, but Google has denied any wrong-doing on its part.

Not long after 10pm it became clear that Hamish Blake’s Gold Logie win was in the public domain, well before it was announced in Crown Palladium after 11pm.

Guests confirmed to TV Tonight that talk of Blake’s win had been circulating in the room, but Blake has said today he hadn’t heard the whispers.

“Ultimately all that information was kept from me so it was a genuine surprise,” he said.

Nine reporter Ben Fordham last night tweeted: “I’m hearing some websites have already published the winner of Gold Logie. We’re in the room and don’t know yet. Poor form.”

Whilst Herald Sun journalists may not have been directly responsible, TV Week publishers evicted them from the Media Room over the breach.

News of Blake’s win also began circulating via Twitter, well ahead of his on-air win at 12:12am.

The Herald Sun issued a statement saying the error occurred during live testing of its new iPad app but that Blake’s name hasn’t been published on its website, iPad app or in Twitter.

“However, during the live testing, a link to an embargoed story naming the winner was momentarily created and published by Google,” the Herald Sun said.

“The link was discovered almost as soon as it had been created and immediately killed.”

However Mumbrella has posted screenshots of Herald Sun content with the headline “Hamish springs golden surprise.”

The newspaper even pointed the finger at NineMSN for naming Blake, which it did in reporting the Herald Sun error.

Today Google hit back at any blame directed from the newspaper.

“While we strive to provide the freshest, most relevant search results on the Logies and more, Google can only index material already published on the web,” it said.

“Google gives webmasters full control over the pages that appear in search.”

NineMSN also called the Herald Sun’s comments “ludicrous”. A spokesperson said: “We reported on  the fact that News Limited had published it.”

With the awards running overtime, even the official release from Logies organisers announced Blake as winner at 11:59pm, before it had aired on Nine, without any embargo.

The leak highlights the risks of airing the ceremony delayed -further compounded by issuing the results under embargo to select newspapers. Why do both?

With the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys (to name a few) airing Live in Australia, surely it’s time for Logies to step up and air Live.

Source: The Age, Mumbrella

13 Responses

  1. i agree with everyone else it should be live. but I’m not really surprised…. no awards shows are live in australia.
    go to the arias pretty much every year and half way through the ceremony we get served dinner… that part is cut from the telecast!!.. i dare say thats what happens at the logies too.

  2. People were also commenting about how well produced and how smoothly this years awards were. Well if you have an hour to fix everything up in post production it will look that way.

    Without a host, I half expected it to be the disaster that were the Arias on the Opera House steps a few years back.

  3. While Nine and TV Week ru(i)n these awards it is never going to be live let alone on time. I don’t expect things to change in the future either. Why is it that Nine can’t show a LIVE telecast? I mean every other major awards ceremony around the world is always shown Live and yet here biggest nights here including the AACTA’s and Logies can’t be shown live. It just shows how backward this country is, or more to the point the Nine network is.

    Until another network and an independent company is running these awards nothing will change. Voting will continue to be rigged and things won’t change.

  4. The last line of the article is so true. If they put the effort out to screen those overseas events live here, then it’s pathetic the same is not done for the Logies.

    And it was one thing when I was thinking that it was just a the viewers that had the winner spoiled, but to hear it was leaked before it was presented at the actual ceremony with the celebrities finding out early too… holy cow.

    Step up your game people. I think they need to seriously fix how they manage this event.

  5. It was bad that the winner was spoilt for viewers who were watching on delay but worse that people at the awards knew way before it was actually presented, especially the gold logie nominees and pretend like they didn’t know.

  6. The problem I have is ‘who on earth would vote for Hamish Blake to win a Gold Logie?”

    Did he seriously deserve this title – I don’t think so.

    And as for the delayed telecast, forget it. The internet, no matter the source, tells me who wins long before the ‘delayed’ broadcast – and I like it that way as I don’t have to sit through the rubbish. If I like the end result I will continue to watch, but as JayElle said, if I don’t then I will switch off.

  10. I remember Andrew G spoiled the winner a year or so back – he tweeted saying the gold had just been announced and although he didn’t name the winner, he included a picture of the Packed To The Rafters table celebrating Rebecca Gibney’s win.

  11. Yep I agree about the delayed broadcast. To not screen the logies live is like watching sport on delay. It’s pointless in today’s day and age.

  12. I’m actually glad of the leak. As soon as I read who won I went to bed. Couldn’t bare watching Hamish Blake win the gold. Seems like the show went way overtime too.

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