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TV Tonight Awards: Best of 2015

Readers agree 2015 was good for ABC, Wentworth, Utopia, Netflix, Gogglebox, Waleed Aly & Carrie Bickmore.

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ABC has won the reader-voted Best Free to Air Channel for the third year running in the TV Tonight Awards 2015.

ABC Head of Programming Brendan Dahill said, “This news comes to me as I am watching Ricky Gervais and the Golden Globes and we all now know what he does with his awards!

“Seriously though, the ABC is all about taking risks and in 2015 we experimented on many levels. It is always humbling when our efforts are recognised and appreciated.”

ABC titles scoring wins included Utopia, 7:30, Q&A, The Killing Season and Play School.

But there were also wins by several TEN shows including Have You Been Paying Attention?, MasterChef Australia, Studio 10 and The Living Room.

Tom Gleisner from Working Dog productions said, “On behalf of the entire Working Dog gang I’d like to say thanks to all those who voted for both Utopia and HYBPA? Obviously our third offering, Cabinet Ministers Make You Laugh Out Loud, failed to resonate in quite the same way but I guess you can’t win them all.”

Foxtel drama Wentworth took out the Best Australian Drama while joint TEN-Foxtel series Gogglebox was voted Best New Series (Australia).

The Project -8

It was a good year for The Project with Waleed Aly toppling Shaun Micallef’s long run as Favourite Male, while Carrie Bickmore won Favourite Female. New names in these categories -Sam Pang, Celia Pacquola and Pamela Rabe- may well hint at possible Logie nominations soon.

2015 was also a year for Netflix. It won the inaugural Best Streaming Service while its arrival easily topped the The Story of the Year -both were the biggest margins of any category.

There were 501 surveys completed this year.

Here are the first results with * denoting a runaway winner.

BEST AUSTRALIAN DRAMA
Wentworth*
800 Words
The Beautiful Lie
Glitch
(2014: Offspring)

BEST AUSTRALIAN COMEDY
Utopia 
Please Like Me
Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell
The Ex PM
(2014: Please Like Me)

BEST INTERNATIONAL DRAMA
Game of Thrones*
Fargo
The Walking Dead
The Good Wife
(2014: The Good Wife)

BEST INTERNATIONAL COMEDY
The Big Bang Theory 
Modern Family
Veep
Brooklyn Nine Nine
(2014: Modern Family)

BEST LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
Have You Been Paying Attention?*
The Project
Gruen
The Chase Australia
(2014: The Project)

BEST MORNING SHOW
Studio 10 
Sunrise
Today
ABC News Breakfast
(2014: Sunrise)

BEST AUSTRALIAN REALITY SHOW
Masterchef Australia
I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
My Kitchen Rules
The X Factor
(2014: Masterchef Australia)

BEST INTERNATIONAL REALITY SHOW
Survivor*
The Amazing Race
The Great British Bake-Off
Britain’s Got Talent
(2014: Survivor)

BEST LIFESTYLE SHOW
The Living Room* 
Better Homes and Gardens
Selling Houses Australia
Grand Designs Australia
(2014: The Living Room)

BEST FACTUAL / DOCO / OBSERVATIONAL SHOW
The Killing Season 
Gogglebox
Struggle Street
Hitting Home
(2014: First Contact)

BEST NEWS / CURRENT  / PUBLIC AFFAIRS SHOW
7:30 
The Project
Four Corners
ABC News
(2014: Four Corners)

BEST TALK SHOW
Q&A 
The Project
Insight
Insiders
(2014: Q&A)

BEST KIDS SHOW
Play School 
Nowhere Boys
Little Lunch
Ready For This
(2014: Nowhere Boys)

BEST SPORTS SHOW / COVERAGE
AFL Grand Final 
Australian Open
Offsiders
AFL Footy Show
(2014: AFL Grand Final)

BEST NEW AUSTRALIAN SHOW
Gogglebox 
800 Words
I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!
Glitch
(2014: The Code)

BEST NEW INTERNATIONAL SHOW
Quantico 
Blindspot
How to Get Away With Murder
UnREAL
(2014: Fargo)

FAVOURITE MALE
Waleed Aly
Shaun Micallef
Sam Pang
Wil Anderson
(2014: Shaun Micallef)

FAVOURITE FEMALE
Carrie Bickmore
Julia Morris
Celia Pacquola
Pamela Rabe
(2014: Asher Keddie)

MOST UNDERRATED PERFORMER
Waleed Aly
Sam Pang
Celia Pacquola
Jackie Woodburne
(2014: Kat Stewart)

THE STORY OF THE YEAR
Netflix arrives in Australia*
YouTube cat videos become primetime entertainment
Australia competes at Eurovision
Q&A: Tony Abbott’s ban after Zaky Mallah controversy

BEST SUBSCRIPTION CHANNEL
FOX8
Showcase
SoHo
FOX Sports
(2014: Showcase)

BEST STREAMING SERVICE
Netflix*
Stan
Presto
iview

BEST MULTICHANNEL
ELEVEN*
GO!
ABC2
7mate
(2014: ELEVEN)

BEST FREE TO AIR CHANNEL
ABC
TEN
Seven
Nine
(2014: ABC)

TOMORROW: Worst of 2015

22 Responses

  1. For me 800 words was the best Aussie show, even tho it was filmed in New Zealand. But sadly not much else to pick from. Unless u count reality.
    I’m glad GoT won even tho s5 was weaker then last seasons. Leftovers also was amazing
    And Big Bang is funny but last man standing, Brooklyn nine nine and galavent was much better.
    Gogglebox for me is over rated and just a copy of a YouTube series “react” which does it a lot better and streamlined without fluff
    Best new us show for me would be limitless. Best new us show of 2015 would be 12 monkeys or humans.
    abc is the worse main channel and I watch it the least. For me all FTA channels are about the same with channel ten i slightly watch the most

  2. Hmm, looking at best kids show, is it not considered problematic that pre-school, primary and young teen shows are all lumped together?

    Pre-school is really only for pre-school kids, under 5.
    Nowhere Boys seems to be for more the 8 – 12 market.
    Little Lunch was more like 6 – 10
    Ready For This seemed to be 9 – 13.

    I guess “kids” is just too vague considering the different demographics within kids, after all what good for a 4 year old is not good for a 7 year old which is not good for a 10 year old.

    1. Now three seasons on so it has build up an audience who seek it out including on DVD and streaming. Its fan base works social media hard. But are we also suggesting only 30% of drama fans access Game of Thrones? Methinks not.

  3. I would disagree with abc being best channel last year. You normally think Aunty is quite reliable, but the amount of times I recorded Please Like Me and the start or the end was cut off, plus I couldn’t get missed episodes on Iview, so I eventually gave up watching it. They also didn’t have weekley repeat episodes which sbs does with their dramas. So I didn’t vote for them this year and sbs got my vote.

  4. Great wins for Wentworth and Gogglebox. Two of my favourite shows from last year. I think the results from these awards have way more credibility than the Logies. Voted for by people who read this website with no other agenda than that they love watching television as opposed to rigging by network publicists

  5. I’m surprised by Utopia’s popularity. Every episode of both season simply flogged the same joke over and over again. I found it tedious and unimaginative.

    Waleed Aly as Most Underrated is also bemusing, he was a Walkley Award finalist. That’s a pretty big rating.

    1. Agree about Utopia and have said the same before, altho’ not as often as they ran the joke about Tony being unable to use some newly-introduced technology, which was every episode.

      Also share your bemusement regarding Aly taking out Most Underrated whilst also being voted the Most Popular Male. I believe that’s known as doing a Micallef.

  6. Terrific news for HYBPA? and Gogglebox. HYBPA? really proves that if you give a show a chance it can really pay off. Also great news for Waleed and Carrie but unfortunately The Project itself missed out on all relevant categories. At least it is still a ratings success for TEN.

  7. Good news for Gogglebox. I am surprised Quantico won best international drama though, I like it but it’s not that good. I would have voted for The Flash or Mr Robot

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