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How Nine helped rival Olivia project

After casting overlooked their contract, Nine gave Delta Goodrem the green light to star in Seven drama.


When TV Tonight revealed Delta Goodrem had been locked in to play Olivia Newton-John in Seven’s upcoming bio-drama it raised eyebrows at Nine.

That was because Nine had a contract with her for The Voice and House Husbands that precluded her from working for another network.

With production getting underway in early December things could have been very dicey if Nine had opted to play hardball.

In TV networks often do play hardball where there are contractual obligations. But it’s also in Nine’s interests to keep such a profile star on side.

Nine’s Director of TV Michael Healy was instrumental in accommodating Goodrem’s ambitions for a profile role. It was a marked contrast to the Mel B case when Seven went to court to stop the UK singer joining Australia’s Got Talent.

A Nine spokesperson indicated that the network was relaxed that everything had now been sorted.

“We are proud of our long running relationship with Delta and look forward to her being back on Series 6 of The Voice and her new role with House Husbands. She is a true superstar and we enjoy a great relationship with her,” they said.

But there will be some caveats to the arrangements, with Seven unable to promote the project until her contract with Nine is up (House Husbands has already completed filming). A small price to pay for a crisis averted.

The Olivia project takes a break over Christmas before resuming under director Shawn Seet and is set to air on Seven next year.

FremantleMedia declined to comment.

13 Responses

  1. I’m assuming it’s because of the far more vast market, but the US talk shows such as Ellen, Letterman etc never had any issues featuring guests promoting their work on other networks.
    Any idea why?

    1. As a comment below notes she appeared on The Project without issue. But that’s very different to starring in a drama. If an NBC star suddenly signed to appear in a CBS series it might be a little different! That said Australia does have some unique traits due to our small competitive market. Hope that helps!

      1. It’s not that uncommon though for US stars to jump from one network to the next. Certainly in the UK now the number of stars exclusively signed to one channel has dropped significantly with many working across the BBC, ITV, C4 and Sky. Indeed on Christmas Eve David Walliams has shows on both BBC1 and ITV just a couple of hours apart, and not completely unheard of for stars to be on two channels at the same time.

  2. Delta’s an Australian singer so I’d think Nine would have to be careful with their contract with her anyway as surely she’s allowed to promote her music on other channels? She promoted The River on The Project so that was her appearing on a rival network. I presumed there would be a contract for her & Nine but I’d like to think they give her some leeway. Obviously this is completely different to her promoting her music but for Nine to block this it would still be wrong. She’s not being Delta, she’s being ONJ. It doesn’t take away from House Husbands or stop her from doing that. Nine would have just been being bitchy & risk losing Delta completely had they said anything other than yes. Now if Delta wanted to appear on X Factor then I’d see a reason for Nine to have an issue, but I do feel she should be allowed to promote her music but doubt either channel would necessarily want…

    1. It’s irrelevant she is playing ONJ, what matters is a contract entitles production exclusivity -that’s why you have a contract. Nine would have been in their rights to hold her to it and delay the entire FMA production, but they were very reasonable in giving her freedom. Doesn’t always happen in TV.

      1. Ah ok. But it still seems to me that they’d have to have already been giving her some freedom as she’s been allowed to promote her work on other channels. While they had every right to block it because of her contract that would have been a foolish thing for them to do so personally I don’t think they had any other option other than be nice or risk losing her completely

        I completely agree with you about ‘they were very reasonable in giving her freedom. Doesn’t always happen in TV.’ I just don’t think they’d want to risk fighting with her but I live in a crazy world where I think that people should be nice 😛

  3. So does that mean Delta won’t be returning on season 7 of The Voice if there is one? Since seven can promote Olivia once her contract is up with nine assuming they won’t be able to screen Olivia until end of next year after the voice

  4. Glad we wont be seeing any ads for Olivia anytime soon. The amounts of ads Seven have been airing for Hoges and MKR for the last month or two have turned me off watching these shows!

    1. I must agree. And judging by those often-repeated promos, the actor cast as Hoges seriously lacks the screen presence and spark that the genuine article had in buckets.

  5. i feel Delta is too famous in her own right to be to play ONJ. Samantha Jade would be a better pick, although she also played Kylie Minogue in the INXS series.

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