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SBS care over Indian story on Swift & Shift Couriers
The second season of SBS cult comedy Swift and Shift Couriers has been held back from a planned April launch over concerns its storyline which sees the company competing with an Indian courier company needs careful attention.
The knockabout comedy from writer performer Paul Fenech famously had an episode from its first season dumped by the network after a complaint by the family of Australian soldier Jake Kovco.
When the series began shooting last year it could never have known that its seemingly-inoffensive storyline might air at a time when Indian-Australian relations are …
2008-09 Production Report
Screen Australia has released the findings of its annual Production Report on the state of film and television.
Never wanting to paint a bleak picture, it manages to find optimism with a healthy state of production, if boosted by the big investment of George Miller’s Happy Feet 2 and the $100m Hollywood animation Guardians of Ga’Hoole in Sydney.
TV Tonight has taken a look at the television sector separately, and the results are still very good. While series / serials were down, mini-series (which also includes telemovies) were up.
The …
Top Gear loss “not the be-all and end-all”
TV Tonight continues its interviews with key executives in television. Following on from last week’s interviews with Seven, ABC, TEN and Nine, today the spotlight turns to SBS Director of Content Matt Campbell.
The last two weeks have not been without their challenges for Campbell, who learned the fate of Top Gear, a programme he had taken a punt on many years ago when no other network would touch it.
Having spent a lot of time trying to convince the BBC it should be staying at its natural home, he admits the loss …
Underbelly ends with 2.07m
The finale episode of Underbelly pulled a bigger audience than the Logie Awards.
2.07m watched the series final, beating the 1.7m who watched the Red Carpet Arrivals the night before.
While it didn’t match the 2.58m who tuned in to the series premiere, it did pick up from the last two weeks when it tracked under the 1.85m mark. The figure is yet to be adjusted for its late start time of 8:39pm following a cheeky unscheduled “sneak peek” for homeMADE.
Underbelly finished nearly a million viewers ahead of its nearest rival, Desperate Housewives …
Ripped from the headlines
Last week Hunter Valley winemaker Trevor Drayton and William Rikard-Bell had no idea a chapter in their lives was about to be reflected in an episode of All Saints.
Over twelve months ago Drayton and Rikard-Bell were left fighting for their lives following an explosion at Drayton’s Family Wines at Pokolbin.
“I certainly don’t intend on seeing it tomorrow on telly,” Mr Rikard-Bell said last week.
It’s commonly known in the industry as ‘ripped from the headlines’. Real-life stories in the newspapers become the inspiration for television screenplays. But what about those whose lives …
Swift & Shift to deliver more on SBS
SBS has confirmed a second series of Swift and Shift Couriers to air later in 2009.
Written, produced and directed by Paul Fenech (Pizza), the comedy will feature the return of favourite characters from the first series, which included Amanda Keller, Melissa Tkautz, Ian Turpie, Brendan Jones, Kirsty Lee Allan and Angry Anderson.
Fenech’s knockabout humour certainly has its fans, although last season the network agreed it had gone one gag too far after complaints from the family of deceased soldier Jake Kovco, and dropped an episode.
For the second season, currently in pre …
SBS drops controversial comedy at request of Kovco family
EXCLUSIVE: SBS has dropped an episode of its Swift and Shift Couriers comedy after the family of Jake Kovco expressed concerns over a storyline which sees its characters delivering the ashes of a deceased Australian soldier.
In the first of its two-part storyline which aired on Monday night, “Soldier David Cobbgrove’ died during a booby-trapped accident in Iraq, but the military bungles the transportation of his remains, sent to Cairo. After the ‘family’ of the soldier bans the military from further involvement, the hapless courier company comes to the rescue in order …
You better smile. It’s Nine.
It was the week that the industry took action on piracy against an ISP, news crews were assaulted by angry locals, a regional broadcaster axed its entire news department, a court ruled regional licenses must be sold, a reality host pleaded guilty to welfare fraud, another reality show mucked up correct voting information, Screen Australia’s new CEO signalled a smoother ride for film over television, a daytime soap would be destined for primetime, the axe fell on more US shows and an old sitcom face left for the bus depot in …
Gallery: Swift & Shift Couriers
Swift and Shift Couriers has two upcoming, and potentially controversial, episodes which will see it using overseas locations as a backdrop to its plot.
On Monday December 1st Mario and Melissa head on an overseas assignment which sees them stop off in Thailand and Egypt….
Are we there yet?
It was the week that everybody said they had new toys to unwrap, TEN declared the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Aussie producers gathered on the Gold Coast for their annual gab-fest just as Nine decided not to revisit the only drama set there, TiVo dumped one of its key partners, the last original member of Hi-5 chose to retire, the axe fell on several shows in the US, network programmers tried to defend late amendments, Seven apologised for comments made by one of its stars, Nine was revealed as wanting “no …
Auditions: Bogans wanted
A classified ad declaring “Bogans Wanted For New TV Show” is part of a search for Australia’s biggest bogan by Paul Fenech.
Fenech, who is behind Pizza and Swift and Shift Couriers on SBS, is seeking applicants with “tattoos, missing teeth and true blue in King Gees” to win big cash prizes.
“I want to put flannelette on plasma. We want mullets, tattoos, AVOs and defactos. It will be like Bogan Idol,”he told news.com.au.
He said his new show for early next year would be something like a cross between “Cops, Dog The …
TV Forums report card
Since the advent of online, television fans have had ways of letting networks know what they think. No more writing letters to newspapers, it’s as easy as logging onto a network website anonymously and speaking your mind.
TV Tonight has been looking at how our networks embrace free and open discussion. Here’s how they stacked up.
ABC:
Within the ABC site there are individual show pages, many of which have open forums. Shows including Enough Rope, Compass, Can We Help?, At The Movies, Life at 3, Good Game, Media Watch, Spicks and Specks and …