Channel Nine – St. Eutychus

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke

One of my old QUT lecturers reckons the Gordon Ramsay v Tracy Grimshaw feud is either a set up or being exploited by Channel Nine. I’m not so sure – but it could just be a smoke and mirrors ratings grab… he makes an interesting case.

Dr Jason Sternberg, a media lecturer at QUT, said with A Current Affair and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares both being Channel Nine programs, it was possible the whole controversy had been set up in advance.

“A cynic would suggest it was contrived, that there are some pretty clever PR people out there,” Dr Sternberg said.

“And you’re dealing with A Current Affair, so it’s safe to be cynical. They are the masters of underhanded and dirty tactics.

“I would not be surprised (if it was), but there’s no evidence to suggest that.”

June 10, 2009

Stable mates

Gordon Ramsay made a bit of a splash by insulting his Channel Nine compatriot Tracy Grimshaw. This can go one of two ways – the “all publicity is good publicity” way will keep him in the public eye and generate some buzz for his new restaurant – he can appear to be bravely raging against the network machine, or, he gets hammered by the press, loses his slots on Channel Nine, his restaurant fails and his star fades. So far it’s looking like heading down the latter path.

It was either a gross tactical error or the start of a Symondesque piece of career sabotage.

What he said wasn’t nice. It was a purile bid for some “sensational” media coverage. He’s gone the way of the Chaser, and thus been “unfanned” on my Facebook profile.

Picking on your colleagues at a television network is an odd move. But, and I’m not in anyway condoning the treatment Grimshaw received, she’d be hypocritical to make that point after her editorialising the Matthew Johns saga the way she did. There are no doubt some Matthew Johns fans feeling pretty smug today.

I saw Ramsay on the Today Show on Friday morning and he was pretty rude there too, perhaps he’s sick of the constant cross promotion he’s been forced to do on his tour.

June 9, 2009

Wipeout – it’s no knockout

Novelty Australian game shows probably hit their peak with It’s a Knockout.

If not then maybe the original Australian Gladiators.

They hit new, unimaginable, lows with the Australian version of Wipeout. Watching stupid Americans hurt themselves was pretty compelling. Watching Australian trailer trash stand up and say “I’m representing all the female bus drivers in Australia while carrying my son’s first tooth” is less compelling.

Also painful was seeing the personal trainer who was “the fat kid at school” yell some stupid catch phrase, and the horribly unattractive 38 year old single IT consultant in rainbow socks pitch herself to prospective suitors was just nasty. Ouch. Watching her crawl through mud saying “this isn’t what I had planned. This isn’t how it was supposed to turn out” made me wonder just what she was expecting.

I guess the pierced forehead was meant to be a turn on too?

7.51pm – Where did they get these people from? Angus Tandy “the Human Cannonball” seemed like the most normal one of the bunch. And he was wearing a white jump suit with racing stripes.

February 3, 2009