‘No more popularity contests’: Logies announce major overhaul

Sonia Kruger wins the Gold Logie at the 63rd awards.

The Logie Awards, which celebrate the best in Australian television, have announced a suite of major changes, including a restructuring of categories and an expanded judging panel in an attempt to ensure the awards “evolve and prosper.”

The 64th annual TV Week Logie Awards will be held in Sydney for the second year running, but this time around, the ceremony will look markedly different, with organisers revamping the awards.

The previous Most Popular and Most Outstanding categories will be combined under a new “Best” banner. Previously, Most Popular awards were voted by fans, while Most Outstanding was voted on by a jury comprising members of the Australian TV industry.

Winners of the Best Awards will be determined by a combined score as determined by judges, according to the assessment criteria (30 per cent), supplied audience data (20 per cent) and number of Australian public votes (50 per cent).

“The TV Week Logie Awards met with all broadcasters after last year’s awards for feedback and to discuss what could be put in place to modernise and future proof TV’s night of nights, which hadn’t quite caught up to where Australia’s screen industry is now and where it is heading,” said Amber Giles, TV Week’s editorial director.

The awards have also finally decided to separate comedy and drama in the acting categories, with each category having its own Best Actor and Actress awards, in a move that mirrors the US Emmy Awards.

Other changes include miniseries or telemovie being separated from the drama category, and the comedy and reality categories will, for the first time, be split into scripted comedy and comedy entertainment, and competition reality and structured reality, respectively.

For actor Alex Williams, who most recently played Shane Warne in the Channel Nine miniseries Warnie, it’s welcome news.

“It is long overdue and a huge benefit for me personally, given miniseries is all I do, and it was hard being lumped in with drama,” says Williams.

The actor has appeared in several other miniseries including INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, Underground: The Julian Assange Story, Catching Milat and Brock.

“But as an actor, it is nice to know that it’s no longer just a popularity contest, but more of a consensus,” he says.

Williams is no stranger to the perceived flaws of the Logies. In 2013, he was nominated for Most Popular New Male Talent, only to lose to rocker Joel Madden from The Voice.

But he believes a hybrid model is the way forward.

“You don’t want the Logies to lose its uniqueness in being fan voted because which kind of sets it apart from the AACTAS, which are obviously industry-driven,” says Williams.

“But it will be interesting to see how they split it up. How much does a judge’s vote matter against the public, like what is the metric to get the winner?”

The changes in the comedy category will be welcome news for writers and show runners who have struggled to topple the stranglehold quiz shows have held.

For the last four years running, Network Ten quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention? dominated the Most Popular comedy program, beating out scripted comedies like ABC’s Fisk and Rosehaven or Netflix series Wellmania.

Meanwhile, the Gold Logie, the Bert Newton Award for Most Popular Presenter and the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular New Talent will continue to be presented under the Most Popular banner, with nominees decided by a panel of “independent industry experts”, before being voted on by the public.

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