2009 in Australian Television - Events

Events

  • 10 January – Peter Overton takes over as the anchorman of Sydney's 6 pm Nine News on weeknights after Mark Ferguson is suspended indefinitely after poor ratings, losing to Seven News.
  • 7–14 February – All three commercial networks in Australia take major expensive news coverage of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires, in which 181 people lost their lives, including former Nine newsreader Brian Naylor and actor Reg Evans.
  • 9 February – The premiere of Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities sets the ratings record of the highest-rating Australian television series launch since the introduction of the OzTAM people meter system in 2001. The launch attracted 2.58 million viewers, and is also the highest rating non-sporting program in television history.
  • 26 March – One HD launches.
  • 19 April – After a mini-term absence, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? returns to Nine with the newly launched title Hot Seat which launches in its 5.30pm. A few years later, Hot Seat overtook Deal Or No Deal's lead-in the 5.30pm quiz-show battle in the lead-in to the 6pm news with Nine News both winning Sydney and Melbourne respectively.
  • 26 April – Talia Fowler wins the second season of So You Think You Can Dance Australia.
  • 3 May – Rebecca Gibney wins the Gold Logie Award for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 2009 Logie Awards.
  • 10 May – After protest in very bad ratings, Australian Idol decides to cancel its Monday Night Live Veridct show. The Show becomes a Sunday Night staple. Later in the year the show has landed up a whole year of poor ratings. The year ended when 19 yr old Stan Walker taking the title as the final series winner with Sony Music Australia defeating Hayley Warner. Idol was axed in January the following year.
  • 12 May – The ABC receives an extra $136.4 million over three years from the 2009 federal budget to develop an advertising-free digital children's channel (ABC3), and increase its production of local drama to 90 hours a year, a similar level to the amount required by the commercial networks. The budget also allocated SBS an extra $20 million over the same period to produce up tp 50 hours of new Australian content each year. This figure is significantly below the extra $70 million SBS were seeking per year.
  • 13 May – Former rugby league football player and The NRL Footy Show presenter, Matthew Johns, is suspended indefinitely from the program by the Nine Network following reports of his involvement in a group sex act with other Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks players in 2002. The incident was first reported on ABC1's current affairs program, Four Corners, on 11 May 2009.
  • 18 May – It is revealed that Ajay Rochester will no longer be host of Channel Ten's The Biggest Loser, a position she has held since the series began in 2006, due to her desire to pursue new interests. Alison Braun, the runner-up of the show's third season, is believed to be one of the front-runners to be the new host.
  • 3 June – A skit involving terminally ill children and the fictional 'Make a Realistic Wish Foundation' (a parody of the Make-a-Wish Foundation) causes public outrage after airing on an episode of The Chaser's War on Everything on ABC1. The skit involved The Chaser members Chris Taylor (as the foundation spokesperson) and Andrew Hansen (as a doctor). The premise of the skit was that if the terminally ill children are only going to live for a few more months before dying, it is not worth spending money on lavish gifts for them. It portrayed the children asking for extravagant items such as a trip to Disneyland and the chance to meet Zac Efron, with Taylor and Hansen instead giving them a pencil case and a stick respectively. The skit concluded with Taylor stating "Why go to any trouble, when they're only gonna die anyway". Following public criticism of the skit, both The Chaser and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation issued statements of apology. The ABC subsequently suspended the series for two weeks following the controversy. The series will return on 24 June.
  • 8 June – Gordon Ramsay called Tracy Grimshaw 'a pig' in an interview for A Current Affair. Also on 8 June, Barry Soraghan becomes the first person to miss the final question on Millionaire Hot Seat.
  • 10 June – The Nine Network announces the third series of Underbelly will be titled Underbelly: The Golden Mile, and will focus on Kings Cross in Sydney, beginning in 1989, and also include the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption.
  • 20 June – After getting into big trouble about scrapping the rights to Warner Bros., the Nine Network proposed new channel becomes an light-entertainment channel for younger people, dropping Light Entertainment, Retro, Variety and Lifestyle from taking part (didn't use until GEM launched the following year). GO! was officially launched 9 August to become "Australia No. 1 digital channel".
  • 26 June - Nine News takes major expensive coverage about the death of Michael Jackson.
  • 19 July – 38 year old mother of three, Julie Goodwin wins the first series of MasterChef Australia, beating 35 year old artist Poh Ling Yeow, with the Grand Final recorded the ratings over 3 million people tuning in.
  • 25 September – Mark Ferguson is suspended indefinitely from Nine News after signing a long-term contract with the Seven Network.
  • 28 September - Jeff Tarr becomes the second person to miss the final question on Millionaire Hot Seat.
  • 30 September – 2.64 million people tuned into the first Hey Hey It's Saturday reunion special to see the return of Daryl Somers and the gang.
  • 7 October – A "Red Faces" segment in the second of two Hey Hey It's Saturday reunion specials causes international catastrophe when the performers for Act 2 appear in blackface performing a tribute to the music of Michael Jackson. Guest judge Harry Connick, Jr. scores a O for the act while criticizes the segment as offensive and didn't like the music of Michael Jackson. Hours later, Somers apologizes to him on air to say "sorry". During the replay of GO! broadcasts, when Act 1 finished, the show went to a commercial break and came back for Act 3, after Connick's 2nd performance from a number, it went to a final commercial break in time for the grand finale. Hours after the reunion show, Connick Jr. was fired and banned for life.
  • 25 October – Australian Television Legend Don Lane dies of long battle with illness, he was 75.
  • 1 November – 7TWO launches, after failing to soft launch two days earlier.
  • 25 November – Eamon Sullivan wins Celebrity MasterChef Australia.
  • 26 November – Empire Of The Sun wins Single and Album of the Year at the 2009 ARIA Awards.
  • 3 December – ABC3 launches.
  • 4 December – Federal Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy announces that Community television stations will we will receive $2.6 million in federal funding and the suitable spectrum to enable to begin digital simulcasts.

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