MUCH ABOUT NOTHING
WHAT’S your morning ritual; is the television on or off? Despite being an admitted TV addict I’ve never watched morning telly, and going by the ratings it seems I’m not alone.
First cup of tea is for reading the paper while listening to a streamed sports radio station.
The second cup is for checking out what’s happening online, so unless you grew up reading Dolly or Cleo magazines, you might not have even known who Lisa Wilkinson was until her pay stoush dominated mainstream media this week.
The former magazine editor and radio personality has been co- host of one of the two interchangeable commercial morning breakfast programs for the past decade, but a reported pay rise of $ 700,000 that brought her wage to $ 1.8 million was still less than the $ 2 million paid to her offsider Karl Stefanovic.
Cue gender- bias outrage, but why is earning less than a co- host any different to a football team where individual players earn vastly different amounts?
Surely it’s less about gender equality and more about network numbskulls thinking hosts are the reasons we watch television shows rather than the content?
And now that Wilkinson will pocket more cash than The Project’s current hosts Carrie Bickmore and Waleed Aly, how does that fit with the gender divide?
Isn’t it up to job applicants to negotiate a pay deal they are happy with?
If they feel they are undervalued or are earning less than a co- worker in the same position, either argue for an increase or look for a better employer.
Entertainment website TV Tonight’s ratings for last Tuesday had Sunrise at 262,000 metropolitan viewers and Today with 237,000. Even after adding regional figures, it’s hardly a blip in a population of 24 million.
So while earning big bucks for lighthearted banter and paid endorsements that hardly anyone is watching seems outrageous, more power to Wilkinson.
As for the networks; when will they realise we don’t need blokes in suits and women whose hair doesn’t move as highly paid figureheads?
Take Nine’s NRL Footy Show where long- time hosts Paul “Fatty” Vautin and Darryl Brohman are being sidelined for the power- frocked Erin Molan.
Gender bias? Nope, just network cluelessness.
The AFL version is also causing headaches with low ratings forcing the return of Eddie McGuire to lead the charge against Seven’s laid- back hit footy show The Front Bar.
Nine doesn’t get that journalist Andy Maher and comedians Sam Pang and Mick Molloy hosting guests over a beer in a studio bar is how we like our footy, it’s both informative and funny, no suits or power frocks about it.
Naturally the networks think women aren’t watching The Footy Show because there aren’t any females on it rather than women aren’t watching The Footy Show because it’s rubbish.
The flow- on is that these exorbitant pay packets force networks to cobble together pointless programs featuring personalities from the network “stable”.
I’d hazard a guess viewers would rather quality not quantity, and with viewers streaming to alternative viewing in droves, isn’t it time certain network bosses got with the program?