Tainted gold

JOHN Eren, pictured, has made the big call. He’s dumping the Logies from the red-carpet calendar of Victoria.

The decision to split with the “night of nights” has received equal amounts of support and condemnation.

Predictably, Opposition Matthew Guy has hit out on Twitter and claimed that the $1 million that the Victorian Government has been paying for the event was a good investment and a “small spend”.

This is understandable coming from the man who drinks Grange with his lobster. But for the average person, $1 million is a lot of money.

In fact, for many Victorians it came as a shock that our Victorian Government has been contributing any taxpayers money to keep the Logies at Crown casino all these years.

The TV industry is not a needy not-for-profit. The advertising income on the Logies night is one of the high water marks for their year. It is difficult to understand why this mass media industry needs our money to subsidise an awards night for themselves.

The Logies do nothing for the tourism economy. They are not televised beyond our shores. We actually have to pay international singers and TV personalities to come and be our guests of honour. We have a cringing history in Australia of listening to American guests mispronounce the name of our winners.

Who can forget the night Bert Newton almost had his lights punched out by Muhammad Ali? But the bigger question; what was Muhammad Ali doing at an Australian TV Awards show anyway? Was this an alternate universe? No, it was a blatant grab for ratings.

Last year we were treated to a similarly bizarre (but homegrown) Gold Logie moment when Samuel Johnson was held hostage by Molly Meldrum. These incidents are memorable, but they are not worth a million bucks of taxpayer subsidy.

Despite the good sense of the decision, Karl Stefanoivc is having a tantrum and threatening to boycott the event and John Wood is strongly protesting the move out of Melbourne.

These two representations alone are proof Mr Eren is right to pull the pin.

The Logies is not what it used to be, whatever the heck that was.

So in true vaudeville fashion the TV industry is folding its tent and looking for another sucker. The hunt is on for the next town prepared to cough up a million bucks for the honour of watching TV celebrities get wined and dined and awarded for being on TV. The Gold Coast has put their hand up. They believe they are the natural home for the big night. They’re probably right. At least they have a film and TV industry up there and a long established history of “schoolies” where young people behave badly and regret their life choices. The Logies should fit in nicely. The strong competition is south of the Queensland border. The Premier of NSW has suggested that Sydney may bid for the event. But she has even gone one step further and suggested it may be time for the Logies to go regional. This left field suggestion has got legs in some quarters. NSW state member for Dubbo, Nationals MP Troy Grant took to Twitter and suggested: “If Melbourne doesn’t want it — let’s #BringTheLogiesTo Dubbo,” Who knows if he’s done his #homework?

Not sure how the good people of Dubbo will feel about chucking in a million bucks so that Scotty Cam can come to Dubbo and swan around like he owns the place for 24 hours.

How many tourist dollars does a gig like this convert to? How many FTE jobs will appear in the local council budget projection? One thing is for certain. Geelong is lucky the Logies bidding war is about to begin while we have administrators in charge.

Imagine if we had a bunch of councillors who had access to our Major Events allocation ... just imagine if we were living in an alternate local government universe where councillors were prepared to make cavalier financial decisions and just give away a million dollars of land. Imagine how much we would offer to the altar of TV if we were governed by a directly elected mayor with a healthy ego and a fascination with celebrity.

How much would we pay to bring the Logies to GPAC?

A million bucks is a million bucks in anybody’s language.

The Logies celebrate television, not tourism.

Thank you, John Eren. This is the Gold Logie of financial decisions, and that’s what good government is all about.