Naughty, naughty Seven Network
and Today Tonight. The
second bashing in just over a fortnight on Wednesday night of Ten’s Australian idol
and its ‘Mr Nasty’ Sydney disc jockey, Kyle Sandilands, produced a flood of hypocrisy. First
off there was the vision and short audio grab of Renee Geyer used to back a
point in the story. But it
was pinched from Monday night’s edition of Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope, without
attribution.

The
vision was merely re-recorded and blown up in an effects editing device and then
used in the story. Cheap! For a
program that cries foul when nasty rival A Current Affair does something like
that, it was a tiny bit hypocritical. Then
there was the bashing of Australian Idol as being devised for the benefit of the
TV Network (Ten) and the mobile phone company service provider: and Seven has never had a show where viewers were encouraged to
vote by mobile phone?

There
was the collection of Idol critics trotted out, from Molly Meldrum, who spoke (a Seven talent) to vision of Michael
Gudinski, but no direct quote from him, and a couple
of music industry people. A valid
point of view I suppose, but why didn’t Today Tonight or ‘Dame ‘ Naomi Robson
mention that Seven slid down the music show/mobile phone route with Popstars a year or so ago. Remember that Seven, Popstars = F.a.i.l.u.r.e!

Then
there’s the mobile competitions Seven uses for the My
Restaurant Rules program, which funnily enough does generate income. Oh,
dear. The
bashing of Kyle Sandilands for the second time for
being the abusive judge was also tinged with the odd bit of hypocrisy. Now
correct me, but who did Seven hire from Australian Idol
to front My Restaurant Rules? Why Dicko, the abuser
from the first series of Idol. Funny how that escaped
mention.

Kyle
Sandilands is merely being paid to do what Dicko was paid to do on Idol and now at Seven. If one
is wrong, what about the other?

TThad
a go at him a couple of weeks ago for promoting records of his girlfriend
produced by his own ‘cottage’ label (to use a phrase from the Wednesday night
program on TT).

If
that’s a crime in the Australian TV industry, then there should be a lot of very
nervous people around worried about being exposed for similar conflicts of
interest. In
reality the story on TT was crude, silly and an abuse of the air waves simply
because of Seven’s own conflict of interest. Seven
also has to undermine Australian Idol‘s credibility with viewers because of the
damage it will do to its ratings Sunday and Monday nights (and Nine’s as well). No conflict of interest
there!

Without
his involvement in the first series of Idol, Dicko
would not have come to the attention of Seven managers.
Are they now saying one abuser right, one abuser wrong? If so,
that’s a very Orwellian way to judge TV talent.