Logie Award

The Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959. They are the approximate Australian equivalent of the Emmy Awards. The name of the awards honours John Logie Baird who invented television as a practical medium.

Related Topics:
Australia - Television - 1959 - Emmy Award - John Logie Baird

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The Gold Logie, and many of the other Logies, are awarded by the Readers of TV Week magazine send in coupons with votes in various categories. Thus, the Logie Awards are fan awards. The readership of TV Week is a relatively small proportion of the Australian population, and skews heavily to teenage girls. The winners of the awards tend to reflect this; new teenage cast members in Home and Away or Neighbours generally win the "best new talent" awards. Television acting doyen John Wood is perhaps the best-known single "victim" of this skew, having been nominated for the Gold Logie nine times but never receiving the award.

Related Topics:
TV Week - Fan - Home and Away - Neighbours - John Wood

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The Logies are held in somewhat of a low regard both within the Australian television industry and outside of it. The industry itself is small and parochial enough to have few serious candidates. Particular individuals (such as Lisa McCune) and television shows are repeatedly re-nominated, regardless of the quality and quantity of their work in recent years. Journalists in particular will often seek to win peer-revied awards rather than anything in the popular vote category.

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There are also conspiracy theories that network publicists engage in mass voting to rig the results. However, no hard evidence has emerged for this, other than the experiment by the satirical newspaper The Chaser, who nearly saw low-profile SBS newsreader Anton Enus win the Gold Logie. They did so by getting their small readership to buy copies of TV Week and vote for Enis for the award. While the attempt failed (narrowly, according to reports), their failure gives some indication of the widespread derision in the industry (particularly the "quality" end) towards the popular-vote awards.

Related Topics:
Conspiracy theories - The Chaser - SBS - Anton Enus

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As well as the popular awards, there are awards for "most outstanding" achievements for actors, presenters, and various categories of programs judged by an industry jury. These are generally taken more seriously.

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The Logies ceremony is itself televised, and has generally become slicker and more elaborate in recent years (though it lacks the budget, and thus the polish, of American awards ceremonies). The awards are now held in a ballroom (rather than the theatre common for the Emmies and Oscars) and drinks are served during the ceremony. Stories of drunken debauchery from the afterparty often circulate in the local gossip columns for some time afterwards.

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Bert Newton is strongly associated with the history of the Logies in many people's minds. As well winning the Gold Logie several times, he hosted the awards a total of 18 times.

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Logie Awards are currently made in the following categories:

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