The Gruen Transfer returns for 2011
The Gruen Transfer returns to ABC1 Wednesday, August 3 at 9pm. There’s so much to catch up on: crazy mining ads, Big Tobacco campaigns, gambling messages invading every sport program on TV, the social media monster of Vodafail, NAB pretending it has no friends.
In the fourth season of The Gruen Transfer, inimitable host Wil Anderson will once again pick apart the seams of advertising with the extraordinary Russel Howcroft and Todd Sampson, ably supported by a rotating panel of Dan Gregory, Dee Madigan, Jeremy Nicholas, Bridget Taylor, Jane Caro, Rowan Dean and Carolyn Miller.
Old favourite segments including The Pitch – where two agencies compete to sell the unsellable – will return, along with another End-Of-Show Quest. Last year they voted for The Worst Ad Of All Time. This year, they’re pushing that idea further, hoping to identify and celebrate The Worst Product Of All Time! And following the success of election series Gruen Nation in 2010, they’ve got another surprise in store. In 2011, they’re adding another baby to the Gruen family, Gruen Planet, a new show that will look at the news of the week through the prism of spin, branding and image control.
By the way, last year The Gruen Transfer averaged 1.4 million viewers on ABC1 each week. Gruen Nation was the ABC’s highest rating show of the year, averaging more than 1.6 million viewers for each of its four outings and was in the Top Ten shows of the year. Transfer also won the 2010 AFI for Best Light Entertainment program.
20 Comments
No more dribble please. Enough is enough.
ironic that a show about advertising is on a channel with no commercials.
Light entertainment.
End of story.
stick a fork in it – its done
Gee, great insight 11:11, and straight out of the blocks.
Will make sure I do as I do every year, miss every episode. I want to punch Andrew Denton in the face for bringing that rubbish to tv in the first place.
Why isn’t Russel wearing a tie?
Let’s hope the first thing the Gruens do is critique that appalling Coles commercial. I cringe every time I see it, and so does the rest of Australia.
Truly awful.
Oh god, Coles … it’s killing me. Torture. I have boycotted Coles …Hello Woolworth’s I LOVE YOU.
Screw both Coles and Woolies…..Gimme ALDI
Is that Ted doing the voice-over?
Please Todd buy a hot suit. That I’m a creative you can tell cos I wear a Tshirt is so pedestrian.
11:11 I’d say it’s more relevant than ironic.
Coles has made Woolworth’s blink.
Well done Ted.
The last thing I want to do when I get home from the agency is watch a show about agencies and ads and whatnot, so I haven’t watched gruen much beyond the first few episodes.
But how anyone can be critical of this show is incredible. It’s a massive ratings hit, and it’s pretty much the first thing anyone outside of the industry mentions when you tell them you work in advertising.
Don’t like, don’t watch. But you can’t deny it.
Get some decent or at least current advertising talent on on the guest panel for starters. At the moment the talent is the equivalent of having the chefs from the local Pizza Hut or an old retired chef at Doyle’s as guest judges on Masterchef.
Total misrepresentation of how the industry works and the current level of talent in Australian agencies. Just a bunch of fame desperado’s trying to get their mugs on TV so they can be the next “AD GURU” on Sunrise when their agency career dries up.
(this isn’t in reaction to 3.36pm but) If an agency was a shop, the thing on it’s shelves would be the ideas. I’d love to see them get the likes of Keogh, Micah, even Furby on the show. It’s time to stop using the dudes you’d send your ‘CV’ to and start using the people who are out there to beat and admire.
I reckon Furby (when he’s off on one) would be, by far, the most honest and completely unashamedly brutal panellist they’d ever had.
His opinions of where advertising has got to are erudite, angry and completely logical.
But, of course, it’s light entertainment so I guess we’ll just have to listen to one of the panellist’s pre-written, self-promoting ‘gags.’
(Oh, one of them is still available on the after-dinner speaking circuit through any one of the ten companies we checked. How DOES he have time to run an agency?)
So you’re Ant Keogh.
You’re happily ensconced at Clems, doing great work, getting paid very well. Everyone knows you because your work is so good, and has been so good for so long.
You don’t need the publicity and you don’t need the distraction.
So why the fuck would you want to spend your time doing a TV show for almost no money?
The people really doing the work don’t want to spend their time doing Gruen. Because they’re too busy doing the work.
some of the comments sound like some sour grapes to me. professional jealousy perhaps? anonymous if you dislike the show and the panelists then heres an idea – dont watch it!