Welcome to the TV Fugly Awards web site

The Fuglies are a big bloody survey that each year acts as an outlet for unhappy television viewers. Voters get to poke fun at the Aussie TV industry by telling us what they think the worst shows and stars on the telly were from the last 12 months.

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Check out who won a TV Fugly Award in 2007 as voted for by 13,000+ intelligent/good looking/enthusiastic television viewers who know how to celebrate and recognise bad programming with a level of judgment that makes your country proud. Well done!

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The Fuglies 2007 Ceremony, underwhelming half-arsed and a disappointment to say the least which is why it is so special and can’t change.

Idea guaranteed to improve ratings for the Logies telecast

Just heard this bit of scooped Logies gossip while listening to Robbie Buck’s Top Shelf Radio on Triple J this afternoon. Unfortunately it isn’t some salacious info about which Home and Away star snorted bolivian marching powder off Grant Denyer’s chest at the after-party or who was caught in a compromising position in the toilets with Jeanie Little.

Chris Taylor from The Chaser’s War on Everything revealed that he and Craig Reucassel, both invited guests and 2007 TV Week Logie Award nominees, were unceremoniously ejected for attempting to film a sketch.

Apparently, about twenty seconds into doing a stunt, Chris and Craig were forcefully restrained then frogmarched out of the Crown Palladium Ballroom by the much talked about hired muscle who had who been “pricks” all night after being posted at the Chaser’s table to keep watch on them.

After a few phone calls, Nine CEO Eddie McGuire would only allow them back inside for the announcement of the category they were in the running to win before they would be removed again. Taylor chose to go back inside but Reucassel decided to leave and return to their hotel room.

How terrific a story is that? In what way could The Chaser actually ruin the event other than adding a bit of fun to what was while professional and smooth running, a pretty dull affair. Especially when the brilliance of Joan Rivers and The Chaser’s boneheading from 2006 gave us hope that there could be some actual entertainment on Logies night. Expectations were high.

This entire fiasco (yep, fiasco) reminded us of our idea which is a sure fire way to boost ratings and revenues for the Logies telecast.

The CC TV Logie Awards - fun for the whole Nine family.

Channel Nine could run a separate pay-per-view simulcast on Nine Digital with footage from all the Closed Circuit TV cameras. Being a casino there’ll be no additional production costs just switch the feeds to the digital channel and watch the money flow.

Start it at 6pm when attendees start to make their way down from their hotel rooms to do the red carpet gauntlet right to when the after-parties finish at 6am. Then as a cross-promotion with Today do a highlights package with awards based on what occurred on the CC TV footage during the night. Two television industry awards for price of one.

From watching the Sunrise and Today wraps this morning as well as listening to most radio shows talking about the Logies today - all anyone is really interested in is the behind the scenes goss. This way Channel Nine would give people what they want, it doesn’t affect the real awards and they’d make serious bank.

It just makes sense. Come on, let’s make it happen. Does anyone know Eddie’s phone number?

The Ceremony

Nobody believes us when we say we have a ceremony on the footpath outside Crown Casino.

This year we were smart enough to take a camera.

While standing alone on our brand spanking new $10 roll of brown carpet waiting to hand out the certificates (no one attended, again) it kind of freaked passers-by out. We had thoughts of maybe recording video interviews with a few but none were willing to stop and be part of such a culturally significant event.

We’re uploading the photos from a net cafe now and they’ll be online soon.

Can you feel the glamour?

$10. Bargain.

What are they doing here? I thought Channel 9 was meant to not like us. Story for ACA on The Fuglies?

A person walking around a CBD with a small roll of brown carpet looks like a weirdo.

Job Description: TV Publicist

It’s a couple of hours before results are announced and we’re feaverishly working bludging in an Internet cafe.

Which is why we thought we’d post this wonderful guest blog that has been written by John in which he details what is required of a TV Publicist. Also be sure to check out his blog The InterChange Desk that provides career change and job search advice for the transitioning worker. Enjoy!

Job description: TV Publicist

Job titles can be deceiving can’t they? Sometimes they give you an indication of the actual nature of the job. Sometimes they don’t.

Things like doctor, accountant, and web designer, for example, are titles that tell you a little about what the job entails. We know a doctor treats patients. An accountant cook the books (ok, just kidding), and a web designer wants the latest Apple Cinema Display computer monitor.

Pretty straightforward so far, isn’t it?

The waters are a little murkier though when it comes to the job title o f TV Publicist.

The “publicist” bit suggests the work may be busy and challenging. After all trying to drum up interest in something people are patently NOT interested in, is HARD work.

The “TV” part however suggests something else. That kind of implies celebrity status and the limelight. That in turn leads to, well, Hollywood, really, doesn’t it?

After all there’s the pseudo entrances (stage right) necessary when arriving for work each day. There’s making similar spectacles, this time in public, of yourself while entering and exiting cafes and restaurants.

There’s carrying on loud, boorish, mobile phone conversations (preferably on over crowded buses or trains) about recent meetings (well, only one actually) with Halle Berry at some promotional shindig, and the lifelong and meaningful mutual friendship that developed during the (five second) meeting that took place. (All of which Halle hasn’t the slightest recollection of by the way, but let’s not rain on the parade here shall we?)

So let’s review what we know; we have a busy, challenging, role that requires a large dose of attitude to carry off.

Now the reality. Aside from carrying on the aforementioned overly loud conversations in public, designed by the way, to create the impression of juicy inside knowledge (read: unsubstantiated gossip), the most challenging aspect of a TV Publicist’s role is actually trying to look busy all day.

Yes, that’s right, “looking busy” is the hardest part of the job. So what’s the deal with that you wonder?

Well, I’ll you a secret but don’t tell anyone I told you, ok? That would send shock waves of alarm through the TV Publicist industry, if the truth were ever revealed.

TV Publicist’s have it good, really good. Of all the roles a graduating publicist wants, it’s one in TV. Why? Because it’s a push over. A bludge. A day long, week in, week out, jolly. A dos. It’s super extra cushy.

You see TV is something that requires NO promotion. No publicity. Everyone knows about TV already. It has an instant, ready made audience just waiting to lap it up! Look at the weekly TV ratings and you’ll see what I mean.

How many millions of people in Australia, or worldwide come to that, sit down in front of their TV each day after work?

And do you think that is due to the efforts of any TV Publicist? Hardly, when there’s virtually a TV in every living room on the planet!

They already know that workers tired after a hard day’s slog, bored housewives, restless uni students, convalescing patients, kids who love fast food ads, and those who generally have way too much time on their hands, are reaching for the remote, and tuning in. Just like that.

And they are paid a motser for their “work” to boot.

So, anyway got to go, I just heard a TV Publicist (bragging) at a local cafe that there were a few openings at the nearby TV station. Wish me luck, and please turn on your TV when you get home. I want my new boss to think I am already on the job!

Vote Fugly, Gamble Fugly!

The screenshot below is the representation of the greatest moment of our lives here at the TV Fugly Awards.

Bet on the 2007 Fuglies
(bigger screen shot .gif image)

We will never be able to adequately describe or thank those responsible for what this means to all of us sitting on the Fugly Lounge. Yet without any hint or word beforehand from the company concerned we have just been been informed from a 3rd party (thank you Robbie and Amelia) that you can bet on the winners in some categories for this year’s Fuglies.

How fun/insane/exciting/disturbing is that?

We would never encourage anyone to gamble. But if you do feel strongly that your least favourite star or show might win in their category, we suggest taking out a hefty loan, say $100,000 and placing it with the fine people at sportingbet.com.au.

Unfortunately, we won’t be getting a cut from any of this and it will mean that there will be no regular voting updates as there was in previous years as to ensure that all people who are investing their hard earned in these results have as fair a chance as everyone else. It will also mean we’re going to take extra steps above what we always do to clean out dodgy votes by people trying to sway the results which will mean more sleepless nights. Though, it somehow seems worth it now.

Ummmm, what else do we say? This is by far THE most rad thing ever.

UPDATE 2.26pm: They’re sending out media releases!!! We haven’t even finished writing our own half-arsed spelling error riddled grammatically poor nominees announcement media release yet. Never the less sent it to the four or five people from the Fourth Estate that will talk to us. And, their one has puns!!! - THE UGLY SIDE OF TELEVISION - WE BET YOU LOVE IT! They’re funnier than us plus they’re doing our work for us. This is getting better and better.

The 2007 TV Fugly Award Nominees

The second round of voting in the 2007 Fuglies is now open at http://www.fugly.com.au/vote.

Only you can select the winners in this unglamourous alternative awards for the worst of what has been on television. Voting is a simple process - just select a recipient from the shortlist of nominees in each category. Easy.

In most of the awards we’ve gone for 6 nominees but in some where the voting from the first round was particularly close we’ve let the short list blow out to 12. Hey, we know how lame it is to have that many but if the TV Week Logie Awards can have 8 nominees then we can have 12. Pop-psychologists would say it’s an overcompensation thing but we’re too tired to care about our lameness.

The full list of 2007 TV Fugly Awards nominees….

Worst TV Show
- Big Brother
- Celebrity Dog School
- Celebrity Survivor
- David Tench Tonight
- Today Tonight
- The Catch Up
- The Con Test
- The Footy Show (AFL)
- The Footy Show (NRL)
- Yasmin’s Getting Married

Worst Male TV Personality
- Andrew G
- Daryl Somers
- David Reyne
- Eddie McGuire
- Jake Wall
- Karl Stefanovic
- Kyle Sandilands
- Richard Wilkins

Worst Female TV Personality
- AJ Rochester
- Angela Bishop
- Dannii Minogue
- Gretel Killeen
- Jackie O
- Libby Gore
- Naomi Robson
- Women from the Over 50s insurance television advertisements

Most Biased Sporting Commentator
- John Alexander
- Mark Taylor
- Phil Gould
- Robert Walls
- Stephen Quartermain
- Tony Greig

‘The Eddie’ for Most Over Exposed TV Personality
- Bert Newton
- David Koch
- Grant Denyer
- Gretel Killeen
- Jamie Durie
- Jules Lund
*Note* Kevin Rudd nearly got a chance again in this category.

Most Spankable Female TV Personality
- Anna Coren
- FiFi Box
- Jennifer Hawkins
- Johanna Griggs
- Lavinia Nixon
- Monique Wright
- Myf Warhurst
- Natalie Barr
- Nikki Osborne
- Sarah Murdoch
- Sandra Sully
- Sonya Kruger

Spunkiest Male TV Personality
- Adam Hills
- Andy Lee
- Chas Licciardello
- Chris Taylor
- Chris Hemsworth
- Jamie Durie
- Jake Wall
- Jules Lund
- Matthew Johns
- Ryan Phelan
- Tom Williams
- Wil Anderson

Most Under Acknowledged TV Show
- RockWiz
- RPA
- Spicks and Specks
- The Chaser’s War on Everything
- The Glass House
- The Ronnie Johns Half Hour

Most Under Acknowledged TV Personality
- Adam Hills
- Alan Brough
- Chas Licciardello
- Julia Zemiro
- Peter Hellier
- Sonya Kruger

Newsreader/TV Journalist with the Most Gravitas
- Chris Reason
- Ian Ross
- Kerry O’Brien
- Juanita Phillips
- Mal Walden
- Mark Ferguson
- Mary Kostakidis
- Peter Harvey

Show that was messed around the most by a television network in the last 12 months
- Late Show with David Letterman
- Scrubs
- The Chaser’s War on Everything
- The Shield
- The Sopranos
- Veronica Mars

New “Sports” to broadcast on TV
- Birdman Rally
- Competitive Eating
- Dwarf Tossing
- Extreme Ironing
- Jelly Wresting
- Rock Paper Scissors
- Schoolyard Handball
- Scrabble
- Speed Text Messaging
- Sudoku

Naomi Robson’s worst incident of the year
- Princess in Beaconsfield
- The Wa-Wa Incident
- Tribute to Steve Irwin

Worst Advertisement on TV
No nominees. Just too many suggestions to settle on 6 or 12 choices for a short list. Sorry.

Vote now, vote well, vote fugly http://www.fugly.com.au/vote

Second round of voting has started!

After 9 days of voting with plenty of media-whoring, begging and propositioning to drum up votes from all over Australia, just over 4500 legitimate nominations were submitted and have now been counted. Which means we now know what shows and people are in the running for a 2007 TV Fugly Award.

We’re proud of your selections in every category. You know your telly and its shows that all Fuglies voters are intelligent, cultured and beautiful.

The second round of voting is now open at http://www.fugly.com.au/vote for you to choose the winners. Vote now, vote well, vote fugly!

Nominations close in 12 hours

We’ll close off the initial first stage for the 2007 Fuglies voting at 6pm tonight.

If you haven’t nominated a show or personality yet, get your choices in at http://www.fugly.com.au/vote/ so they can be potentially a winner of an award that is void of humour, substance, prestige and glamour.

After we’ve run the last couple of days data files from voting then double/triple check everything, we’ll announce the nominees via a blog post here on Wednesday 25/4 at around 6pm.

And We’re Underway

A few hours behind schedule but we’re pleased to announce The Fuglies have come back in 2007 to give viewers a chance to unload on everything on Australian television that they’re not happy with.

You can submit your nominations in the 2007 TV Fugly Awards at http://www.fugly.com.au/vote.

Who will you vote for to get Australian TV’s worst honours? All the TV Fugly Award winners are chosen by ordinary television viewers who are happy they don’t have to buy a copy of TV Week to express their opinion on the state of Aussie television. Make your vote count and don’t let the people who annoy you the most walk away without the award they deserve!

What’s different from last year?
2 Step Voting Process
instead of having a drawn out month long process, this year we’ve chosen to go with a with a 2 step, 17 day voting period.

The entirely open text box voting was just to difficult for The Fuglies Couch Dwelllers to continue the craziness of collating, sorting and counting open text responses for the whole voting period.

So what we’ve done is allow people to nominate whoever they want for the first 8 days. Then we’ll tally up the votes and release the top 10 nominees that can be voted on to decide the winner in each category.

Eddie McGuire is back!
Now that Eddie is back on the telly he is back in the running and eligible for nominations.

We always felt that The Fuglies were some type of hommage to Eddie so now that it just feels right he can be included again in our silly little awards. Happy times.

Categories
Most categories have stayed as they’ve always been. We’ve still got all the big categories which let Aussie TV viewers get things off their chest in categories that nobody in the television industry wants to win.

We have however dropped the category Most Sensational Current Affairs Program . It just felt really tired that we were beating up the same two shows in such a limp way especially when their journalism misdemeanors are so well covered throughout the year via comedians and regular media analysis.

We are pleased to say we have some spiffy/shiny/sexy new categories:
- Newsreader/TV Journalist with the Most Gravitas
- Naomi Robson’s worst incident of the year
- Worst Advertisement on TV
- Show that was messed around the most by a television network in the last 12 months
- New “Sports” to broadcast on TV

The full list of 2007 TV Fugly Awards categories….

The bad categories….
1. Worst TV Show
2. Worst Male TV Personality
3. Worst Female TV Personality
4. Most Biased Sporting Commentator
5. ‘The Eddie’ for Most Over Exposed TV Personality

The good categories….
6. Spunkiest Male TV Personality
7. Most Spankable Female TV Personality
8. Most Under Acknowledged TV Show
9. Most Under Acknowledged TV Personality

Annual token categories….
10. Newsreader/TV Journalist with the Most Gravitas
11. Naomi Robson’s worst incident of the year
12. Worst Advertisement on TV
13. Show that was messed around the most by a television network in the last 12 months
14. New “Sports” to broadcast on TV

Vote now, vote fugly, vote well http://www.fugly.com.au/vote.

2007 Voting Starts - Midday Monday April 16

Update: We’ve pushed this back on hour to Midday. Sorry.

Until then, we’re moving servers, doing a live re-design and testing the voting systems. Which is why we are very sorry for any missing or incomplete parts of our web site that cause inconvenience during the changes.

Thanks,
The Fuglies Couch Dwellers