Hawke v Keating
Continued fallout from the stock market crash/recession
Jeff Kennett
Corruption findings from the Fitzgerald Inquiry in QLD
Given this is a series about newsrooms/media, the early 90s presented lots of unrest in the media, e.g. Seven and Ten in receivership, massive job cuts across the sector, uncertainty over pay-TV
Michael Lucas posted on Instagram earlier today that some scenes from season 3 are being filmed at the same Nunawading studios as Neighbours.
I would say it’s easier for overseas viewers to follow.
It would be good if they could cover a local disaster such as a bush fire.
Or the 1989 Newcastle Earthquake.
Was Daniel Henshall character the news director (from season2) at the rival network Channel 7?
He doesn’t have credit on The Newsreader. Do you mean Daniel Gillies?
No.
Must be another actor. The rival network Helen is working for (supposedly Channel 7)
Dan Spielman. So many Daniels. 
Michael Lucas confirmed in the 2024 preview issue of TV WEEK that the first episode of the third series will open with the 1989 Logies. That was held on March 17 that year; the only event we’ve been told the series will cover that is near to that date is the Exxon oil spill, which happened on March 24th. I think we’ve got what’s gonna happen in the first episode down.
I am a little concerned that we’ve heard nothing about what Australian news stories the series could cover, though, and I do hope that’s not to ensure the show keeps getting shown by international broadcasters that have already acquired it. If we assume it’s beginning in mid-late March and finishing with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, that suggests stuff such as the airline strike, the takeover of Network 10, and the Pride March at the West Australian Parliament as possible local news stories. The latter is a good shout, for the possibilities it offers up for character development. And re: for what a potential fourth series could cover, I’m actually convinced the show will end with the third; Lucas himself effectively said as much on the podcast a while back.
The Newsreader won three AACTA Awards last night, including best drama series, best lead actress in a drama (Anna Torv), and best supporting actor in a drama (Hunter Page-Lochard). The series also won best direction in a drama and best screenplay in television on Thursday.
Here is a photo of cast and crew from last night, with creator Michael Lucas and producers Joanna Werner and Emma Freeman right in front.
The dream run for ABC and Werner Productions smash hit The Newsreader continued at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) awards last night on the Gold Coast.
The ABC won 11 AACTAs overall with The Newsreader reaffirming its position as Australian television’s standout drama winning five awards.
Depicting an Australian TV newsroom from the 1980s, The Newsreader was named best drama series for the second year and has now claimed 11 AACTA awards across its first two seasons.
In the best children’s program category where the ABC swept the nominations, global phenomenon Bluey won from fellow nominees Beep and Mort, Turn Up the Volume, Crazy Fun Park and The PM’s Daughter. It was Bluey’s fifth AACTA award in five years for Best Children’s Program.
Heart-warming ABC series Old People’s Home for Teenagers took out the best factual entertainment program, the wildly popular Tom Gleeson and the team behind Hard Quiz won best comedy entertainment program while Gardening Australia was named best lifestyle program. The Dark Emu Story’s Caitlin Yeo and Damien Lane won the AACTA for best original score in a documentary while Ivan Sen’s Limbo was crowned Indie film of the year.
ABC Chief Content Officer Chris Oliver-Taylor paid tribute to the ABC’s AACTA award winners: “Congratulations to all the AACTA award-winning ABC programs. I’m so incredibly proud of the depth of talent across the entire slate that saw an astonishing 60 nominations, showcased with wins across Drama, Factual, Entertainment and Children’s content.
“The ABC is immensely proud of the success of home-grown Gardening Australia, produced by the brilliant team inside the ABC and we’re delighted to partner with so many independent production companies to bring such amazing stories to all Australians.”
“In front of some of the screen’s biggest names, The Newsreader and Amazon Prime Video’s Deadloch dominated the television category.
The Newsreader’s Anna Torv was named best lead actress in a drama and Emma Freeman took out the award for best direction in drama or comedy. Hunter Page-Lochard won the AACTA for best supporting actor in a drama while Zed Dragojlovich for best costume design.
“The Newsreader has been an incredible success,” Oliver-Taylor continued. “We are thrilled for Joanna Werner, Michael Lucas and everyone at Werner Film Productions, we can’t wait to bring you season 3 later this year.”
The ABC received more nominations than any network or streamer at the AACTA awards that highlight and celebrate screen excellence in Australia.
ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, said in an interview with a British television industry magazine that he expects the third series to be the last. Here’s the relevant bit from the article:
“People love the ABC and so we have to migrate audience behaviours and uptick viewers on iview,” he says. “The key things that will do that are drama and scripted comedy. Scripted shows drive streaming behaviour. I think 19 of our top 20 shows last year were scripted. We’ll commission maybe ten to twelve a year, a mixture of comedy and drama, I’d like to do more than that, so some of the strategy is growing that ability.” Central to this plan, Oliver-Taylor adds, is to commission shows that sit comfortably in the mainstream category and are “unashamedly Australian”. He cites the success of near history journalism drama The Newsreader and political series Total Control. The latter has just reached its close after three series, while The Newsreader is to go into its third run and will “probably, I imagine, come to an end”, he adds.
This isn’t a surprise, given Lucas himself has said he had always imagined The Newsreader as having three ‘acts’. Better not to drag it out and let the story flail, even if there will be some who will have hoped we’ll have seen the show go into the '90s.
I thought ending the series after three seasons might have more to do with the ABC’s finite resources.
I would love to see the series going for 1-2 more seasons, finishing in the early 1990s, which is when (in real life) Seven and Ten both had their own financial troubles, and Ten taken over by Westpac as the result.
Possibly. Here’s another potentially relevant bit of the article:
“We’ve got these wonderful three-season franchises that come to an end, we need to make sure we’ve got these returning, new series and Ladies in Black we hope will do multiple series,” he says. “We need big, bold, broad bets. I saw [BBC drama chief] Lindsay Salt talk recently about broad and risky, having a culture of risk."
I think a three series run makes sense, though. It seems to be following a rather formulaic structure in certain scripted content of:
S3 probably ending with the felling of the Berlin Wall makes sense here. It’s easy to see the deployment of a metaphor - two opposing sides distanced from each other reunite after so long apart and all seems well again (Dale and Helen happening across each other there - having been sent to cover the events by their respective networks - seems the most obvious outcome, but I trust the writers to be more creative than that, and structure a reunion of them around that of either side of the wall in some other way).
I would hope Lucas sticks to his original roadmap for the series rather than feel he needs to continue on, crucially without the underlying structure s1-3 had and thus further series feeling tacked on. As much as I’d like it to run and run, in the modern streaming era, closed-off three-series shows seem to be what it preferred.
Honestly if they throw Michael enough money he’ll find another season in him
Why would ABC not renew for another season when many of their recent drama commissions have been flops.
I would prefer the show to finish strongly sooner than being drawn out with diminishing quality which only damages the rep of the whole show. ABC has a role to commission stuff from new talent - not just rinse and repeat.
True that most of ABC’s dramas haven’t set the ratings world on fire lately. The Newsreader has been the exception (Total Control was critically acclaimed, but ratings were quite average). I’d rather have this run 3 to 4 seasons, and end “on a high”, rather than making it into a soap-type of drama, just to drag it on.
The Newsreader is a great show and it’s been a success on the overseas market as well as here, but tbh I don’t see, given the story focus on the two main characters, that there would be much more than 3 series in it.
I agree with above comments that it’s better to let the series come to a natural end rather than dragging on.
There only 6 episode seasons, so a forth is plausible if Season 3 lends itself to further storyline’s.
