Karl Stefanovic’s down market Q&A rip off panel show is Returning in 2016
Which is unfortunate. Someone is obviously pretty desperate for it to be renewed for another year. 
I read somewhere that Mark Latham isn’t returning? If so, that’s a good start…
Well getting rid of Latham would be a very good move!
Personally, I’m really hoping that Nine is silly (or smart, depending on your point of view) enough to schedule The Verdict at 9.30pm Mondays in 2016 right up against Q&A for a quick and swift kill.
And yes, Mark Latham certainly won’t be a big loss to this program! 
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[quote=“SydneyCityTV, post:5, topic:346”]
Personally, I’m really hoping that Nine is silly (or smart, depending on your point of view) enough to schedule The Verdict at 9.30pm Mondays in 2016 right up against Q&A for a quick and swift kill.
[/quote]I’m sure someone else said exactly this a little while ago too! And yes, I agree, let them go head to head. I sure know which one I’d prefer to watch! 
I’d like to see Nine take this show in a completely different direction next year, moving away from the panel arrangement and toward something that encourages the audience to make up their own minds on the issues.
Keep Karl as host but replace the panel discussion with a range of pre-recorded interviews with politicians, social commentators, academics etc (done by both Karl and a few other regular network contributors, maybe even get somebody like Chris Bath to join in a part-time role). Then tie those interviews together with live segments that bring the audience at home into the discussion with twitter/app/online integration. Have a special guest (maybe just one of the interviewees) in the studio to discuss audience feedback and questions and/or bring the regular contributors in to discuss the interviews, the interviewees etc in the context of what the audience is saying at home.
You could then focus on one or two major issues per episode and the one of those issues could lend themselves to more popular personalities (ie have sportspeople comment on a sport/citizenship/social issue rather than having them there to discuss sensitive international politics). I’m not looking for anything too hard hitting, it has to be more accessible than what airs on the ABC.
Such a format would be so far removed from the mess that aired this year that I’d rebrand and package it as something entirely new. Distance it as far from The Verdict as possible and give it a proper chance to succeed.
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I’d like to see it dead, buried and cremated.
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Tony says hi! 
He was my inspiration for that comment just like he is the inspiration for The Verdict’s existence.
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Last year the verdict made headlines… For all the wrong reasons…
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Karl Stefanovic says about The Verdict “We were still finding our feet, so there is room for it to come back.” He concedes that any decision on a resurrection is up to Hugh Marks when they have a talk, and says “Hopefully, there will be something similar coming to screens near you somewhere in the future.”
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Yikes!
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