It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week. They might welcome back guys to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television.
Yeah, great questions. The show's about the game. There's a lot of great television out there in Australia.
But I've also got to go behind the scenes with writers. The truth is, when I started writing it, it wasn't had nothing to do with the news and casting agents they know from a casting point of view what they need, and editors because that's what we do as editors where storytellers. Not to forget some incredible executive producers who are making some of the best TV in Australia. I have been on the program since the beginning and it's kind of
in my DNA. So thanks for joining me each week and I hope the podcast continues to give you real insight into the magic of television today. On the podcast, I have Adrian Swift, the head of content production and Development at Channel nine. I've kept in touch with Adrian over the years and what I've always loved about this
man is his storytelling ability. Not only does he understand the fabric of engaging an audience with shows that he makes, He's one of those characters that comes into your life who draws you in with this infectious warmth, generosity and intelligence. I mean I personally could talk to this man all day. So who better to unpack and explain the current series of marit At First Sight made by Endemol Shine Australia.
We will have a look at his interpretation of the show and of course look back at the history of Australia's relationship with this widely popular and a times controversial program. We will discuss the importance of both good and bad critiques of the series, why the show still rates in the current landscape of Freedoware television, and I will ask about the future of Love Island, Australia, snack Masters and parental guidance. So, without further ado, I'm going to bring Adrian.
Into the chat.
I hope you enjoy this episode as I welcome one of Australia's leading content creators, Adrian Swift, to TV Reload.
There should be naysa's, there should be people who question it and challenging I guess you get something a little bit skeptical about the entire experiment. Every match we make with the absolute intention that it should work.
You might like things one way and I like them the other way, but my way has.
To be the right way.
The sort of things they're writing about the show are starting to hurt the people who work on the show.
Why would you put yourself up for this knowing that you could get your heartbroken.
We can press time that we certainly never misrepresented you or what you said.
For many men in relationships, that can be a superpower showing vulnerability.
We thought he'd be to self aware. Well, in fact, exactly the opposite was true, and he became the biggest character in the show.
Hey Adrian, how are you?
I'm fabulous, Thank you.
Well, you must be happy with the numbers for Married at first sight. I have to ask you the first question, which is what was the feeling at Channel nine this morning?
Oh? Good, really good. You know. The hardest thing in the world at the moment is we've had slightly officially inflated numbers over the last two years because of coronavirus and lockdowns, So it's kind of skewed the numbers a little bit, particularly as the overnights are becoming less important, and things like catch Up plus fourteen plus twelve, all that kind of malarchy is becoming more important. So last night's overnights were really good, particularly given the competitive environment.
You know, it was really important for us, you know, to come out and top with two great franchises, The Voice in the Biber and look, it's a show we love, it's a show we believe in. It's a show that we knew this season would be really great. And that's the worst kind of way to go into an evening when your show's on air, because if it doesn't rate, it'll just kill you. And when it does rate and you know, the audience turns up, it makes you feel good about the world.
Why do you think that maths? You know, that's the way we abbreviate it. Why do you think it resonates with its audience so clearly?
I think because all life is there. It often gets kind of characterized as this sort of drama thing that we put people together who don't like each other, and you know, watch back and sit back and watch the sparks fly. That's not the intention at all the show. And we always say this and we reset it at the beginning of every season. It's a show about love, and to an extent, the love gives you an excuse to look at the drama. But every match we make with
the absolute intention that it should work. That either we give people what they say they want, or when the experts look at those people and analyze while the relationships have gone wrong, we give them someone that is at odds with what they normally choose, with a view that potentially that's the relationship that can survive and flourish. Now, what does that do well? Along the way? That brings
out every aspect of human emotion and relationships. This year, we've got a big storyline about racism, We've got a big storyline about male vulnerability, and none of that's ever discussed in scientific terms. It's all seen through the lens of genuine human relationship. And I reckon, I well, I reckon. I'm pretty certain that's the core of the end of the show.
Well.
I think as long as the people struggle to find love, this show has a place on their television Because while the situations might be a bit out there, sometimes I think that people feel I think people feel seen by this show.
I hope so I hope there's nothing that happened with the show that I don't recognize it at some point has haven't in my life or order of my friends, and it's not. You know, we've got an absolute, ironclad rule which often completely messes it up. That is, we don't make anything happen, and if something happens that we don't want in the show or that we have to put it in. So we don't make anything up and
we don't excize anything. And you know, you remember a couple of years back, we had that toothbrush in the toilet incident. Wow, David has.
Used and his toothbrush as a toilet scouer.
I don't think anyone deserves that, to be honest to there as much as I despise Hailey. Now normally we as we go, oh no, we can't, that's just not but it became so material to what happened between the various people in the show, you just couldn't take it out. And I think it was just one of those examples where you know, some of the affairs, sometimes not some, almost all of them. We don't condone any of that stuff. We certainly don't make it happen and a lot of
the times we wish it. Almost all the time we wish it wouldn't happen, But when it does, it's kind of what we call a wind up mouse show. You wind them mice mouse up and you let it go and it goes where it goes. And the skill of the people at end, the mal Shinnes strategy who make it Tara McWilliams is the ep is that they follow those stories and then tell those stories beautifully.
Well, you know, I think it could be the messiness, but I think that it's a combination of the fact that the messiness is there, which represents us in real life. But I think also this show has heart at the end of the day, and that's why people return to it.
And look, I think it does have heart, and we like the people we put in the show, and you know, sometimes they get frustrated with us. Particularly is reality televisions are an odd beast. And then you'll know this very well from your time in the genre. Television holds a mirror up to you and you often don't like what you see. I'm not suggesting you didn't like what you saw,
but all of the people don't. And it's quite a harsh you know, we all pass the mirror and as we go we pull a little bit of a face, we suck our stomach in a little bit, we put our shoulders back. Television doesn't do that. It shows you as you really are. And a lot of people find that very difficult, and they keep saying to us, but I'm not really like that. You edited me to make me look like that, and we go, well, no, we didn't.
We can press time, but we certainly never misrepresented you or what you said, or how you felt or and that's where it gets difficult. But we try and do everything, as you said, with heart, and we try and do everything to genuinely represent the relationships, and the relationships that power the show are the ones where where there is love. Our perspective Maths is always from the end of the table where the people in love are looking down the other end of the table at the people bickering.
Don't you love it when people are telling you that they're not something, and they're always demonstrating it while they're telling you that they're not And.
It's hard, and it's hard because you want to kind of go. There are times when I know Tara does this from time to which he just takes people aside and says, I'm not sure you really realize how you're coming across. And yeah, I think that's sometimes a very
helpful lesson because I don't think people understand how. You know, they say television puts on ten pounds, Well it does that as well, but it also sees you with unerring clarity, and often the people who play in this space don't like what they see.
We all want to go on reality television though, to show people the best traits that we have, Like we want to be loved, we want to be adored.
You know, we all believe we're fabulous, but we all believe we're.
Some of us are Adrian, And I know I've always.
Said you're fabulous as well. You know, you know your one big brother mate that qualifies you as a fabulous that's the thing you put on your CV and say, I want to be brother ergo I'm fatulated.
Well, you know that there's been some naysayers about this show, you know, over time, But you know what's really funny to me is no matter what rain has fallen, people come back to this show. And I think that says a lot about the people who make the noise on social media that could be negative that they probably don't and probably never would have watched the show in the first place.
Yeah, I mean, look, you know, all publicity is good publicity. I guess. Look, here's the thing, mate, and I really do mean this, and it's not a you'll forgive how slightly vomited inducing. What I'm about to say is it's a really well made show. It's a really well made show. The people who work on it some of the best
producers in the country. They can tell a story. It's made with love and it's made with nuance, and you know, the music's all beautifully composed and the camera crews are get some of the best shots in Television's why our promos is so good. And you know, when we put it on in the UK, it was the highest rating show outside of Love Ireland on a Well, I Love Island's only four to ninety two, but it was the
highest rating buy on one. So the point is that it's not just Australians who love seeing other Australians screeching at each other. Actually, when the world sits down to watch this show, they love it. And I'm immensely proud of it as a bit of telly, and there should be naysays, there should be people who question it and challenge it. But can I tell it from the inside, we love it and we believe in it.
Well, how do you shut that noise out? Though? Because I mean, you yourself are so passionate about television. It's the very fiber of while we're having a conversation today is because you exube. You know your love and passion for this show. And I mean, you wouldn't do what you do, working for nine and pushing the show as much as you do if you didn't believe in it. I know that from my friendship that I have with you.
But at the same time, we all get hit with the noise of things that sometimes can.
Be you don't shut it out. I just had a massive blue with someone at night who shall remain nameless, about a journal who shall remain nameless, who just writes the worst thing things about the show. And the nine person said, no, no, we need to we need we want people writing about them, no matter how negative. And I said, can I tell you the sort of things they're writing about the show are starting to hurt the people who work on the show I'm having produces with
you say, why does he say such terrible things? And I've got to talk them down. I've got to talk them off the ledge and that so you don't shout it out and it really, you know, stuff like that where, particularly when it's ill informed, uninformed, it drives your bananas, because you know, I sit in ned at sweets with these people who make it, and they're worrying about every frame and every bit of it, how they've told the story and when we put it to our one, we're
proud of every bit of it. And you know, you have people throwing rock. I don't worry less about the Twitter verse. It's when people with real sort of political agendas have a go that's when I get a little bit ropey about the whole thing.
But I have to say to you, like, I've worked with people who are TV commentators, and I found that the core of a journalist who is continuously writing something negative that says something more about them than it necessarily does about the show. And the closer I got to it, the more I realized that it came from jealousy of wishing that they could be a part of a universe like this, so in reverse it can be a backwards compliment. I don't know if that helps you when producers come to you like that.
But now it's interesting you say that the best example of that actually is Michael Dato from The Age and The City Morning Herald, who is both probably the best television commentator in Australia lives in la at the moment, but also was fundamentally behind the relaunch of Wentworth, so never had any of those jealousies. So it was both actually, in the terms you just described, was both a creator and an observer, and that's probably wise. Observation is so good.
Well, there really isn't any other free to a show that draws the numbers like this. Do you think that other shows maybe have lost out on the numbers because over time we've overthought it, or we've overcooked it, or maybe it's a little too manufactured.
The too manufactured thing is that is the great bugbear of all of us. You know, there's always that very fine line between and some things that are absolutely real look manufactured, and some things that are manufactured look absolutely real, and you've got to excite them because they're manufactured. So it's really difficult it's a difficult line to warp. Yeah, I think I think you've got to be incredibly nuanced
about it. I think you've got to be and you've got to love the show, and you've got to understand what the show is trying to say, and I think you've got to be I think I think what people get a little bit lost in some of these shows is particularly when you're remaking formats from other territories. But I quite understand the DNA of the show. The great thing about Married is we co developed it with Animal Shine, and we both understand. It's a really really close working relationship.
And I think we both we both understand the DNA of the show, and that's what I think really helps us to kind of keep it authentic and keep and change it from season season, move it along a little bit so that every season you're not seeing the same old tropes in the same old way.
I think that that's a really good thing to say, though it is because how do you stop remaking the same thing? I mean, this show has been on television, this is its ninth season. How do you avoid casting people that are just trying to recreate something they've already seen on the show, like, how do you keep it fresh and avoid finding people who just want to recreate a moment?
Well, and you've got to find people who just don't want to don't want to be on television. You know, there's got to be some genuine desire to play in this space. You know, the best thing that ever happened to Maps was Tinder, because everyone on Tinder, they just hate it, and it's so commoditized dating and relationships that, you know, the single most common phrase utter in an audition for Maps is I've been on Tinder. I've gone on a thousand dates and all of that implies and
I've found nothing. Even if I don't understand this, even if I'm terrified of the consequences of being on television, it's got to be better than that.
Do you go out on dates, Yeah, you do.
I'm definitely an active single woman. But the constant disappointment, it's been hard.
And look, you know, we get it wrong all the time. You know, we get people on who we thought were one thing and turn out to be something completely different. Often that's a good thing. Often the ones, you know, some of the biggest characters on Maps where people we thought were kind of be characters, and basically we're on
because they've matched perfectly with someone who we liked. But they are you know, we didn't think they'd be They didn't we thought they'd make average television, but they were such a good match that it didn't matter, and they turned out to be the best characters we've ever had.
You know, you put people into real environments and allow them to be real, and sometimes they will surprise you. But that is that is life, my friend, you know.
Oh, and it's it's what makes the show great. The best maps where people did things we never expected, and personality is grew and changed, and we cast them as one thing. You know. They came into the show because we thought, okay, they're they're you know, they're lonely and they're this, and they probably need this sort of person and they cut and they turn into something completely different during the course of the show, and oftentimes it's their
partner that brings that out in them. So HI, look at it. Don't ever think people obviously it's brilliantly you know, you masterful. No, we put people in the front end and we stand back and we've got the best cameramen and the best editors and the best storytellers, and we just let it happen and every year it surprises us. You know.
Before I sat down with you to have this chat today, I did a lot of research about, like what are people saying about reality television at the moment? I found this one question in the industry that just kept coming up, and that was how much longer can strippt reality last on freeedoware television? I mean, nowadays, five hundred thousand is a fantastic number. You know, will we be saying two
hundred thousand is a great number? Or do you think that something is going to have to change in the landscape of stripped reality?
But that's a professional TV question. That is a typical professional TV question. I would argue that writers in Hollywood, three or four years into the advent of television, I Love Lucy, the Honeymooners, f Troop, We're going, when's the sitcom bubble going to burst? Well, the answer to that would have been forty five years later, you know, kind of you know, at the end of Friends and Seinfeld, the truth of these things is that you know it's not and you quoted those numbers. The reality is by
the time you look at it. I was just doing a bit of analysis on the block the other day. By the time you roll in the overnights plus seven plus fourteen live and b VOD Live, bvod and be proper catch up bevot, you're kind of back at one point three to one point four that we were out five years ago. So yeah, the difficult for us is monetizing it over all WS platforms, But that's the story question for another day. So I'm not worried about total audience.
So that's you know, the audiences are there for these things. True reality is great for commercial networks because it's really easy to make and contain and you know, because I mean I used to get a content of the ABC. We had a different chine of Real Night Jesus. That's
hard to manage and hard to promo. But by the same turkele, we try and break that paradigm, you know, we in the past at nine we've often tried to move away fromship reality, and the audience have told us completely unequivocally that they want shows that can carry them over to or three nights a week. And who am I to tell you? What does that card have?
Also really interesting is there's a real drawback I think to Free to wear. When Maths and the Block is on television. You are in a competitive market where the streaming services are taking up eyes and ears, but Channel nine has ownership over to very must watched and compelling programs of the year that people have to come back
because that content isn't being seen. You know, is that something that's consciously in your mind that you have to create something these days to make compelling viewing to stop people from going back to these or starting up at a streaming service.
Well completely, But look what's happening with the Netflix share price at the moment. You know, there's a there's been four or five articles the last week about the streaming bubbles first, and that's not true. The stream bubble hasn't burst at all. And Stands going great guns and you know you was in Gold just released and just been They've got so much good content and they're moving. Netflix, Paramount plus Stand are all moving into the kind of areas where we are, you know, into in versions of
strip reality. They're doing it once a week.
You know.
RuPaul on Stand is a good example of that, is ru Paul strip Reality. Yeah, it is it's knockout competition, it's it's classics, stript reality. So the streamers are moving there. I think, let me offer this. I might be completely wrong, but this is certainly how I have observed it. People at those junction points, So call it seven seven thirty week. They're coming out of news, which frequently in Australia is a massive national obsession as opposed to other countries where
it isn't so much. And then they move into our seven thirty shows, which they tend to stay with over the week, and then you know, the quarter to nine and they then go to the streamers, at which point they spend half an hour looking at the EPG and then go to bed. So I think streaming to this point anyway, streaming has been a very different consumption model. I think if you go to streaming, you commit to
something and you watch something. I think with something like maths, it's something where you can be sitting on the couch watching it with your partner and one of your kids can come past and be absorbed by fifteen minutes and keep going, and you guys can talk about the relationship and what's happening without missing some tiny nuance of a morally ambiguous character in a streamed Netflix drama. So it's a different I think Free Toware is still a different
consumption model. And we'll all find our place. It's a matter of where that place is. You know, we've got a couple of couple we've got we've got radio stations and newspapers and you know newspapers the finn the City Warning here or of the Age. They've absolutely found their place in the media consumption environment. Three ow two GB absolutely found their place, and Free Towear and the streamers
will also find their place. I reckon the hard thing is if you're if you're just a TV network, that's the I reckon, that's going to be one of the hardest things in the world.
Oh absolutely, And just sort of to play back on something you said. They're an observation from my behalf is the nostalgia of wanting to watch something on the night like Sunday night viewing. I mean, the block and maps do so well and there's something very Australian family being able to sit down and chew the fat over a well made, glossy show on a Sunday night, and I think that's something nine does better. Than I think anyone. And I'm not just saying that because you're sitting there.
I know that because that's what people tell me, and that's how I feel.
Thank you God, look at what Look I'll never tire of hearing it. We do think that those shared experiences are important and we all have them. Big Brother was a great example of that. On a celebrity on Channel ten is a great example of that. You know, the Voice, not this last one that's just gone out, but the voice of the Voice proper was a good example of that. Those big things that happen live or as live that
everyone can talk about. And you know, when you create those moments when you know everyone's talking about about mass or you know everyone's talking about the block, it's just as you know, for the people who work in television, that's just that's what you want to achieve.
Last question for Maths for you was what were the notes coming out of last season? Was there anything that you guys wanted to do differently?
I think here, I think last year we saw we saw the problems created. We've got one really polarizing character.
So we had bryceon Melissa, who the world saw them as one thing and they didn't see them as that at all, and we didn't see them as that at all, and the world sort of saw him as gas lighting or and mistreating or actually on the inside, what we saw and what they felt, and you'll note that you know they've got twins and are getting married, what they felt on the inside was a rated It was very
much founded on genuine love and respect. But it became so polarizing in the show that it sort of sucked a lot of the energy out of the other things, the other issues in the show. And every show should be layered, you know, it should multiple issues, multiple characters you like, multiple characters you dislike. But in the end, it all kind of coalesced around around Bryce, and that was particularly wasn't good for the show. It wasn't good for him and Melissa.
Well, I think that's good notes going into it. So you know, you just make sure that you cast a thousand Bryce's or you know, how do you what.
Are you going to do? Well, No, you don't know if that's going to happen, don't We never knew that was going to happen. We didn't. Well, in fact, we never thought that was going to happen. Bryce was one of the laugh again, a great example of someone one of the last people we cast. We thought Melissa was fantastic. Bryce and Melissa were a great match, so we kind
of went okay. Bryce was a radio guy actually, and and you know, we tend to avoid people in the media because they're too trained and they're too well, boy, do we get that wrong. We thought he'd be too he'd be too aware to self aware. Well, in fact, exactly the opposite was true when he became the biggest character in the show. So you can't you can't plan for that. So that's the note that came out of it.
How do we action that note? We cannot action that note because God knows, I mean, I know this season because we've you know, we've filmed it. So now we're cutting it, now I'm seeing it. I'm probably up to it fourteen or fifteen. We can't plan for that, and that's the joy of the show has discussed earlier.
Well, I can tell you that I worked with Bryce back in the day in radio a couple of times. And if you called me and told me while you were casting him, I could have pre warned you that the show was going to blow up. But that is a completely different story, and I will sidestep my way around it because I don't think that my podcast is about saying anything bad about someone who doesn't have a
place on the podcast to defend themselves. So instead, you know, instead, I'll move on to my two quick questions about Channel nine for the rest of the year. I absolutely loved and always do love love Ireland. You know, I thought last year was great, but I hope COVID permits us being able to get back to a more exotic location. I think that was the one.
Thing for me. And I also.
Look, I thought that the setting was beautiful and it times it really worked. But there's something about you know, Spain that really resonated on that show. It made Cassidy crazy on that show and fun and palpable and relatable.
You know.
I think taking Australians completely into this really foreign territory worked.
And I also thought the twenty three.
And I think the twenty four hour turnaround was more prevalent the last season to me, as much as I'm sure Mavdikus and other people will tell me, they turned it around as fast as they would do on real time, et cetera. To me, I felt like the twenty four our turnaround not being there is a bit of a punish.
So Big Brother.
The purest, a purest.
A purest of yours. I hear you. That's all I'm saying.
I hear you well because it's a loaded question, because there's.
A lot too. There is some wisdom in what you say.
I'll take it. And then Snack Masters and Parental Guidance. Both of these shows to me was surprises because I thoroughly enjoyed both of them and we don't know were they going to be a part of Channel Lines lineup in the back end of the year. What are your thoughts? Can you tell me on a podcast?
We love both. We've loved both of them with our great chase. You know, Stack Masses was made under the most extraordinary conditions, like literally things being shut down around us as we were making the show, like, you know, police turning up trying to shut the set down, you know, because of the whole COVID disaster. You know. The extraordinary circumstances under which we got that show out was amazing.
Warner Brothers did an absolutely fabulous job on that. My wife was the executive producers, so I would say that wouldn't I But.
Is she in the background? By the way of doing like I.
Said, I'm not saying anything. But it's a fabulous show. There is no Believe me. I know that. I've hitched my wagon too. That Rising Star. No, that was good. And the chemistry between Poe and Scott Pickett, you know you can't create that that again, that's one of those things that you know, Post gotch is fabuls and Scott's fabulous too. So and We've got a whole lot more brilliant Australian snacks to get through, so you know, I'm hoping we'll go again. But watch this space. It's a
great show. It's a great show, and it's one of the very few examples of not having success in the food genre. But it's a great show.
One of the things I liked about it was the true channel line styling of a show. It felt really beautiful to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed, especially in the first episode with Hungry Jacks, just dipping back into our Australian relationship with the product and the brand, just seeing the terry tale shorts and people running around eating Hungry Jacks back in the day and finding out about the man himself behind it, you know, all in the history I thought was really interesting.
Yeah, I loved that. I loved all that retro stuff. It was fantastic, you know, the old hungry Jacks ads and oh got the misogyny and the haircuts and Brental Gardens, which took a really big risk with that. That was an internally developed format made by Melissa MacLean, who was the e and we're really thrilled with it. We really wanted to make something that kind of was really insightful and really dealt with parenting in a really insightful way, but where you saw real people doing it that wasn't
lectury or preachy or too sort of instructional. And that's kind of where we That's the format we came up with because you know, everyone judges everyone else's parenting style and and we thought if we could we could find the archetypes of each parenting style, but people who really believed in their style, and then put them up against each other, we'd get something really really interesting out of that.
And what Fast and I said to all of them are as soon as they get on camera, they're just going to do whatever they think is going to look best on camera. How wrong I was. They stuck to their parenting style guns from start to finish, and they were absolutely true believe as a great parent IM and they were absolutely true believers all the way through. And the numbers were really good for it, and we're absolutely thrilled.
There was an entry point as well for like myself who don't have children, which I thought was great because.
We've all been children. Then that was the theory.
I was going to say that you yeah, well, I'm an adult child, I'm a man child.
I speak, you're even when you're a child. I was.
I was as a child, people said that I was an old soul, you know. People were like, oh, that kid's, you know, like an old soul. You can talk to the adults. And then now that I'm an adult, people like, oh, that guy's like a child. So I think it's if I can maintain child curiosity, I think that's a good thing.
You're the Benjamin Button of your generation.
I'm raging in reverse. My last question to ask you, which is something I ask everyone on the podcast, is what is something from behind the scenes that were as an audience did not see but would love to know or appreciate from the behind the scenes of making this season of Married at First Sight that we're currently watching.
Right, what will Tara let me tell you?
We won't tell her.
How do I put this? Okay? I offer you this as men and women, not as TV producers, but as men and women watching the show. Were very surprised. And this is not just this season, but it was particular, particularly the case of the season, how little there was a sisterhood, how little the sisterhood was respected, and the extent to which it was every woman for themselves. I think that rather surprised us a little bit.
Is that a true representation though, of people like I think it's really funny.
I don't know, it's extraordinary circumstances. You've got people with cameras standing in your bedroom, so let's acknowledge it's television.
It's probably a deeper conversation to have. But I wonder whether or not the lack of sisterhood that we see these days between women has to do with the genders and where we are in today's society.
I think men are yearning to be vulnerable and it's not going very well for.
Them, But also I think women are wanting to not be seen as being vulnerable, which as well as we find our feet with that, as we want to find our feet, not me, I'm speaking on behalf of all women, which is a terrible thing to do and I'll probably get canceled, but I think, you know, as women want to be seen as more assertive and in control, it can sometimes be misconstrued as being.
This and that's, and that's and that's, and you've got to be very careful with that because I think they've every right to be as certain of an in control and actually I'm not and let me be clear, I'm not saying that's in any way an issue here. You know. The great thing about maths is one of the things we've always been very clear on because you know, Tara has been absolutely adamant about this, but it's it's it's
the fundamental part of the show. The people we cast or a cross section of Australia, but we do look for strong, strong and there's such appliche do you know what I mean, Women who can thrive and stand up for themselves in this environment and and you know, represent what they bring to the show, their age, their ethnicity, their background, their experience in a way that people like and that that you know will work in the context of television.
Well, I think it's a much broader conversation that we'd need a lot more wine.
Sorry, yes, you want to a sourcy little anecdote, and instead I gave you a great existential question. Sorry about that.
To be honest, that's more on brand for me than probably getting something salacious out of you. But I will say this to you just to finish off, and that is you know, I had such a great time working with Channel nine back in the day, so I want to say thank you for that, and I for all those people out there that think reality TV contestants probably get chucked to the side. For me, I never felt that.
I'm pleased. And look, you know there are some people you've maintained contact with others that you don't. It's never a uniform experience for everyone. But you know, we're not in the business of chewing people up and spitting them out. You know, we want people to have a good experience, and you know we want there's a lot of aftercare that goes into our shows, but particularly when people like you Ben, who had a talent in the show but
a talent, the transcend of the show. You know, I have quite a few ongoing friendships from the shows we make because as you can tell, and as if you said, you've said a couple of times, we love the shows and we love the people who participated in them. And you know, it's a joy. It was a joy to see your journey how you kind of came alive, and you know how they showed commentated your proposal and everything. But you know, to watch someone blossom in an environment
like television, that's also a great pleasure for us. But yes, thank you ever saying that that that genuinely means a lot. Thank you. We've had a good working relationship while we were while we were on the show and in the because you say, my god, the ten years since.
I can't believe it.
And congratulations on your career.
Yeah, well you know it's a work in progress. But thank you so much. I mean, this was worse. It's waiting gold for me.
Happy to help it. Always nice to see you.
Say hello to Caroline, tell her good luck with Celebrity Apprentice this year. Loved it last year.
I'll be in the front, I say, on behalf of my lovely wife who may or may not be hearing this. It's a very very very good series.
Well, that is the best teas we've done through the whole podcast, so we'll leave it there right Thanks Ben.