Welcome back to TV Reload.
My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I'll be going behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. I want to thank everyone for your support of this podcast. I do read all of the reviews and it is quite amazing how supportive everyone has been. Leaving reviews does play a huge part in the podcast distribution ability. I don't officially know how all that works, but I hear it is important, especially on iTunes, so please leave a review.
For those of you who are new to the podcast today, welcome and please do me a favor and press subscribe so you don't miss the weekly juicy stories from behind the scenes of television. If you could also share this episode with friends and family, I would love to expand our little community of lifelind at TV enthusiasts. On today's episode, I have someone very special to me. He was the other executive producer on my series of Big Brother. Yes,
it is Chris Blackburn, a very accomplished series producer. We do discuss a lot of Big Brother today on the podcast, and I try not to be too introspective about that, but to be fair, Chris worked on Big Brother a lot and to not discuss his knowledge on casting in process and to not dig away at some of the stories from behind the scenes would have been a huge mistake.
Chris has decades of experience that includes reality shows like Beauty in the Geek, My Kitchen Rules and Temptation Island, which I believe was the first reality show in Australia even before Big Brother. I could name so many more shows, but I think we need to get into this episode because it is a long one. However, it will be worth every second because Chris is warm, funny and brutally honest.
My head is still spinning from what he really thought of the former host of Big Brother, and also fascinated with his opinions on cancel culture, amongst other things. Let's get started with today's episode. I'd like to welcome Chris Blackburn to TV reloading.
This whole You know they edited me to look something like different. That's bullshit. Previously on Temptation Island. Have a lot of first shows that I do. I did the first Big Brother.
Yes he's a Big Brother.
The best real scenes are better than anything in a movie. Gentlemen, let's take this to the kitchen. I detest cancel culture.
Previously on Beauty and the Geek Australia.
The thing we always used to say to people and they always used to ignore, was was b yourself.
How are you mate? Are you well?
Yeah, very well, living in Freemantle at the moment, doing another show? Or life is good?
Yeah, you're working on a show in Perth at the moment. What's what's the show that you're working on.
Well, it's attached to a hospital, that's all I can say. It's one of those medical dramas. So it'll be out later in the year on Channel nine and Discovery Channel in the UK.
Is it a fun show to work on?
I have, unfortunately, have a lot of first shows that I do. I did the first Big Brother in twenty but it's twenty years ago. Do you know?
Wow?
Did you realize that twenty years ago? I did the very first Big Brother, which is involved all these I don't know, two hundred staff and we had no idea how to make it apart from we'd watched the show's overseas and it was this monster and I did so I did the first series of that. So the first series of any show has all sorts of things that have to get ironed out and the format, and not so much Big Brother the format was clear, but new
shows you've got to iron out the format. You've got to get the broadcaster happy, the people you're filming happy. So they're always more work and more problems. But you know that's the gig, as they say, as the young people say, well, you've worked.
In television for decades now. You know, we won't say how old you are, but what is it that you, as an executive producer bring to the shows? I mean, what would you say is the Blackburn brand.
I'm only a serious producer now, so I'm going down the other side of the career mountain. I'm slipping, slipping, slipping down, slipping backwards. But you know what, I don't actually mind. It's much easier slipping backwards than trying to climb forward. It requires a lot less energyeah. I mean, I've done a lot of the same kinds of shows. So this medical one I did it. It's where I met my coep on Big Brother, Alex Mavrodykis. We met
on a hospital show in Southampton. I think he was, if you could believe, at twenty one when I met him. So we did this show for the BBC, which was just medical reality, you know, accident emergencies up on the wards and stuff anyway, So I guess they get it. They get someone who's done a lot of different kinds of shows. And I always say to people, you know, it's not that you're any good, it's that you've made all the mistakes there are to make, and so you
know not to make them. So I guess that's It's like a mechanic. It's like anyone is that you just know what not to do more than what to do.
You know, you've mentioned Alex Meverdykas and I remember, you know, being on a show with the two of you and thinking and still remembering now that your two of you got along like brothers from memory, What do you think made you to such a powerful duo?
Well, they said we were a bit like the odd couple, because he's a bit more, you know, out there and social, and I'm sort of the opposite. But I think we've get on well because we don't really go for the bullshit behind the scenes. We just call it as it is, so we neither of us pretends to.
Be something you're not.
Well, I suppose we do pretend. That's stretching it a bit far, but we take it with a grain of salt. You know, TV is no different to you know, driving the truck or any other thing that you do for a living. You just you get attracted to it, you do it, you learn it, and you know, you do it for forty years, and then you go to the nursing home.
Well, I thank you too, might end up in the nursing home together. I just remember being at the Logis one year, and you know, most people who work together, they go and sit at the Logis together, but then at the after party they separate, you know, and you can tell that they're not genuine friends. They go off
and mingle with other people. Where I remember that logis, the two of you were inseparable, you know, you still you were talking at the start of the Logis and I think it was like three and you both were still talking together, and I thought that was amazing that you had that friendship, you know, behind the scenes.
Yeah, we have been we've been friends for well, we've been friends since Southampton, so we've been friends for toward too many years, twenty five years or something. I remember that logis. There were two logos that I went to and there was one where who was it that.
Might have been?
Was it Tully? I don't know. Someone was trying to get into the after party, and I remember I was at this one and she was trying to get it out anyway. Alex had gone to the doorman and tried to work his magic, and then he came back to me and said, oh, she's in tears and she can't get in. And the logis after parties, it's not sort of it's hard to get into. You can't just you can't gate crash it, which she just found. I hope I'm talking about the right person.
No spell, you're missing. It was a stell that from it.
Was well, she was crying her eyes out and trying. I think she was crying around just just as a tactic to get in. And Alex told me what was happening. So I said, look, I'll go to the I'll go and you know, I'll reason with these people. I'll get her in, you know. And I went to the door and I did no good at all. I was like, she's a star of one of your show. And it
was the nine party, wasn't it was a Channel nine party? Yeah, she's one of our stars, and she's done so much for the show, and you know, what the hell does it matter. It's just one more person. There's one hundred in there. And it was just like, if we say yes to her, we opened the floodgates. But I remember that one from the logis that was fun.
Well.
Alex came over to me and he'd had a lot to drink by that point, and he said, you're the winner of this show and you've got some star power. You need to go over and get her in. And Layla said to me, it was like, why would we let her in?
She's a bitch.
And I went over and spoke to Vicky, who was the head of publicity.
I spoke to.
Everyone I could to try and get her in, and she was never nice to me. Actually, I don't know why I was trying to help her, but I just remember thinking she had a lot of guts though to still be standing there hours later trying to get in, Like I just thought, why would you bother?
I know it was I went to I did the same thing. I went to the Channel Line publicity person. But by the time I was, you know, on her case trying to get her in. She should have seen the riding on the wall like that. You know, I was the last, you know, the last guy in to try and get her in there, and I had no luck at all.
So I begged, I reckon. I was there for half an hour trying to beg for her to get in. And I remember Alex said to me, she could throw herself off the west Gate Bridge over this.
You know, she's so upset. You know, we don't want her to die.
And I'm such an EmPATH, but I knew that she didn't like me and I but yet I heard that, and I remembered being like, I've got I've got to get this girl in, you know.
But they never let her in.
And the weird thing was she was still standing there when I left, and I sort of dodged around her. And then for years she's told people that I was nasty in wouldn't help her get into the logis, but she never knew that.
She never knew the truth. I don't know.
I've never explained it to her that, you know, we all wasted so much time trying to get the stupid go into the logies. Anyway, I still can't believe that you got the cast right for Big brother in twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, But then that twenty fourteen series was a bit of a shocker. Really, was there a different process with the selection for that series.
I'm not so sure that it wor well, you're probably right. It probably was the cast, but we also had a problem that suddenly they wanted like ninety minutes a night, four nights a week or I can't remember exactly, but I remember that ninety minute shows and ninety minute shows are really hard to fill, you know, even from twenty four hours in the house. Sometimes it was a stretch making a half hour show and then it went to
an hour, and then it went to ninety minutes. And Channel nine seemed to have bought it for to fill a large, you know, part of their schedule. They needed a lot of television for their money. It's like not having enough meat to go into stew, you know, you're just like, you can only stretch it so far. So I don't think the cast was I'd have a lot of trouble, well they it says it all. I'd have a lot of trouble remembering the cast. So twenty fourteen was just I don't know, It's just like we were.
We were just struggling all the time, and those you know that intruder thing is like, ah, to go back to the stew analogy. It's like, oh, you know, this Stew's not working, Let's just throw a whole lot more people into it and see if it, you know, anything happens. And I kept saying, well, I didn't keep saying, but you know, if you put too many new people in, you just dilute it. You dilute what you have, rather
than you're not enhancing it, you're diluting it. It's like in a movie, you don't have you know, ten main characters in the movie because no one can remember them, or you want three or four that people lock onto and all the rest are just acting, you know, support actors.
Interestingly enough, Alex actually to me when I was in Lockdown, he said a few bits in peace about what the series was going to be like. He said, oh, look, there might be a few intruders, he said, but if there's a lot of it, if you start seeing lots of intruders turning up, it means the show's not working. And I remember being so scared the whole time in that series that it was going to end up on go you know, the secondary channel.
That was the joke. It was like, but that was always the fear. It's like, oh, you know.
Go away, it's what we used to go with the channel.
The doghouse, like sleeping in the spare room. You're going to go.
It's time to go the whole show. Yeah, you worked on so many series, I mean over the years, right from series one. Not to say that you did them all, but were there any housemates that you watched through the show and then you became friends with afterwards.
No, I'm terrible at remembering people. I can't remember half the staff who worked on the show. And I was never Look, it's the two way street. I don't think I think you know, I'm the old the old man, and I don't think any of the young grubies that went on Big Brother particularly were interested in the old guy in the casting room.
That's so not true because Imber, like I said, I remember, I was working for Scoopla, so I was doing these weird interviews, you know, for the next two years, and I'd always seek you out and I always appreciate you because I always thought you were the truth teller. You know, you see so many people in the industry that will just, you know, pump your tires and tell you rubbish. But you always were so honest, and I gravitated towards that.
I loved it.
I like that you've always been a hard working person and you're you're not you know, you're You're real And I always talk about how nice your mum is, and I know where that realness comes from. I was thinking of a scene that I remembered, and I remember thinking, I hope I can do justice to it. But there was remember Ben and not Ben, a lot of Bradley Bradley Yes. And I came in one morning and one of the producers, Jarla, came up and she said, oh,
we've got this great scene. Anyway, I went and looked at the thing full.
Did you not think I would be up to that when you said that at the table was a joke. Yeah, I know it's a joke.
But how am I going to How not my job to be able to teach you this, But how are you supposed to work out what the difference between a joke is with someone and what actually hurting someone's feelings.
The emotion and the tension between the two of you was something I've never forget. It's one of those pure real Big Brother scenes, which is why you love the show when they happen. I mean, you know, in latter years and in the early years, you get scenes that you know are not that real. You know, you know, people know they're on TV and they're sort of real, but occasionally you get a real moment between two people.
Never forgotten that scene. It was like wonderfully honest. And I always say that the good thing about Big Brother was the best real scenes on Big Brother are better than anything in a movie because they're actually true. They're not actors making it up. And when two people really go at it with real honesty and you were both trying to understand each other's position anyway, I just remember that and I said to the producer Jallo, I said, that's one of the best scenes I've ever seen, and
she said, yep, it is. It's amazing.
You know, you've worked across so many incarnations of shows in reality, what process is the best to getting a cast right? You know, cattle calls, video submission, you know, there's so many different ways you can cast these shows, But which one do you think is the best. To getting the cast, right, I.
Think it's casting calls. You've got to throw out a big net and you've got to go through the process. The thing is, people come into the casting thing, and you know, they want to get on television. They're not stupid. They think up who they're going to be, and they come in and it's almost like a trick to producers kind of thing. So, you know, and some fail miserably,
you can see it in my life. But there's been plenty of housemates who they've shown great promise, you go, let's right that they're going to be gold, and they're not. They're awful. They just basically they passed the audition, that's what they did. They almost cheated and they so they come in all full of promise with you know, uncontroversial or I'm this or I'm that or whatever they've decided that they're going to be, and they sell that product
to the producers. Then when they get in the house, they go, right, oh, there's a quarter of a million dollars up for grabs here. I'm not going to be that person because that person gets thrown out of the house. So what I'm going to do is now I'm going to go retreat into my shell. Good on them, you know, if you can, if you can blag your way into the Big Brother House, all good on you. You know, that's great, and bad on the producers for getting it wrong.
But it's a fraud process. You can easily then, Look when someone's a star. When someone breaks out as a star, it's it's like, you know, typical TV producers, you know, grab the glory. It's like, yes, I always knew they were going to be a star, you know, and it's like, yeah, and what about the one that you pushed for that was hopeless? You know. Yeah, it's like I knew that horse was going to win the race at Flemington, but I didn't know beforehand, but I know now, you know
now that the races won't be run anyway. So yeah, casting is a it's an expensive and fraught problem. And then you also get you know, talk about too many chefs. There's like everyone that there's network, there's production company, there's all these people who all think they know who who the people are. And so you know, to use another metaphor, it's you know, it's a horse is a no, A
camel is a horse designed by a committee. You know, so once you get you know, ten people all saying I think this, and I think that sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't.
Is it harder to cast people on reality TV these days than it was twenty years ago? Because you know, people these days do have an idea of who they want to be on shows.
Yeah, sure, I mean I was. I wasn't involved in the casting for the first, very first series, but but I saw them in the house and they were clean skins. They were I mean, they knew what they knew. They've watched A Big Brother from England, so they knew about the show. But they were clean skins. And by the time he got round to you know, twenty fourteen, and everyone on there almost had an agent, you know. They were all the sort of semi entertainers. They all had
an eye on the prize. I think Reggie was one of the few. I mean, that's where that was right back in two thousand and three, wasn't it. Reggie. Reggie was one of the last sort of innocence, you know, the genuine sort of all though Bradley wasn't. Bradley was pretty naive and untainted. So yeah, I mean, if you look at the Block and Maths and all those shows. Now they are you know those people are They're not everyday bods, They're people. It's a pathway, it's a professional pathway.
You can still discover undiscovered talent, but it's most of what you've presented is not undiscovered talent. It's people who want to be discovered. You know.
The weird thing for me is that people often come up to me on the street and or write to me on social media about wanting to apply for these shows. And I get so annoyed because they'll say, I want to be on the show so badly because I want to be the next Chrissy Swan. Oh, they want to be Insta famous, you know, they want to have all
these following, And it really bothers me. I'm like, because the reality is there's only like zo point zero zero percent of these reality TV contestants actually go on to become like a Christy Swan.
You know.
I always say, well, if you're going on the show for that, you're going to be let down because the truth behind that isn't worth it.
Yeah, that's true, but I mean, you know, it's the same as you know, wanting to be a movie actor, or wanting to be a footballer or whatever you want to be, and you want to be the top one. You know, there's only a handful of chosen, but so but you know, you decide you want to give it a go, and you give it a go and you
see how you go. You've done very well. FITZI. He's probably the I don't know, would be fair to call him the most successful big brother problems probably if you looked at his bank balance, if he's in Sydney radio, it would be. And I'm happy to say I had met him a couple of times because I wasn't on his series, but just a really nice guy who deserves it, you know. And Chrissy Swan I did her series. I tell you there was a scene that she was involved in.
There was a you might know this, but there was a policeman in to Ben another bend. There's a lot of bends, wasn't it the Winner Bend? You Ben the policeman? Now, he was a terrific character because he didn't he just he got on there and he didn't have a gender that I could see, except to have a bit of fun.
One night they had this.
I can't remember what the argument was over, but they just they just tore into each other and it was exactly like I described the e and Bradley moment. It was. It was just completely real, quite a new address of pride and now.
Dishiding it to know I'm not too famous, Ben is quite clear. I've said maybe.
Five words to you all week.
It's been a good week from them.
It's been a better week for me. Exactly right, it was. And how often do you have like all especially when something like that goes off in the house, it's like all cameras to the dining room to get all the
other rooms, let's get great coverage on this. Ben and Chrissy are going out it hammer and tong and man, it was just when you honestly, when you get seen, like three months is a long time as the TV produced it, and there's some terrible days when you go in there and there's just like nothing, and you know there's nothing. You're going to have to make something out of nothing. And then you go in Sundays and that says like enough in one scene to fill a whole show.
And there were producers who used to, you know, three in the morning, come and go, oh, how's the show going and they go. One guy said to me, oh, look, I've I nearly threw up. I've got nothing, like I've got nothing for the show. It's all terrible. And he said, but there is this there's this thing happening at the moment. It's like three in the morning. There's this scene happening in the moment in the bedroom. Not not a sex scene, just an argument. I forget what it was, Yeah, because
it could be promising. And it turns out that we basically made the whole show out of that. You know, from three am to four am, this big blazing rouid blown up, and all of a sudden we went from having nothing genuinely nothing worth watching, to any just filled a show at the last moment.
Anyway, what advice do you have for people applying for these shows when they're going in to meet people like yourself?
So the thing we always used to say to people and they always used to ignore, was be yourself. But there's no point in being yourself or how do you be yourself in five minutes and show that you're interesting in whatever? How do you do that? So, I mean appearance is a part of it. Yeah, I mean, look, let's be sexist and say that if you're a pretty girl, there's a quota of pretty girls that have to go in the house. So that so if you're a pretty girl,
you've got your chances are reduced somewhat. But I've said this before. You call it the talk test. Basically, Yes, it's like you meet someone at a party and in the first you know, can they interest you in the three minutes that you have talking to them? I don't know how you do that. I think your best chance is if you are interesting to actually be who you are, but like a hyped up version of who you are.
Yeah.
I always say to people, pick three stories about your life that summarize you. So said, when you're going to get that opportunity to be in front of a producer, tell those stories because you're the most passionate when you're talking about something that you believe in about yourself or something significant that's happened in your life. Explain that moment
and then you can see those key things. You can see the nuances in people, you know when they're telling their most three significant things that have happened in their life.
You know how people sort of like dumb reality TV stars and that you know, why would you watch them, why would you listen to them? But actually, the interesting thing is I always used to say, you need intelligent people, and intelligence doesn't mean, you know, university professor intelligence, but
you need sharp, smart people who can talk. And you know, you can get people who are in inverted commas, vogans or people at the other end of the scale who they're thinkers and they've got an opinion and they talk and they have a take on life and what's happening around them, and they've got to be able to articulate it. And so really, if you look at Big Brother contestants through the years, they are generally smart people who can talk. They're not dumb people, that's the truth they you know,
look at Ben, the first winner. He didn't, you know, like he went on to be a successful businessman. I think, hmm, true, I can't think.
He's a sports agent, so you know, he lives in Adelaide with his wife, and but it's very successful, you know, And I think, but then I love that about those reality shows in early twos was that we had so many amazing people on these shows that were real. It felt like you plucked people out of the real world and put them into the show where you're watching maths and you're watching these shows now, and it's so these
archetypes are the same. You know, we keep seeing the same people, and we're missing that authenticity of having someone in there that's a mother that you know, is a stay at home mum, like that's a great story. Grab that, you know, or you're a businessman, grab that. But then we get these people who fall into a particular mold. And I think overall that's where reality TV is failing at the moment, is not having real people from the real world just plucked out and put into these shows.
Oh, here's the story about Blair. So in the very first series, we were looking at some of the casting tapes and Blair was in the shortlist, and these there's terrible shortlists. You die. If you were one of the
cars who missed out. We'd have a board there, right, and they'd be like twelve people on the board, and there'd be a meeting in the boardroom and someone go, you know what what if we talk Ben from Melbourne out and put Simon from Sydney in, And so Simon and Sydney would stay there for a couple of weeks and then there'd be another conflab and someone would go, you know what, I'm not sure that Simon works. Why don't we take Simon out and put Ben back in again?
You know? And I remember Blair. There was something with Blair where he was sort of substituted out and then substituted back in again. If my recollection is correct, there was anyway suffice to say, he was nearly one of those people who got bumped out at the very last minute. But he will I don't know, maybe he does know, maybe someone told him, but he was that close to not being in the series, and you know, I just
you just wonder how different life would be. And I saw people just they were on that board for two or three weeks, and then at the last minute someone left field channel executive from Channel nine or ten or whatever. They go, h, I'm not sure about Mary. Let's take Mary out. Let's put Jill in from Adelaide.
And it's like, Wow, it's so stressful because you have so much power, you know, of people's lives, and never the same after doing these shows, you know, so the sliding doors moment, you know that changes. These people's lives are in the hands of people like yourself.
But it's also a lottery because okay, so like let's say you got I can't remember you going in and on and off the board. You'd be happy to so I can't remember that as an example, but definitely people would have in that year. But you know, you you get in the house, you then have to survive in the House of twelve weeks, and you then have to be voted by Australia as the most popular pit you know, and then you win a quarter of a million bucks and you've got a bit of fame that you can
parlay and hopefully get some money out of. So it changes It does obviously change lives, and yet it's just you know, five TV execs in a room taking a punt. You know, you may as well just you know, throw darts at the board.
I always say, though that it's true to a certain extent, but whoever you are before reality television is exactly who you will go back to being. It might some people, it might take a little bit more time. But ultimately, even though I went on the show, and even though I won, I'm still the same weirdo like as in, I reset to who I was so I always say to people, if you're a hairdresser, you know you'll go back to being a hairdresser.
You might get a bit of fame, and you might have a following and all the rest of it, but you will end up being a hairdresser again.
One thing I used to observe and it's not the case. Well, I weren't going to your circumstance. But a lot of people who wanted to be on reality TV came from broken homes. I don't know why.
I don't have to.
You know, I didn't get attention, I didn't get love. I don't know what I want. But if I could be a celebrity, I mean, celebrity is quite intoxicating. You know, if I could be a celebrity, then my life would be completed. And a lot of people had backgrounds that you think you could see almost like they wanted to do something and be validated, and you know, they wanted people to like them. They wanted life to be easier that rather than difficult.
It's the validation and redemption. And I think that that's ninety percent of people that apply for these shows. They're looking to say to the people at school, look, I've become a success or to say to their family and look at me now. You know they're looking for this validation of redemption. It's the one thing they want, and it's the one thing they're not going to get because it doesn't change your life like that. You will always
have the same issues. You might win a million dollars, but I still think people have the same You will still be the same person.
It's not going to give you that validation and redemption you're looking for.
I never liked I mean, I like the fact that casting meant that you didn't have to sit in an office for about four weeks and flew around the country and you know, you could get pissed in your hotel room. But I didn't particularly like the idea that I was sitting there rejecting the majority of people. People don't need to be rejected in life. They will be rejected naturally. But but you know, we all have been all the time. But people don't need They put their heads up and
they get them shot off. You know, it's just like, nah, we don't want you, you know what I mean. It's it's I don't like that process. I don't I don't like the feeling of it. I don't like judging someone on being, you know, being the king maker, so that was always a bit yuck. But you know, all these hundreds of people turning up and it's like, Nahna, no, you're not good enough. And it wasn't we used to say that. It's not that you're that anyone's better or whatever.
We're looking for a weird thing and if you're not part of it doesn't mean that, you know, but you can say that till the cows come home, but people will still. I tried to get on A Big Brother and I didn't get on, and it's like, it means absolutely nothing that you didn't get on. Honestly, it means nothing that you didn't get on it. There's no reflection on you, you know what I mean. It's just but but you can't get to you know, a thousand people and tell him that individually.
So who do you think worked as the best host on that show? Because I mean we had Gretel, Colleen, Sonya, Kroger, Kyle and Jackie Oh, Like, you know, who do you think was?
Who do you think nailed that gig?
Let me tell you I shouldn't say this, No I could say this I of all those people, Sonya Krueger is the most is one of the nicest TV presenters I've ever worked with. I just like, she's just nice. I'd put her as my favorite. She's good at what she does, but you know, when the lights go out, she's a very attentive, pleasant person to be around. Kyle was interesting. I don't think he's just I mean, look, I don't like his who he is in the media, but when you actually met him, not in the media.
I wasn't his type and he wasn't mine. But there's a certain realness to him. He's not as big a dickhead as he as he makes out. I would say he should be an inspiration to all all young children you can have. You know, you could be ugly and have no talent and you can still make it in the world.
You're calling Kyle Sandy Lands ugly.
I'm calling him ugly and talentless and he could still make it in the world. And good on him, Good on him on him. Oh I wish I wish I'd had some of his No. I mean, he look, there's an example of how far you get, you know, Kyle. Kyle is like, you know, I'm warts and all. I just say the truth and it works for him. Gretel's a lovely person. She was maybe a little bit more intense. So so she had this penthouse on the Gold Coast penthouse apartment, it's like twenty one floors up and there
was a lift that opened out. The main lift opened straight into the apartment because the guy had modified it so normally there's a corral door. Then he taken the corridor and anyway, one day Gretel's wandering wandering around her Gold Coast apartment and that that's supposed to be like no one can get to her floor. Only she with a code or whatever it was, could get to her floor. So there's Gretel Colleen, you know, National TV star, and she's wandering around. I'm going to say in her underpants,
but she probably wasn't. But she's just in sim's and she's wandering around and the lift door opens and this random guy sort of goes, ah, I must be on the wrong floor. He's like in her large room. So she's gone. She said, I'm not staying there. I can't stay there. You know what if he was a what if he was a madman and you know which is all fair enough, but anyway, so she demanded to be moved to the versace and I said, hey, what's you know. Do we have a lease on that apartment because it's
quite a nice apartment. They said, yeah, we do. I said, what are we going to do with it? I said, They said, do you want to move in? And I said, yeah, I'll move in. So I had this luxurious apartment sub Pa House, twenty first floor.
I love it when you're wondering around naked, hoping that someone opens the door.
Yes, I'm calling people up.
Here's my address, here's where I live.
You know, how often do you try and affect the footage after it's finished? You know, we talk about frank and grabs. How often do you do that on your shows? Or is it something you don't like doing?
Look this whole you know they edited me to look something like different that that's that's bullshit. I mean, you know, there's only so much you could do with editing. But it does happen. But generally, you know, who you are is what what comes out on the screen. Of course you're clipping out the Dulberts, that's what you know what it is. But I will confess I won't say what show it was, but we had a long grab with
this person declaring their love for this other person. And this person was was changing who they you know, they were playing up for the for the show, and they were changing who they actually he liked. And anyway, they'd moved on to this person. I don't know if I don't want you to guess who it is, but they'd moved on to the next lover, and we're going we don't have any good grab of her saying her feelings for this person. And the editor said, look, he said,
I can fix that for you. So she had talked about her previous guy in glowing terms, So he should just go out, have a cigarette, come back in again and see what you think. And I came back in again, and he'd just taken the name. He just switched the names. He cut the name out and cut the name in and it didn't matter. Like she was playing the game. She would have said that about him anyway. But that's that's probably the worst thing I've ever done.
Do you feel bad when you do that sort of stuff?
He was completely harmless. No, look, no one, there's not in my world. There's never been any bad but I mean the original Big Brother executive producer, Peter Abbott, the original Big Brother voice. He's a lovely guy. He was very very conscious of not taking people out of context or you know, doing playing funny buggers was. He set quite an old fashioned standard there. We don't really have time or the inclination to try and make something into somebody into something they're not.
We can't. You can't.
People can believe that or not believe it, but it's true. You can't. You can highlight something or play something down, but you can't change who they are and what they said and what they did.
You know, yeah, exactly right.
What do you think is better pre recorded reality TV or live reality TV? I mean, you'll work on something at the moment that's obviously being recorded and will be then edited and put on television.
And we're kind of heading in that direction. What do you think works better for the viewer?
What is what is live reality TV?
I guess you know happening in a twenty four hour turnaround?
Oh yeah, right? Not yeah, I mean, because they're all everything's edited like the Daily Show. You would understandhen it was half an hour. We come in at one in the morning and we basically work till four in the afternoon, getting that down to whatever an hour or half an hour or whatever it was. So you know, that's how it would work, and so that that kind of limited
how much you could muck around with. I actually prefer that kind of turnaround, because when you have weeks and weeks and weeks in post production, you end up with, you know, oh, let's try this, No, let's try that. No, let's let's cut down. There's just too many. It's it's too long to think about, you know.
Looking at the New Big Brother, it so it looks so stylized, like it's so quite it's quite amazing. I mean it's a different show in my mind to what it was. It's very different. I mean it's in its third iteration, but it's so it's a beautiful show. I think, and them makes very good visual shows these days.
I haven't watched The New Big Brother.
I just haven't.
I have to say that when you spend all day looking at a TV screen, looking at people and characters and cutting, and when you come home at the end of the day, you don't. I don't even I don't watch anything at the moment. I just I just like it's like work. I just don't do it. So, you know, they obviously Big Brother has evolved and there are different
ways of doing it. Overseas. We used to go to a big conference in Amsterdam which was about various people from all the people who from all the countries doing Big Brother, and so the current one would be you would imagine well tested overseas. They would have gone to that same thing and they would have said, well, this is how you do it. If it's you know, we do ours pre recorded, you know, two months ahead or whatever, and this is how it works, and we've concentrated on this.
I personally, I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to. I'd prefer to do it one in the morning till four in the afternoon because it felt it was more exciting. So I'd much rather do that than have programs there that, you know, people could sit around and pick out for weeks on end and find us around in the edit SUITET think the good thing about Big Brother in your day and in my day was there wasn't too much time to analyze it or whatever. You had a four
o'clock deadline and that was it. It had to go out, So and that made it more exciting, I think. And then the other thing is I've worked on a couple I've worked on one cooking show which I won't name, where the producers aren't happy with what they get back, you know, lie or you know, what they got back from from the shoot whatever it is, you know, the dinner party or whatever it is. And then there's this
endless we need Johnny to talk about. You know, why Mary, you know, decided to put too much salt in the steward. I don't know. I've used the same use as analogy, but you know, we need and so they go back and they reinvent the story, and they go back to the characters, and they virtually you may all have a Hollywood script writer. They just go and now say this, and now say that, And when you watch those shows,
you can just like you just hear it. When I saw Mary had cut the steak into three pieces, I said, oh my god, she's cut the steak into three pieces. What are we going to do? Now? You know, it's like you can just like I sit there and think, yeah. And when the producer came into the edit suite and said, we need Mary talking about cutting the steak into three pieces. Someone fly to Brisbane and get it to say that she cut it? Why she cut it into three pieces? It's like it's just to me, it's like it is
all the fun. It's just like, that's not documentary, it's not nothing. What is It's just just script it from the start.
But don't you think that that's probably why free to wear television doesn't attract the numbers that are used to anymore, because there's a lack of authenticity with the shows that are being made these days, that it is too convoluted.
Well, i'd like to believe that, but I don't think it's true. I think the TV of free to wear viewing numbers just you know, they're just a victim of the digital age. So I don't think that's true. And also if you look at something like Maths, which is once again it's not reality, it's essentially it's all but scripted,
but it's doing really well. So you know, there's there's your answer, and you know, they are the savior of freedom a TV at the moment, those big, those shows that you can tune in and find out what happened, they're the savior. They like the you know, the reality version of sport. You know what you're going to get in the game, and you sit down to see who's going to win or lose, and you tune in the next night to see the next game.
You know, well, I think Maths is what you'd call event TV. Now people put it in their diaries. You know, people are tuning into Maths because of that.
I remember being at Southern Star when they had to when it was just on the drawing board. Obviously it was an overseas format, but they were trying to get it up, and it's like, well, you know, can we legally have people getting married? How's it going to work? And I remember thinking, I've worked on a lot of TV trash and that's what I'd like that. And cooking shows, oh man, they are the pits to work on those
those dinners. They look so spontaneous and they go for hours and hours and hours, like you get there at about I don't know, four in the afternoon, and this is no kidding. I remember we did one. We arrived at about eight in the morning, and I remember leaving in a taxi the next morning at five o'clock in the morning, and the whole dinner goes, the dinner is all recreated, all the food's cold because it's been cooked. Yeah, it's ours. Is the worst dinner party you'll ever go to.
It is the worst. They are the worst shows to work on. Never work on a cooking show. They are the pits.
Yeah, well they're still very popular. So can you survive cancel culture? Because you know, at the moment, there's been a bit of a backlash with Darryl Summers being you know, hey, hey, back in the day that humor has really dated and it's really quite offensive these days. And then Dancing with the Stars is going to come out. You know, do you think that's going to affect the numbers with Dan with the Stars? And do you think that these personality types can survive Cancel culture.
I detest cancel culture. I really I've detested. I think it's the worst thing that's ever happened to the world. It's just this bullshit that everyone gets offended by everything, and they go out to be offended by it. They don't have a they don't care what the person's trying to say. They just want to mishear it and they want to go with it anyway. And don't get me started but on the Darrel Summrsin. So when I read, I started reading the story and I thought, I here
we go. You know, let's let's let's let's cancel someone, let's let's bag them for you know, what used to happen in another era. And that's how I felt. And then I actually they had the clips of what happened on Hey, Hey, It's Saturday, and I have to say I had to do a complete reverse when I was watching it, thinking, nah, like you know, and I'm not one thing. I'm not squeamish at all in that area, lutie.
You know, we're all grown ups. Sure, you know, I mean, racing is terrible, but sometimes there are gray areas or whatever. But I watched that Hey Hate Saturday stuff and I thought, man, this really is is way over the line. It's just and you know, was Camal part of it or was he being bullied? Well, he's you know, he's like everybody in this world. He's trying to make a living. He's trying to sell records. So he goes on their show because that's how you do it, you know. So he
didn't really have a choice. He could he could have chosen anonymity in poverty, I suppose. I mean, I don't know how. I can't remember how big he was at the time, but certainly that's why he would have been on the show. And I mean, like it was really I don't believe in cancel culture, but I don't believe we should look at hay Hat Saturday and go, you know, there was nothing wrong with that. It was it was really awful.
Do you think I can respect the ratings though?
For Dancing with the Stars, Well, I thought about that and I thought, you know what, they may or may not have anticipated this. It's part it's the old All publicity is good publicity. You know. I didn't I didn't know Daryl Summers was coming back. I didn't know Dancing with the Stars was coming back. I'm just a punter, now this is true. I didn't know any of that, and now I do. And I might even want to watch him to see if he's you know, cleaned up as that, do you know what I mean? So it
works on the publicity eleven people. You know, it's a cynical old world.
I mean interestingly enough, you know, look at the stunt casting like chappelle Korby or Pete Evans, these people on these shows these days. I mean, people will say online I hate those people. Chappelle doesn't have a place on TV. She's a criminal. But then you look at Sas and everyone turned up. The ratings are there, and I think people are interested in these people that a majority of
people online want a d platform. But I think secretly, people sitting at home, I think Australians want to know about these I think they are more interested in these supposed not so nice people's.
Here's an exclusive for your podcast on I think it was. It was twenty twelve, which sorry, which series were you again? I'm twelve Getting Men? Yeah, so we had this that was that the secret series that was wasn't the first Secrets right, So we we were getting these secrets together and we had this guy with a great secret, and the secret was I was an armed robber. They were called the Dumb and Dumber Bandits. They were two Australian guys who who robbed in Colorado, Colorado. Yeah, anyway, we
basically had him. I went and interviewed him, we sat down, he'd kind of you know, he'd done this, done the crime, done the time, and he we we found him more than he found out. So we go, that's a great secret. He's a nice guy, you know, I can just you think someone robs a bank, they're a horrible person. It's
like he just he it's just an act of stupidity. Anyway, So we had him all the way, we had him in the cast, we had him all the way to a to the Hope, the proverbial hotel room on the Gold Coast that you that you get put in lockdown. He was in lockdown. And then at the last moment, Channeline got cold feet and said, I don't think we want to I don't think we want an armed robber, and we're going but it's a great secret. He's a great talent. And they're like, Noah, we don't know. I
don't think. We don't want the risk. It's a new it's a series coming back, and we don't want the headlines. And so at the last moment, someone had to be dispatched to tell him thanks for coming, but he wasn't in. He was actually.
Imagine being in the hotel room, going ready to go into Big Brother and then being told no, Yeah. A few people in the industry who kept saying, get Chris on the show because you have some of the best stories working in television no pressure. But I ask everyone this, when you tell people that you're an executive, you know, you're a producer of TV. What's the go to story that you tell people?
What my most memorable reality TV moments was. I was the series producer of Temptation Ireland in two thousand and one, I think it was, and we went over to Fiji and we had the four couples and then the ten tempters, ten blokes, ten girls. Anyway, well, you know, you've got a ten day shoot that's costing a couple of million dollars probably, and you can't really come back and say nothing happened, you know. So we were we had this
meeting because nothing had happened so far. And we had this meeting and I said, does anyone have any intelligence? And someone said, I'm pretty sure something's going on in Hutbee, but they but they don't want us to know about it. So we said, okay, all right, well we'll leave it with us. So I got one of the sound guys and we went at this a Hutbee was these two girls from Melbourne were in Hutbee and we went in and we put a radio mike behind a FBI style
behind a picture above the bed. And then that night we at about one o'clock, all the crews was like, okay, we're packing down now. We're all going see you later because you can't film around the clock anyway, So all the crews pulled out. Meanwhile, we're in one of the other bungalows or boo rays they're called in Fiji. So Sky's got the headphones on and we've got a camera crew there and I'm there and the sky looked up
and she goes pretty sure something's happening. And everyone's like, oh, give me the headphones, give me the headphones, and they're listening and listening okay, And I'm like a commando. I'm going, okay, guys, we're going in. We need to creep around. Get your camera ready to roll. We're going in. So we crept over to this bouret up the stairs, opened the door, and then the guy put his son gone on on
the on the camera. He just saw this bedroom door slightly open, and this girl jumps up and runs at the bedroom door, and the camera goes towards the bedroom door. You could just see her in underpants, and he slammed and the person inside the girl slams the door on the camera anyway, then the door, and then next door there's a couple in the next door too. These are these are people who shouldn't be with the with the people anyway. Then all hell breaks loose, like there's a
wrestle over the door. There's swearing. They're shouting like, you guys can't be in here, and we go we can. We're doing a TV show. It's all part of the show. This is what you signed up for. Anyway. The the finally we kind of negotiated for them to come out, and then one of the big guys who was with one of the girls started having an argument with the sound guy. Bear in mind, this is three in the morning and there's like six people in this burray and
tensions are really really high. And the big big guy, one of the singles said something to the sound guy who was a big guy and two dickheads basically and and and they're ready to fight, and I'm like holding them apart, and the girls are crying standing there in their underpants. The girls are crying. All hell is breaking loose anyway, So you think that's terrible. The next morning I spoke to the executive producer and I said, you know, a lot of shit went down last time. We're going
to have going to be repercussions. He said, it doesn't matter. You know, that's the show and that's what we've got. Anyway, it basically made the whole show. But you know that's I guess me listening to you know, hidden microphones of couples, a couple of coupling. That'd be one of my most vivid TV memories.
Thanks so much for that amazing story, and thank you for making such amazing television over the years. I look forward to watching more of your shows, looking forward to this hospital one, which we don't know the name of one channel channel nine, but I can't wait to watch it.
I think you do a fantastic job, and thank you for being here on the podcast.
It's been a pleasure. The hospital show is very wholesome and proper, so it's not a reality show. It's a feel good real show. I've seen the error of my ways.
You don't want to deal with reality anymore? Is that saying you've hung up your reality shoes.
I've made more trash TV than anyone should ever make in a lifetime. I'll go to hell for it.
I'll see you there. Bye, amazing, thanks so much.
All right,