{"id":500083,"date":"2026-06-28T21:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T21:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500083\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T21:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T21:04:14","slug":"daryl-somers-unimpressed-after-hey-hey-its-saturday-snub-in-tv-weeks-list-of-the-all-time-favourite-australian-tv-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500083\/","title":{"rendered":"Daryl Somers unimpressed after Hey Hey It\u2019s Saturday snub in TV Week\u2019s list of the all-time favourite Australian TV programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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You have to wonder just what a show that aired for three decades has to do to make the voting list for the favourite Australian TV programs of all time. It is certainly what Daryl Somers has been ruminating since TV Week issued a list of 140 shows, and asked the public to cast their vote as a way<\/a> to determine the 70 favourite Aussie TV offerings of the past 70 years.<\/p>\n

In a glaring omission, Hey Hey It\u2019s Saturday, which aired for 30 years,<\/a> was not included in the list<\/a>. Somers, Hey Hey\u2019s host and executive producer, was, quite rightly, astonished and unimpressed.<\/p>\n

\"DarylDaryl Somers and his long-time Hey Hey It\u2019s Saturday co-star, Ossie Ostrich.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I\u2019m disappointed that Hey Hey did not make the list, I\u2019ve always had a very strong connection to our vast and loyal audience, and at the end of the day, that\u2019s all that matters,\u201d Somers told CBD.<\/p>\n

While there was the option for people to add any show not on the list<\/a> as their vote, it seems strange that Hey, Hey was not included on the original compilation.<\/p>\n

Whether it was a regrettable oversight or a deliberate snub is unclear. Voting closed on June 21.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Robert<\/a><\/p>\n

Certainly, there are parts of Hey Hey that have not aged well,<\/a> but the show stood the test of time and collected 29 Logie Awards \u2013 gongs handed out by TV Week \u2013 including three Gold Logies for Somers.<\/p>\n

The Hey Hey Facebook page has more than 800,000 followers.<\/p>\n

TV commentator Colin Vickery sided with Somers: \u201cGiven Hey Hey\u2019s longevity and popularity across the decades, it definitely deserved to be included on that long list.\u201d<\/p>\n

TV Week editorial director Amber Giles poured a bit of petrol on the bin fire when CBD tried to get to the bottom of the Hey Hey drama.<\/p>\n

\"SomersSomers with Kylie Minogue and Ossie Ostrich on Hey Hey It\u2019s Saturday in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shortlist was designed to spark conversation, not define it,\u201d Giles said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralians were encouraged to vote for any show that shaped their TV experience, regardless if it was on the 140-show shortlist or not. We love to see the passion this poll has brought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top 20 shows in the poll will be revealed on August 16, the night of the Logies.<\/a><\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see if against the odds, Hey Hey can make it into the final 70, and if so, where it lands. Watch this space.<\/p>\n

Andrew Bolt escapes brush with the Racial Discrimination Act<\/p>\n

In 2014, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt bemoaned being branded \u201cracist, racist, racist<\/a>\u201d after the Federal Court three years earlier found that he\u2019d breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.<\/p>\n

But the landmark decision doesn\u2019t seem to have done much to deter him. Now more than a decade later, Bolt, also a YouTuber and presenter of his low-budget Sky News talk show, has narrowly avoided another brush with the legislation.<\/p>\n

\"HeraldHerald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt in action on Sky News.Sky News<\/p>\n

The latest complaint alleges Bolt\u2019s commentary calling Indigenous knowledge \u201cprimitive\u201d amounted to racial discrimination, and called for apologies and compensation for the alleged contraventions of section 18C. The applicants said the commentary had \u201ccaused offence, insult, humiliation and intimidation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The suit was launched in the Federal Court in mid-May by musician Adrian Burragubba, a Wangan and Jagalingou man, and Gomeroi people Cameron Manning and Gwenda Stanley, who were represented by the Racial Justice Centre. But after this masthead obtained documents from the court and inquired about the case, it was ultimately discontinued. Racial Justice Centre executive director Sarah Ibrahim wouldn\u2019t be drawn on why.<\/p>\n

At issue for the applicants was a television segment aired on Sky News back in November 2023, along with two opinion pieces Bolt wrote for the Herald Sun later that year.<\/p>\n

On air, Bolt commented on the Tiwi Islands elders\u2019 legal effort to block Santos\u2019 $5.7 billion gas pipeline<\/a> running through their traditional sea country. He said: \u201cThe Tiwi Islanders, who are fighting this \u2013 not all of them are, but these guys really depend on government handouts, so since three-quarters of them do not work according to the latest census, they\u2019re either out of the workforce or unemployed, so why, how can they actually say no to the kind of money that goes to the social services they rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the first Herald Sun article, published on December 13, Bolt called Energy Minister Chris Bowen anti-science and racist after Bowen said at a COP28 conference Indigenous people across the world were at the heart of climate change and had cared for lands for millennia.<\/p>\n

\u201cBowen wouldn\u2019t have dreamt that the \u2018Indigenous peoples\u2019 he claims have cared for lands \u2018for millennia\u2019 included the white tribes of Europe, let alone the Japanese or Han Chinese. And why not? Because those people left their \u2018Indigenous knowledge\u2019 behind as they used reason and science to work out better ways to live without dying early and poor,\u201d Bolt wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re supposed to show \u2018profound respect\u2019 for the \u2018Indigenous knowledge\u2019 of Aboriginal people, some of whom are now in the Federal Court trying to stop a $5.6 billion offshore gas project by claiming an undersea pipeline will upset a man-turned crocodile they claim has lived in that patch of ocean since the Dreamtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Bowen and the prime minister himself realise many Australians are sick of this kowtowing to the primitive?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolt then moved to clarify what he meant by \u201cprimitive\u201d in a second column published on December 17, where he also responded to Bowen calling his initial opinion piece \u201cracist\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s smart, he\u2019d know I was not calling Aboriginals \u2018primitive\u2019. Indeed, I have Aboriginal friends \u2013 Jacinta, Warren, Anthony, Adam \u2013 far more sophisticated than Bowen. \u2018Primitive\u2019 is what I called a Stone Age belief in an anti-gas Crocodile Man,\u201d Bolt went on.<\/p>\n

When asked about the action last week, a News Corp Australia spokesman said the company would \u201cvigorously defend\u201d the matter. Once it\u2019d been discontinued, days later, the spokesman said the company always had \u201cfull confidence\u201d Bolt would be \u201cexonerated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not that we had any reason to doubt them. It was only in December that Bolt was seen hoofing it up the street en route to Lachlan Murdoch\u2019s annual Christmas party. The year before, Bolt was part of Rupert Murdoch\u2019s personal entourage during The Sun King\u2019s first visit to Australia in six years.<\/p>\n

Fox spotting amid Icelandic works in Melbourne<\/p>\n

Fox spotting has become a bit of a sport in town after the billionaire Fox family\u2019s high-stakes succession drama<\/a> erupted in public earlier<\/a> this month when patriarch Lindsay Fox <\/a>confirmed his eldest son, Peter, was retiring as executive chairman of Linfox.<\/p>\n

Lindsay, 89, and his wife, Paula, are currently in Europe escaping Melbourne\u2019s winter chill. Lisa Fox, their eldest daughter and co-chair of the Fox Family Foundation \u2013 a major supporter of the NGV<\/a> \u2013 was spotted among the guests at the opening of Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson\u2019s exhibition, Mercy, at the National Gallery of Victoria on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\"LindsayLindsay and Paula Fox, currently in Europe, pictured attending the 2023 NGV Gala.Getty Images for NGV<\/p>\n

The Kjartansson exhibition is a bit of a trip. One of more unusual pieces on show is a video work, Me and My Mother, in which every five years Kjartansson asks his mother, Icelandic actor Gu\u00f0r\u00fan \u00c1smundsd\u00f3ttir, to spit on him. Weird.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Me<\/a><\/p>\n

Kjartansson was at the opening on Thursday, where instead of giving a speech, he led a toast to the exhibition by singing an Icelandic folk\/drinking song. Art always delivers!<\/p>\n

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\"FionaFiona Byrne<\/a> is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.\"JohnJohn Buckley<\/a> is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.\"KaylaKayla Olaya<\/a> is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-500083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}