20 September, 2016. 15:34

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

IN A MAD DASH to find guests for next week’s Q&A programme, a producer from the ABC’s frontline panel show has turned to google in order to learn which celebrities have a book coming out soon.

Following the success of last night’s broadcast, junior producer Ally Thickrimme spent this morning trawling the internet for prospective guests.

“Does anybody know who Troy Cassar-Daley is? Is he a footballer,” she said, looking up from her screen to ask the Q&A office in Sydney’s Ultimo district.

“What about Matt Burke? Isn’t he a weatherman or something? Do people know who he is? Wait! Hold the phone, Anna Bligh has just put a book out. Can we get her?”

“Do you think Tony [Jones] can get away with reading a passage from it? We should buy Media Watch a carton of piss to smooth things over. I can’t believe we got away with that last night.” she said.

However, when a researcher suggested that he ‘really enjoyed’ Ken Done’s new autobiography, he was quickly shot down by Ms Thickrimme.

“Ha? Who the fuck is that? We’re up against The Block and Australian Survivor, not the Claude Debussy half hour on the SBS. That’s why half the country shot their bolt when Barnsy, Madga and Jacqui Lambie were all on the same night. That’s electric television.” she explained.

According to a study conducted by Roy Morgan research, the ABC in recent months has begun to align itself with a more commercial structure.

Though not explicitly sponsored content, the type of publicity the nation’s public broadcaster has given to commercial ventures and products is ‘the first light of a new dawn’ that should see more and more advertising material snuck into the ABC.

More to come.