My invitation to the Logie Awards went missing again this year. Which is a great pity because I was very much looking forward to rubbing shoulders with all those talented people who advance the world by wearing a borrowed outfit and a fake smile.

That seems to be what television's night of nights has become. The parade of best and worst-dressed has all but replaced the parade of performers who receive gongs. The same is true of the Brownlow Medal and pretty much every other award night you care to name. By the time the big prizes are handed out, most people have gone to bed.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a matter for regret. Spend more than 30 seconds reflecting on such evenings and you realise they are nonsense. Our TV and sports stars are already overpraised and overpaid. Do they really deserve more adulation? Meanwhile, the people who do truly deserve our thanks and admiration are largely ignored.

There was a well-timed juxtaposition of this in Fairfax Media's compacts last Monday. At the front of the papers there was detailed reporting on the Logies, including a full list of winners and, yes, you guessed it, a wrap-up of the red-carpet fashion. Meanwhile, well inside, there was a double-page spread on five of Australia's leading researchers, the sort of people who help fight everything from influenza to cancer but who would be trampled in a rush to touch the garment of Joel Madden - the talent-show judge and fried-chicken spruiker who won the best new talent Logie - if they ever stood next to him.

Those profiled included Peter Colman, the man whose research on the influenza virus led to the antiviral drug Relenza and enabled others to develop Tamiflu, and David Vaux, whose work has helped us better understand cancer and how it should be treated. They are household names … but only in their own households.