ABC axes The Glass House
Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:07 am
From The Herald Sun
Vale The Glass House, what an institution.
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Stupid f****** right-wingers. Why can't politicians just laugh at themselves? Barnaby went on and he did. Political insecurities derail arguably the funniest show on television.THE ABC last night axed its popular and irreverent television comedy show, The Glass House, which has been at the centre of a storm over allegations of anti-Howard Government bias.
The ABC gave no explanation for the decision apart from telling the cast and crew yesterday that not all shows could be renewed.
Host Wil Anderson posted a blog last night promising to "go out with all guns a'blazing". "It's been a really fun five years," he said.
Co-compere Dave Hughes said axing the show made little sense.
"We have had our best ratings ever," he said.
The Glass House has become the latest casualty in the "culture wars" and comes just a day after Liberal NSW senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells said during a grilling of ABC executives that co-host Corrine Grant had been guilty of a serious conflict of interest because she was the public face of the ACTU's workplace relations campaign.
And it follows revelations the ABC will pay a new chief censor $280,000 a year to investigate and monitor instances of bias on ABC programs.
Anderson, Hughes and Grant regularly make jokes about John Howard and US President George W. Bush, provoking critics to accuse them of bias.
But during a recent show Anderson responded to criticism by saying if Mark Latham had been in power they would be having a great time.
The decision to axe The Glass House came despite the show achieving its highest ratings since it first went to air in 2001 - with average audiences of 728,000.
The program regularly outrated commercial programs in the same time slot and this year won a peak audience of almost 860,000 viewers.
The last episode of The Glass House will go to air on November 29.
Vale The Glass House, what an institution.
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