| A Current Affair | |
|---|---|
A Current Affair title card 2009. |
|
| Also known as | ACA |
| Genre | Current affairs |
| Presented by | Tracy Grimshaw |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 (1971–78) 23 (1988–2011) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Grant Williams |
| Location(s) | National: Sydney (18 January 1988 – 13 June 2008) Melbourne (16 June 2008 – ) State-editions: Adelaide (2002 and 27 October 2008 – 27 November 2009), Perth (20 October 2008 – 27 November 2009) |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Nine Network |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Audio format | Dolby Digital 5.1 |
| Original run | 22 November 1971 – 28 April 1978 18 January 1988 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
A Current Affair (or ACA) is an Australian current affairs program, broadcast weeknights on the Nine Network.
The program is presented by Tracy Grimshaw. Until 2009, Louise Momber presented the Perth version and Kate Collins presented the Adelaide edition.
Contents |
A Current Affair was first broadcast on 22 November 1971, with Mike Willesee, screening week nights at 7:00 pm, and was broadcast for GTV-9. For part of its early run, the comedian and actor Paul Hogan had a comic social commentary segment. Under Willesee, ACA was a Transmedia production for the Nine Network.[1]
When Willesee left Nine in 1974 to move to the rival 0–10 Network, journalist Mike Minehan took over presenting ACA. Other presenters included Sue Smith, Kevin Sanders and Michael Schildberger.[1][2][3][4]
The original A Current Affair was cancelled on 28 April 1978, followed by strong competitions in the 7:00 pm timeslot from Willesee at Seven on Seven Network and Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks on the 0–10 Network.
In 1984, Willesee returned to the Nine Network to revive the format in a series titled Willesee, screening Monday to Thursday nights at 9:30 pm. The following year, Willesee moved to the earlier 6:30 pm timeslot and extended to five nights a week, running until 1988, when Willesee's production company, Transmedia, sold the rights to the program to the Nine Network.
When Willesee left the presenting role, former 60 Minutes presenter Jana Wendt took over on 18 January 1988 and the show once again became A Current Affair. This was the same week the Seven Network's soap opera Home and Away was introduced.
The Seven Network introduced direct competition with Real Life, which later became Today Tonight. Jana Wendt left the program in November 1992, unhappy with an ACA story showing topless women.[5]
In 1993, original ACA presenter Mike Willesee took over for the whole year. In February 1994, Ray Martin took over. During Martin's tenure, further issues arose regarding the mix between tabloid and serious journalism. Martin signed off at the end of November 1998.
After being a reporter for the program for many years, Mike Munro took over the presenting role at the end of 1998 as part of a major revamp for ACA. When Mike Munro was axed from the program in 2002, he returned to This Is Your Life, 60 Minutes, and later National Nine News in Sydney.
After Mike Munro's departure, Ray Martin returned in February 2003, and signed off again at the start of December 2005. During the 2005/2006 holiday period, the Nine Network announced that ACA was to be rested for four weeks to enable a major revamp of the production to take place. It had seen its ratings decline for most of 2005 against its rival, Seven's Today Tonight. On 30 January 2006, two weeks after the program's return, ACA was re-launched with new presenter Tracy Grimshaw. ACA's ratings increased in 2007, but fell again in 2008, placing it behind those of Today Tonight.
From 16 June 2008, ACA officially moved to GTV-9 studios with presenter Tracy Grimshaw returning to Melbourne. For the week prior to Grimshaw's move, Eddie McGuire filled in as presenter, also from Melbourne. ACA is still often presented from TCN-9 when Grimshaw is in Sydney, or if Leila McKinnon is filling in as presenter. For several months before the official move, ACA was often presented by Grimshaw from both Melbourne and Sydney.
Launching in 1991, QTQ-9 in Brisbane produced a local version of the program, titled Extra. It carried local stories including the lead up to its NRL Grand Finals. Despite its eighteen long years of popularity and ratings success, the local current affairs program was axed, due to a major schedule clean up for making space for Nine's now-scrapped one hour current affairs program, This Afternoon, presented by Andrew Daddo, Katrina Blowers and Mark Ferguson from 4:30pm weekdays starting the following Monday after its final ever broadcast. The decision was apart of a push to nationalise lead-in content for the network’s struggling news bulletins. The game show Hot Seat was moved to replace Extra at 5.30 pm.
In 2002, NWS-9 in Adelaide produced a local version of the program presented by weekend news presenter Georgina McGuinness. It carried national stories, but featured more local stories including the lead up to the 2002 AFL Grand Final. The Adelaide edition was short lived due to the very heavy competition of the Seven Network Adelaide's Today Tonight.
In January 2008, WIN Corporation announced that a new local version of ACA would be produced in Western Australia to replace the east coast version presented by Tracy Grimshaw. The first state based edition since Adelaide in 2002, the program's initial presenter, former newsreader Sonia Vinci, resigned prior to the show's commencement and was replaced by Louise Momber. The program was launched on 20 October 2008. A week later on 27 October, WIN launched an Adelaide version of the show on Adelaide, with Adelaide's National Nine News reporter Kate Collins presenting.[6] Both versions were short-lived — on 30 November 2009, WIN announced that Perth and Adelaide would return to the national format.[7]
Like its main rival broadcast on the Seven Network, Today Tonight, A Current Affair is often considered by media critics and the public at large to use sensationalist journalism – as depicted in the parody television show Frontline – and to deliberately present advertising as editorial content, as previously exposed on the ABC program Media Watch.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
In 1996, the show reported on the Paxton family from the impoverished Melbourne suburb of St Albans. The family were told that the show was about helping the family members to get jobs, but the version that aired claimed that the family were "dole bludgers" refusing reasonable offers of employment. After the story aired, the family received death threats.[16]
In September 2006 ACA was ordered to pay over $320,000 to former Australian swimming coach Greg Hodge in relation to indefensible defamatory allegations made in a 2003 story relating to Hodge's conduct towards a former swim student.[17]
In March 2010 ACA was found to have defamed acclaimed plastic surgeon Peter Anthony Haertsch in allegations aired in a 2008 report about a Gold Coast woman's breast enlargement procedure, and ordered to pay $268,000 damages.[18]
In June 2008 ACA broadcast a program about Queensland property developer Lev Mizikovsky. Mizikovsky sued ACA claiming he was defamed by the broadcast and in November 2011 a jury agreed, but found the defamatory meanings were defensible.[19] Mizikovsky is now liable for costs, which are reported to exceed $2 million.[19]
Overall in the 2008 Australian TV ratings, ACA achieved 1,124,000 viewers, 250,000 viewers behind the Seven Network's Today Tonight, which achieved 1,374,000 viewers.
Leila McKinnon is the main fill-in presenter when Grimshaw is on leave. Today presenter Karl Stefanovic, Weekend Today presenter Cameron Williams, Today sports presenter Ben Fordham and 60 Minutes correspondent Michael Usher have also filled in for Grimshaw in recent times.
In 2009, Extra was axed with the Nine Network investing money into other areas within the network. All Extra reporters were spread across the network in other reporting capacities from A Current Affair to Nine News.
Presenters
Michael Smyth was a fill-in presenter for Kate Collins
Presenters
Substitute presenter was Ebbeny Faranda.
. Erin-Jane Willing
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||