The Project is gone – but the battle to attract younger viewers to news continues
When The 7PM Project premiered on July 20, 2009, it promised to do 'news differently'. Its trio of hosts – stand-up comedians Charlie Pickering and Dave Hughes and radio newsreader Carrie Bickmore, who had developed a TV profile on Rove Live – were aged in their 20s and 30s and provided a fresh, youthful alternative to long-standing nightly news shows such as The 7.30 Report (as it was then called) and A Current Affair.
Unabashedly pitched at an audience of younger consumers – Millennials then aged in their 20s and early 30s – the first episode featured an interview with MasterChef Australia winner Julie Goodwin, former Australian Idol host James Mathison reviewed storied current affair show 60 Minutes, and Ruby Rose interviewed Sienna Miller for the film GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
It was, as Dave Hughes and Carrie Bickmore recalled in a 2017 interview for news.com.au, 'stressful'.
'I was absolutely terrified before the first episode because we were doing something that hadn't really been done before,' said Hughes at the time. 'It was serious news with jokes slammed right in the middle of it. It was really different and I was certainly concerned that every time I opened my mouth during that first episode that I was going to ruin my career.'
Added Bickmore: 'The only thing I remember is when the show ended, breathing out and hearing Dave Hughes say, 'Well, I think I just ended my career'. I remember thinking, 'Shit, if Dave Hughes is saying that, then what hope have I got?''
It all sounds very quaint now, but at the time The Project broke the mould. It was snappy, funny and with its targeting of issues such as domestic violence, sexual assault, protecting Australian wildlife and banning plastic bags in supermarkets, it hit a nerve few other programs did. It connected with a young audience that was hungry for news, who leaned more to the left and who wanted a bit of comedy and celebrity sparkle thrown into the nightly mix.
It also was not alone. In 2013, The Project (it changed its name in 2011) was joined by The Feed on SBS and the ABC's Tonightly with Tom Ballard in 2017, with both mixing news reporting with features and comedy on a nightly basis.
Along with the satirical group The Chaser and their various shows on the ABC, these programs catered to a growing youth audience that wanted the news and who had, importantly, yet to be distracted by their smartphones.
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