Lynne McGranger takes the Gold, Tom Gleeson makes mischief and the ABC cleans up: Highlights of the 2025 Logies

Sydney Morning Herald

a day ago

The third season of the show about a brown-suited suburban lawyer swept the comedy category, bringing wins as best series and for cast members Kitty Flanagan, Julia Zemiro, Aaron Chen and Glenn Butcher.
Nine won six awards (including one in conjunction with Stan), while there was one each for Binge/Foxtel (Sam Neill for The Twelve) and Ten (Have You Been Paying Attention?).
The ceremony got off to a banging start, with Jimmy Barnes belting out Working Class Man, a performance that brought the room to its feet barely three minutes into what would be a four-and-a-half-hour ceremony.
The emotional highpoint came almost three hours in, when Magda Szubanski was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame. Currently undergoing treatment for stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, she wasn't at The Star in Sydney. But her taped speech was full of the warmth and humour that has made her one of the most popular TV personalities this country has ever produced – even if she doesn't have the Gold Logie to prove it.
'Let's get this out of the way,' she began, after being introduced by fellow comedian Marg Downey, a friend since the pair met on the junior tennis circuit aged 11. 'I have not been awarded this honour because I have the cancer. I am getting this because of 40 years of hard work – lobbying, bribing, threatening, whatever it took.'
Szubanski soon dropped the jokes to express gratitude for 'the love and support that I have felt, like a tsunami, from the Australian public … when I go online and look at those messages, every time, my heart lifts, and I feel that much stronger to deal with the cancer. So thank you for the love that you are pouring my way, I really feel it.'
Seven, though, may have been forgiven for feeling a little less affection.
There has been confusion and some disgruntlement in the industry about changes to the way Logie votes were calculated this year. Previously split into peer-voted 'most outstanding' and publicly voted 'most popular' categories, the bulk of the awards are now 'best', a hybrid of expert vote (30 per cent) and ratings (20 per cent) to generate nominees, and public vote (50 per cent) to determine winners.
The new system is, say critics, confusing, opaque, and all but guaranteed to ensure SBS, for instance, will struggle even to be nominated for anything bar Alone.
The fact the streamers do not release ratings numbers may also have factored into their disappointing showing on the night, effectively handing them a 20 per cent handicap. Perhaps. There is so little transparency that it is impossible to know for certain.
What is clear is that the relentless promotion of its own shows in the lead-up to and even during the telecast – including a three-minute pre-recorded promo spot for The Voice that aired in-show – there was a strong sense that the fix was in for Seven's nominees.
And Tom Gleeson, a man who knows more than most about gaming the system, was having none of it.
Taking to the stage with Gold Logie nominee Poh Ling Yeow, the Hard Quiz host and shock winner of the Gold in 2019 summed up what many were apparently thinking.
'You are not going to win because you are not Channel Seven,' Gleeson said, veering wildly from the script he had reportedly delivered in rehearsal. 'By giving out awards themselves … it is becoming a bit like Channel Seven's invited us to their house so we can watch them wank.
'To be fair, voting is still open,' he continued, referring to the fact that votes for the Gold could still be cast until 10.30pm. 'Over 1 million people watching, if everyone voted for Poh, it could be an upset. You know I love an upset. I am saying you can vote for Channel Seven if you want to, but if you don't know, vote Poh.'
Gleeson wasn't the only presenter to take a spray at a network. Ten copped a serve from Tom Gleisner as he accepted Have You Been Paying Attention? 's win for best entertainment program.
'It has been a tough year on Ten,' he said. 'We've seen the end of some very fine shows and mysteriously the recommissioning of a second series of others. Who knows what's happening in this crazy world?'
Host Sam Pang – whose opening monologue was hilarious, edgy and occasionally very dark – also took a dig at his employer over its recent programming choices.
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'Ten replaced The Project with 10 News+, which is like the Titanic being replaced with the OceanGate submarine,' he said, referring to the doomed submersible on which five people died in 2023.
Immediately after Pang's monologue ended, Kitty Flanagan took to the stage with Anne Edmonds and took a dig at streaming services Binge, SBS On Demand and 10 Play – 'or, like, 'won't play'' – for their technical issues. 'It would be lucky to get one play, let alone 10 plays,' she added.
Melanie Bracewell also took aim at the beleaguered network on which she appears. 'Personally, I can't wait for the new season Survivor: Network 10 vs Jonathon LaPaglia's lawyers ' – a reference to the recent decision to axe the host of Australian Survivor after 10 seasons.
On the red carpet, SBS's Marc Fennell had lauded the Logies as a night when the entire TV industry comes together and celebrates what it has in common. 'You sometimes forget that there are other people making all these other kinds of shows, until you come to events like this,' he said.
But if it were possible to gauge the mood of the industry from this gathering, you might get some very mixed signals.
Like, maybe free-to-air TV isn't yet ready to cede the game to streaming entirely. Or that some of Australia's funniest performers are happy to bite the hand that feeds them when they feel it's deserved. Or that the Australian public is still willing to get behind a home-grown scripted show such as Fisk if they feel it speaks to them with brains and warmth and plenty of laughs. And maybe even that running the game might give you some wins, but not all.