Latest news with #AmandaKeller
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Dancing with the Stars faces chop in huge blow for Sonia Kruger
The Seven Network is tipped to axe long-running reality show Dancing with the Stars after the forthcoming latest series wraps in July. A week before the 22nd season of the program is due to have its premiere comes word the broadcaster has decided to cancel the show. Such a decision would be a devastating blow to the career of host Sonia Kruger. According to industry sources Seven is no longer prepared to foot the bill for the expensive reality show for which production costs are estimated to come in at around $1 million an episode. That would explain why recent seasons have occupied just five weeks of Seven's production schedule and not 10 weeks as was the case back in the program's production heyday from 2005 to 2009. Seven's bean-counters have looked at the program and, we hear, decided the sun has set on the format – again. Having launched the show in 2004 Seven cancelled the broadcast in 2015 after ratings softened. Ten picked it up in 2019 and 2020 showcasing the talents of Amanda Keller as host before cancelling the program. Many were surprised when Seven renewed the show the following year in 2021 – the decision largely motivated, insiders said at the time, by the return to the network of Kruger in 2019. Kruger was co-host of the original local series alongside Daryl Somers. The cancellation of Dancing brings to three the number of Kruger-hosted programs Seven has ditched in recent years. This follows the network poaching Kruger from Nine signing on a seven-figure contract that made her one of the highest paid women on Australian television. Kruger was initially hired to host Big Brother which has since moved across the dial to Ten and golf show Holey Moley which was axed after one season in 2021. With only The Voice still on air, Seven finds itself under pressure to find a prime time vehicle for the versatile frontwoman. Jackie O versus Sam in battle of dating show blondes The latest battle for TV ratings is expected to pit blonde against blonde when radio's Jackie 'O' Henderson takes on Samantha Armytage as the big name presenters of rival dating shows Stranded on Honeymoon Island and The Golden Bachelor. Two years after the honeymoon ended for contestants, Seven has finally found a slot in its schedule for the Endemol Shine production Stranded on Honeymoon Island which is narrated by Henderson. There has been much conjecture about why Seven has taken so long to broadcast the expensive program which has been described as a cross between Married At First Sight and Survivor and sees producers match strangers looking for love before abandoning the couple, still dressed in their wedding garb, on a deserted island with few distractions. The last thing the network would want to do with a copycat (and possibly inferior) reality show is pitch it into direct competition with either of those two established programs. What a crack programmer constrained by budgets might do is hold onto the program and strategically schedule it against – or immediately ahead of – another dating show, one which has had its own gestational issues – in this case The Golden Bachelor hosted by one-time Seven breakfast star Armytage. The producers of Nine's Bachelor have had their own teething problems with The Golden Bachelor. These have included delays in finding an appropriately televisual 60-year-old+ bachelor, problems creating chemistry among older contestants and issues with the Sydney location. Seven network programmers will be hoping they've found a sweet spot in the year for Stranded on Honeymoon Island after shooting it in 2023. Jackie 'O' recently announced the program is slated to air this month. The KIIS FM breakfast star who was absent from her radio show for three days last week due to illness – she had the flu – and was off again this week when her radio partner Kyle Sandilands, a fellow Seven star, called in sick on Thursday, should by then be sufficiently recovered to hit the airwaves in earnest to plug the show. Chairman Kim's in-flight entertainment ABC chairman Kim Williams appeared to be in terrifically high spirits as he took to the air on board a Qantas Dreamliner flight from Sydney to New York last month. While this column can't confirm whether Williams sidled up to the nation's top brass in the Qantas's chairman's lounge prior to his flight as experienced and pampered chairs routinely do, this column can confirm Ita Buttrose's successor wasted little time slipping into his complimentary Qantas jimmy-jams for the 22-hour haul to the Big Apple via Auckland. According to eye witnesses, it was an upbeat and talkative Williams who boarded flight QF3 to New York. The ABC on Thursday clarified Williams' Sydney-New York May 16 business class flight was not funded by taxpayers. A spokeswoman furthermore said the ABC chair was travelling 'alone on non-ABC matters'. The statement suggests Williams will be picking up his own tab. While Williams' selections from the dinner menu drew little reaction – the options of seared snapper with vegetables, Korean braised chicken with rice or beef fillet with chimichurri with a selection of cheeses to follow, apparently equally distracting to all – his in-flight entertainment choice did prompt chatter. Not for the passionate classicist a catalogue of pre-flight downloaded arts documentaries, BBC news programs and stimulating audio compilations. While the ABC chairman's Kindle did keep him entertained for a good portion of the journey it was the media boss's film selection that brought chortling from nearby travellers. Williams, who was chief executive of Foxtel for a decade until 2011, has long been a supporter of Australian content and homegrown talent so his choice of a Nicole Kidman film was not surprising. Some squirmed in their seat when he hit play on Babygirl, a raunchy film in which Kidman plays a sexually frustrated woman drawn to a younger man who dominates her. Our eyes in the sky were unable to confirm whether Williams made it through Kidman's first torrid scenes and into her first bowl of milk, or he decided it was a little too much for aircraft viewing. No word on what he was doing in New York although his trip did coincide with the New York Upfronts preview season. Networks battle it out for investigative spoils Nine's statement on Thursday concerning the creation of a dedicated longform current affairs and investigations unit appears motivated, in part, by recent strikes against the media company by rivals Seven and Ten. The news that 60 Minutes' executive producer Kirsty Thomson will head up Nine's new unit is seen as an endorsement of the woman who lost the support of veteran reporter Liz Hayes before Hayes quit the network in February. Two months later Hayes turned up at Seven's Spotlight for a one-off guest appearance, a move seen as a public rebuke of Thomson and Nine which last year axed Hayes' Under Investigation series. Following Hayes' not so subtle swipe has come Ten's decision to launch its own news investigations unit. Claims Ten will invest $20 million in the unit have spurred talk the unit would come at the expense of Ten's much-depleted The Project.
News.com.au
27-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Amanda Keller gets emotional on air as she marks 35-year marriage amid husband's diagnosis: ‘It's hard'
Amanda Keller got emotional on air this morning as she marked her 35th wedding anniversary with husband Harley Oliver. Speaking on JAM Nation with Jonesy & Amanda, the radio host reflected on the three decades they've spent side-by-side through all the highs and lows – and how their vows 'in sickness and in health' have rung true in recent years following Oliver's Parkinson's disease diagnosis. 'I don't want to get emotional. It's my wedding anniversary today. And in the old days, Harley and I would have been going out to dinner tonight. But he's not well enough to do that,' she cried on-air to co-host Brendan 'Jonesy' Jones. 'When you stand there on your wedding day and you say forever, what does that even mean? You don't even know,' she reflected. 'I think all you can say is, I kind of feel the weight of potential that we can go somewhere here. And when you say the words, for better or worse, you know, what do they mean when you're in your 20s?' Oliver, who has been married to Keller since 1989, was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2017 but the radio host only made his diagnosis public in 2023 during an episode of her Double A Chattery podcast. At the time, Keller had noticed something wasn't right with her husband often dragging his leg and his hands started to shake. Soon after Oliver received news the couple had feared: he was diagnosed with Parkinson's – an incurable brain disorder that causes uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and co-ordination, with symptoms gradually worsening over time. 'In sickness and in health. And yet that's where we are. And no concept of what that means until you're living it,' Keller said this morning. 'I kind of fluctuate between taking great pride in the fight that we are alongside each other, and the strength that it takes to get up every day and still fight it and still live it.' 'But I don't think you can get to 35 years without the sands shifting between you beneath your feet. If you're living life, you don't get to cherry pick life. You engage with it as you find it. And Harley's very stoic, but it's hard. You know, I'm grateful today that here we are, 35 years and we're still in it together. But it's hard.' Keller says she doesn't dwell on the 'what ifs' and accepts their circumstances as they are but she'd be lying if she said she didn't sometimes have the 'absolute sh*ts' with what they have to deal with. 'We've lived a rich and wonderful life together, and we still do,' she added. 'But it's not the same as the old days where we'd be going out to dinner tonight. But the boys are coming over for dinner. And I'm grateful that we still have each other. But I wasn't going to get emotional. Anyway, happy anniversary, Harley.' Keller than said that everyone goes into marriage with no knowledge of what lies ahead in their journey, but that's all part of life – and she's grateful for it all. 'On your wedding day where you think no one knows what ride you're in for? None of us do. As Harley himself says, we all have an asteroid coming at us. We don't know what it is,' she said. 'We all think that we'll get to 90 and die in our sleep. I think the human condition is you can't afford to think otherwise, or you wouldn't get up in the morning. But people face stuff every day. And that's the meat of life. That's the meat of a long-term relationship. So, I'm grateful to have that.'
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Amanda Keller fights back tears on air as she reveals her husband is 'not well enough' to go out for their wedding anniversary following his heartbreaking diagnosis
An emotional Amanda Keller struggled to hold back tears this week while reflecting on her 35-year marriage to husband Harley Oliver. Back in 2023, Amanda revealed on her Double A Chattery podcast that Harley had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for years. A tearful Amanda, 63, opened up about the deeply personal highs and lows of the couple's three decades together, on her Jonesy and Amanda show on Monday. 'I don't want to get emotional,' she said. 'It's my wedding anniversary today.' 'In the old days, Harley and I would have been going out to dinner tonight. But he's not well enough to do that. But I've been thinking about this. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. 'How long have you been married, Brendan?' she asked co-host Brendan Jones, who replied, '30 years.' Amanda, who was in her late 20s when she walked down the aisle, added that the gravitas of the vows is often lost on young people at the start of their journey together. 'When you stand there on your wedding day and you say forever, what does that even mean? You don't even know,' she said candidly. 'I think all you can say is, I kind of feel the weight of potential that we can go somewhere here. And when you say the words, for better or worse, you know, what do they mean when you're in your 20s?' When Brendan brought up the concept of 'in sickness or in health' Amanda said it was a concept hard to grasp 'until you're living it.' 'I kind of fluctuate between taking great pride in the fight that we are alongside each other, and the strength that it takes to get up every day and still fight it and still live it,' she said. 'But I don't think you can get to 35 years without the sands shifting between you beneath your feet.' She added that life had been 'hard' since Harley's diagnosis and that making peace with the diagnosis can, at times, be difficult. 'Harley's very stoic, but it's hard. And, you know, I'm grateful today that here we are, 35 years and we're still in it together. But it's hard,' she said. 'You do fluctuate between dealing with what's in front of you and having the absolute s***s that you're dealing with what's in front of you.' While the couple's life has changed invariably since Harley's diagnosis, Amanda added that she was grateful. 'We've lived a rich and wonderful life together, and we still do,' she said. 'But it's not the same as the old days where we'd be going out to dinner tonight. But the boys are coming over for dinner. And I'm grateful that we still have each other. 'I wasn't going to get emotional. Anyway, happy anniversary, Harley.' Speaking to Stellar in 2024, Amanda admitted that it took her a long time to accept Harley's diagnosis. 'I've gone through a phase of being angry because I'd say things to him like, "Oh, come on, stand upright", or "Your voice…", I knew what it was, he'd been diagnosed,' she said. 'We've lived a rich and wonderful life together, and we still do,' she continued. 'But it's not the same as the old days where we'd be going out to dinner tonight. But the boys are coming over for dinner. And I'm grateful that we still have each other. 'I knew what was going on but I found it hard to accept. And I feel now I'm very much on the path of acceptance – or that radical acceptance, as we speak about.' She continued: 'Some days that's a phrase that I'm trying to live and other days I do feel it. But we're both on the same page now. For a while I was kind of fighting it.' Amanda revealed in October 2023 that Harley had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for years. The breakfast radio host, who has been married to Oliver since 1989, explained her husband received the diagnosis about six years ago, but the couple had only now decided to discuss the disease publicly. Parkinson's is an incurable brain disorder characterised by uncontrollable movements, including shaking, stiffness, and challenges with balance and coordination. Unfortunately, the symptoms of Parkinson's tend to worsen over time.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Hear ye, hear ye: a Renaissance Faire is coming to Thunder Bay
A group of volunteers has been working hard to bring a new Renaissance Faire to life in Thunder Bay, Ont. The CBC's Mary-Jean Cormier recently spoke with Jason Feller and Amanda Keller from the festival's organizing committee to learn more.
The Age
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
It sounds twee, but this musical ABC series strikes an emotional chord
The Piano ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ In the current television landscape of 'event TV' and prestige streaming, free-to-air programming has become something of a poor cousin to the White Lotus es and Nicole Kidman's parade of designer coats in everything she's appeared in over the last five years. But the ABC's new series The Piano is a sweet reminder of the kinds of things that free-to-air TV does so well. Loosely pegged to World Piano Day (which is apparently in March, but never mind), this six-part series is a reality music program (of sorts) without any of the nastiness associated with some in the genre. Hosted by Amanda Keller, who is surely the most genuine person on TV and radio, the series aims to explore how the piano has transformed the lives of everyday Australians, from a five-year-old girl to a 103-year-old man. Selected from around the country, these amateur pianists are invited to perform at public pianos – you know the ones, they pop up at shopping centres and train stations, where it's miraculous they're not graffitied to within an inch of their steel frames – and tell their stories of what music, and specifically the piano, has meant to them. The pianists are led to believe that sharing their story with Amanda and playing in public is the extent of the series, but there's an additional element that isn't revealed to each batch of pianists – each hour-long episode takes place in a different public space, from Sydney's Central Station, to Melbourne's Preston Market and grimy old Southern Cross Station – until the end of each episode. All the performances are being covertly observed by two professional pianists – Grammy-winning pianist and crooner Harry Connick Jr (who must be happy to learn that not all Australian television is like Hey Hey It's Saturday) and Andrea Lam, one of Australia's leading classical concert pianists. As well as offering commentary on each pianist's style and their passion for the instrument, the pair is tasked with selecting one performer each episode to mentor, who they will then help prepare for a concert at Sydney's City Recital Hall. As none of the participants are aware of this angle, each performance remains wholesomely pure; everyone is participating merely to share their story.
