Last week, Lamestream broke the news that the ABC was set to announce a major shake-up of its Indigenous teams, after making the position of Head of Indigenous for ABC TV redundant.
Now, we can reveal that Managing Director Hugh Mark’s latest restructure will put an end to the decades-long ABC tradition of commissioning and developing TV shows that tell Indigenous stories, overseen by a specialist department.
The last person to hold the role of Head of Indigenous was Kelrick Martin. Over his 10 years in the position, he was responsible for comedy, documentary and scripted TV programs including Black Comedy, The Dark Emu Story, Total Control. He also was responsible for Always Ways Tonight, a satirical news show hosted by Tony Armstrong.
Lamestream revealed last Monday that despite featuring prominently at last year’s ABC upfronts, Always Was Tonight had been cancelled by the ABC after only one episode, after it drew condemnation from right-wing commentators.
Andrew Bolt criticised the show before it had even aired, and his continued complaints that the show made fun of celebrations of Australia Day, as well as complaints that the show was “anti-white”, eventually led to the Liberal Party calling for an investigation of the ABC. The party’s communications spokesperson described the show as an “all-time low” for the ABC.
It’s understood the ABC’s position is that the show was only ever commissioned as a one-off special, but Lamestream understands the January 21 special episode was widely understood internally to be a pilot, with more episodes to air in the future. Plans for the show's future were discussed internally earlier this year, before the axing.
