Glass House Shattered*

Oh yeah.

Well, it's finally happened. The ABC's most once-kinda-funny show, The Glass House, has been axed. Sorry, not axed, just not renewed...yeah.

The Age links this axing to the current bruhaha surrounding the ABC's political bias content issue. Apparently The Glass House was "at the centre of a storm over allegations of anti-Howard Government bias."

And yet Courtney Gibson, head of ABC Arts and Entertainment, has maintained there is no link:

She went on to say that comedy and satire is exempt from the new editorial
policies and assured listeners that satirical program The Chaser will
return and that Wednesday night timeslot will be reserved for Australian-made comedy. the age

I'm in two minds about this. There are a few issues here.

The first is that I wasn't sure about comedy being exempt from the bias issue:

Insiders complain that the reach of the strict guidelines is too wide. They
include programs on the arts, education, history, Aboriginal affairs, lifestyle,
science, health and even comedy chat shows. the age 16/10/06

These "strict guidelines" and the so called bias watching going on with The Glass House could be different things, but I smell a panic-station response from Gibson there.

On the other hand, I tend to go with Gibson on this because, lets face it, Corinne, The Glass House lost it two years ago and you're beating a dead horse. The ABC knows that and that's why they're not renewing. And don't tell me about the ratings being good this year. Its the ABC, you think they care?

Maybe its a combination of the two issues: content and quality. Maybe the ABC will tolerate biased stuff if its of good quality . Take this excerpt from an interview with the Chaser guys from year ago when they were promoting The Chaser Decides:

Reucassel believes Denton’s absence will be felt in their dealings with the
ABC.
"Denton has the status of a god around here and that helped, and I hope
that they trust us in the same way."
The answer to that question may be found
in fact that the ABC has appointed Rehame to monitor all of the ABC’s election
coverage.
The national broadcaster says that net covers everything, including
The Chaser Decides.
"I think that’s quite ridiculous," Reucassel says. Firth
agrees, describing the move as absurd.
"It’s all in the voice," he says,
before declaring loudly: "John Howard is the greatest," in a tone that probably
impressed a Canberra staffer reading a Rehame transcript, but doesn’t exactly
leave the listener convinced.
"We are claiming we have the most unbiased
coverage in the history of the universe," Firth adds.
"We’re going to ignore
all that, because you have to. The ABC has its own little layers of management
to deal with that."
That said, Reucassel points out the ABC has historically
been "very sensible" about understanding the difference between satire and
straight reportage.
"They recognised there were different standards for
satire than news. As there must be when you’re dealing with comedy. It’s very
different to news. It’s very different to reporting." The Age. 16/9/04

The Chaser, Andrew Denton, Kerry O'Brian, Media Watch etc... all get away with it (and always have, content watching is clearly not new) because they've earned a reputation for having a certain quality. I'm afraid eluding to a sexual relationship between Bush and Howard in between double entendres about Dave Hughes buying sex is just not worth renewing.

The Glass House never really cut it. I watched it because it was on after whatever BBC comedy program they had on and before At The Movies. Sometimes they have funny guests on.

Put The Chaser's War on Everything in that timeslot PLEASE ABC! That way I wont miss it on Friday nights!

* Forgive me. Come on, I had to.