Australia Your Friendly Neighbour
The current Neighbours promotion in the UK will do more to publicise Australia than any Australian Tourism advertising campaign could ever achieve – and for a smidgeon of the cost.
In this the soap’s 25th year, BBC 5 – the UK broadcaster is running a competition called Be A Star on Neighbours which will see the winner spend five weeks on set. That’s a wonderful ‘prize’ in its own right, but of course there is much more at stake. The role will also give the winning applicant worldwide exposure, as the show is screened in over 65 countries.
And as we all know, Neighbours launched the careers of Guy Pierce, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan and created a lifetime of employment for the likes of Ian Smith who played Harold Mitchell for 20 years.
The winning actress – who must be over 18 years of age, will play Poppy Rogers, a friend of Mal Kennedy. Poppy will be staying with the much-loved Kennedy family during her time on Ramsay Street, alongside Dr Karl and Susan – who was ranked the 7th most popular TV mother in a UK poll.
Aspiring actresses must down load the script and upload their auditions onto You-Tube.
The public’s top two finalists will be announced in the UK at the end of June and in July both will fly here for a week of orientation, where they’ll meet the cast and crew and be put through their paces by Neighbours’ producer Neal Kingston and Executive Producer Susan Bower. The winner will be announced at the end of the week and the winner will immediately start a four week contract filming the role of Poppy. The episodes featuring the competition winner will be aired both here and in the UK later this year.
The BBC’s and Channel 10’s publicity departments will go into overdrive with the publicity of this character and the show, and this is why I say this competition will do more for the promotion of Australia to the Poms in particular but the world, generally, than any Australia Tourism advertising campaign.
“Poppy” will no doubt get to see and do many iconic (if not somewhat clichéd) activities like hold a koala, pat a kangaroo, go to the footy, visit Ayres Rock, climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, swim at Bondi Beach…
And of course, there will be several inter-show cross promotional opportunities with Bondi Rescue or Bondi Vet – both of which are already screened overseas.
Speaking of overseas, the television executives and programmers are recovering from jetlag having returned from the South of France. Poor things. Each year at MIPCOM – the trade show for television industry, deals are done over a pina colada as networks buy up overseas comedies, drama and reality shows.
Good news for fans of crime writer Patricia Cornwell. Channel 7 has picked up the rights to broadcast a series of movies based on her novels. Meanwhile, Channel 9 has secured the rights to screen a TV industry satire series called Episodes starring Mat Le Blanc (as himself!). If it’s anything like Working Dog’s exception production, Frontline we are in for a treat.
Another import Channel 9 has picked up is the US version of Who Do You Think You Are? It will premiere tonight (Wednesday, April 28, at 9.30pm). If you are not familiar with this show, it’s a kind of Find my Family celebrity style.
The series will kick off with Sex and the City star, Sarah Jessica Parker, then include Lisa Kudrow (Friends), Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields and Matthew Broderick – interestingly predominately women – who travel around the world and go back in time to unearth fascinating stories about their ancestors. They learn how their family links to the past have shaped the world they live in today.
SBS has screened the original BBC series over the years and of course produced their own fantastic local version which featured Ron Barassi, Ita Buttrose, Catherine Freeman and Jack Thompson and has promised us another series.
