The new wave of COVID in Sydney has forced Seven to pull the plug on the 2021 season of Australia’s Got Talent, TV Blackbox confirmed.
With NSW currently in lockdown, Seven has decided to cease fire on production and instead produce extra eps of the upcoming Big Brother all-stars (titled Big Brother VIP) and current affairs series 7NEWS Spotlight.
The news comes shortly after Seven announced that actor Neil Patrick Harris and British singer Alesha Dixon had been flown in for the show, alongside Home & Away queen Kate Ritchie and comedian Shane Jacobson.
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Now, both NPH and Alesha Dixon are apparently being yeeted back home, just days after emerging from a two-week stint in hotel quarantine, which has gotta suck.
Last week, the network reportedly made plans to remedy the CBD’s lockdown by moving Australia’s Got Talent filming from Sydney’s Star Casino to Rooty Hill RSL. But in the days that followed, it was announced that Greater Sydney (yep, that includes Rooty Hill and its beloved RSL) would also be part of the lockdown.
A spokesperson for Seven confirmed the decision to halt the show, telling TV Blackbox:
“Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions in Sydney, we have decided to postpone production of the new season of AGT to a date to be determined.
A studio audience is a vitally important part of this much-loved show, so we have made the responsible but tough call to not go ahead for now.
A big thank you to our judges – Neil Patrick Harris, Kate Ritchie, Alesha Dixon and Shane Jacobson – and our host Ricki-Lee, and we hope to see you again soon.
The postponement is disappointing, but there is a lot of great content to come on Seven across the rest of 2021, including Farmer Wants A Wife – which starts this Sunday – The Voice, SAS Australia, Big Brother VIP, more of our high-rating 7NEWS Spotlight specials, a special on William Tyrrell, the AFL Finals Series, Bathurst 1000 and, of course, the Tokyo Olympics.”
If all goes well, production will resume in 2022.
What a bummer!
Matty Galea is the Senior Entertainment Editor at Pedestrian who also dabbles in woo-woo stuff like astrology and crystals and has been penning horoscopes since the start of his career. He also Tweets about pop culture and astrology and posts spicy content on Instagram.
