Back in 2005 one of the Australian entertainment industry’s most long-standing egregious oversights of career recognition was rectified, when The Easybeats were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Unwittingly, that same year a new oversight was created to take its place, when Neighbours took its very rightful place in the Logie Hall of Fame, leaving fellow soap opera, and since then proven champion of the genre in Home & Away out in the lurch.
Now, a gap of a couple of years between the two soaps entering the Hall might have been acceptable, and understandable. In fact, it was probably apt to follow the same pattern as their broadcast premieres, and put Neighbours in first, followed by Home & Away two years later.
And yet, here we are ten years down the track and the gang from Ramsey Street is still sitting atop their lofty throne, whilst Summer Bay waits, and waits, and waits.
However this year, at long last, it’s looking more and more likely that Home & Away will finally ascend the golden staircase to take its well-earned place among the pantheon of the small screen Australian gods. Or, y’know, something like that.
Australia’s leading TV blog TV Tonight reports that rumours are abound that this year Home & Away will become only the fourth show to be inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame.
The soap opera debuted on Australian screens back in 1988 and has been a staple of Channel Seven‘s programming through 28 seasons and nearly 6,200 episodes, and remains one of Australia’s most consistently popular TV shows, with an average nightly viewership that hovers around the 900,000 people mark.
If true, the show would become the fourth show inducted into the Hall, behind Four Corners, which went in in 1992, Neighbours in 2005, and Play School in 2006.
The Logie Hall of Fame reads like a murderers row of the Australian TV industry, with names like Bert Newton, Graham Kennedy, Johnny Young, Reg Grundy, Don Lane, Bud Tingwell and Steve Irwin among many, many others.
A curious anomaly that bears mentioning is that of the 31 members of the Hall, only one is a woman – Ruth Cracknell, who was inducted in 2001.
Home & Away, of course, serves as a platform for a litany of young Australian actors to cut their teeth in the industry, and has produced some of the nation’s most revered and successful actors, the likes of which includes Isla Fisher, Heath Ledger, Guy Pearce, Chris Hemsworth, Julian McMahon, Simon Baker, Naomi Watts, Melissa George, and Ryan Kwanten.
Take this news with a grain of salt for the time being, as the Inductee will not officially be revealed when the awards are handed out at the 2015 TV Week Logie Awards on May the 3rd. But it is an accolade that is well, well, well overdue.
via TV Tonight.
