The ARIAs Did Cut Matt Okine’s Speech, But Not For The Reason You Think

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Published

November 27, 2015

The only thing being talked about after last night’s ARIAs is the fact US rapper Azealia Banks‘ name was flashed up as one of many ‘Aussies‘ who killed it on the international festival scene this year #youhadonejob.

Apparently Azalia Banks is Aussie hahaha they probably mean Iggy. @BuzzFeedOz #ARIAs pic.twitter.com/lpBZ4utPEb

— JACKIE (@JackieWarner13) November 26, 2015

JKs, it was Matt Okine‘s truthbomb about the award show’s underrepresentation of female talent when there’s *plenty* to go around.

Using his winners’ speech for Best Comedy Release as a platform, the straight-up legend called out the lack of female nominees in his category – a trend present for 5 years.

Winner: Best Comedy: @mattokine – Live At The Enmore Theatre #ARIAs https://t.co/Z0aIWS83d7

— ARIA (@ARIA_Official) November 26, 2015

It was truth. It was triumph. It was the talk of social media.

Except, when the ARIAs was broadcast on Ten from 7:30pm, the entire segment was MIA; returning from an ad break, it was acknowledged that Matt had won but the speech wasn’t aired.

Semi-understandably, people jumped to the conclusion that it was a sinister plot to censor his spoken truths.

Looks like the telecast cut-out the ‘controversial’ @mattokine speech… Poor form.

#ARIAs

— Leon Sjogren (@Leonsjogren) November 26, 2015

Fine to cut @mattokine about gender equality, but lets live cross to 5SOS looking like slobs to annouce their OZ tour. Get it right #ARIAs

— Silvia Pinneri (@siilvp) November 26, 2015

Matt Okine says after calling out lack of females “if I don’t get invited back to the #ARIAs that’s fine”. Wonder if that will make it to TV

— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) November 26, 2015

“Yeah let’s cut out the only intelligent thing anyone’s gonna say all night out of the broadcast”-#ARIAs @mattokine https://t.co/s1elQL09lJ

— Dave (@davegrohlbloom) November 26, 2015

This news.com.au article may have had something to do with that, TBH (it’s today been updated with information similar to that in this article, but the headline etc remain the same).

Comedian and JJJ breakfast co-host Matt Okine used his speech at the ARIA Awards to call out sexism in the industry, but it was strangely cut.

Posted by news.com.au on Thursday, November 26, 2015

BUT everyone needs to chill the fuck out for a second, because there’s a reasonable explanation behind the whole thing, which is this: Best Comedy Release never goes to air because of time restrictions.

Regardless of Matt said or didn’t say, it was never scheduled to air.

“Best Comedy Release was never scheduled to be part of the broadcast,” confirmed an ARIA spokesperson to P.TV. “There are eight ARIA Awards in total that don’t make it to the broadcast because of time restrictions, however each of these off-air awards are posted on the night to ARIA’s official social media accounts to ensure all Australians can view the acceptance speeches in their entirety.”

Which is true – Matt’s winners’ speech was posted in its entirety on the official ARIAs account shortly after it wrapped in live-time.

While it sucks that Comedy Release is one of the awards that gets the axe for the sake of ‘time constraints’ – i.e. it’s not a category viewers are gagging to see awarded – there are another 8 in the same boat, including Best Independent, Best Adult Contemporary, Best Blues & Roots, Best Urban Album, Best Country Album, Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album and Best Children’s Album.

So there you have the *real* reason.