ABC poaches Nine reality TV boss Adrian Swift
Public broadcaster the ABC has poached the Nine’s reality TV boss Adrian Swift in a surprise move, appointing him as head of content and creative development.
Swift had run many of Nine’s biggest franchises of the last few years and is credited with being behind programs including The Voice and Big Brother, which have helped lead a revival at the TV network. Two days ago he spoke to Mumbrella about Nine’s plans to revamp The Voice after disappointing ratings for its finale.
“Adrian is one of the most highly regarded production executives in the country,” Richard Finlayson, director of ABC television in a statement. “His experience across public broadcasting, digital media, and in building broad, engaging shows for Nine, gives him a unique perspective to lead ABC Content into the challenges ahead.”
“He’ll be joining a first class team of creative leaders, with a slate in good health and we are delighted to have him on board.”
Great hire.
“Nine reality TV boss”? Isn’t his title “Head of Development & Digital”?
Calling him a reality TV boss is inaccurate reporting. Sure, reality is part of his portfolio but so is everything else. It would be like calling Nic Christensen Mumbrella’s “Head of Gossip” rather than “Deputy Editor”!
Was it something we said about his revamping of the voice?
Reality tripe, rubbish on Auntie? Fuck NO!
Isn’t Karen Dewey the head of reality at Nine?
Great hire, and anybody who judges Adrian Swift by the reality stuff he’s done for 9 has a surprise coming. Don’t expect him to churn out the same stuff for ABC because Swift knows how to package the right material for the audience. He did great work at SBS TV, spearheading its massive push into sport with great success, and whatever the ABC needs I reckon he can deliver.
What an inspired appointment! I could not think of anyone better than Adrian to meld contemporary content trends with the charter of a public broadcaster. The News Corp world does not see the import of a national treasure like the ABC. The fact that someone with a commercial track record like Adrian’s does is a testament to Mark Scott, Richard Finlayson and Kate Torney.
He won’t last three-months mixing with the lefty-feminist women already working in (running) the ABC’s programming department. God help him but boy has he got a big shock coming, especially coming from the Boy’s Club!
Well it wasn’t for more money…
An inspired poach– at last! Adrian is one the smartest brains in broadcasting, and his years in the commercial sector will have focused his attention to audiences. We can fully expect he will pul off some great programming ideas that will help redefine the ABC as the smart place to be– even as the rest of TV get dumb and dumber. Can’t wait
Not satisfied with making a trite left-wing bias claim about the ABC we now get critics making sexist ‘lefty-feminist women’ supposed put downs. It just gets harder and harder to take seriously comments from people stuck in an untested routine.
Adrian Swift knows enough about the industry to understand where he is going and who he will be working with. Good luck to him.
Care for a wager Henry?
As they say, a fool and their money are soon parted, and I can sense a dollar or two in this for me.
Smart choice ABC!
Who are the lefty women running ABC programming?
Bit of an odd shot at Brendan isn’t it?
It is interesting that certain people in the current Commonwealth Government and the Murdoch empire are hellbent on the destruction of our ABC. Perhaps they think that everything has to be commercial. But the commercial world doesn’t care as much as the ABC about telling Australian stories. That’s why there needs to be a publicly-funded national broadcaster.
Now, Adrian Swift’s joining the ABC is game-changing for him, the ABC and Australia. As he says above, “Joining the ABC is very much a creative decision. To have the ability to help the National broadcaster in its significant role in reflecting and defining Australian culture through the most powerful medium of all – television – is an opportunity I just couldn’t turn down.”
In other words, here is the guy that has made some of the best ‘popular’ television in Australia (e.g. The Voice) saying that, while there’s a place for that, Australian culture needs something far greater. It’s not commercial for the networks (or probably for Adrian himself), but it is part of our fabric as a nation.
I vote and I watch (and listen to and browse) the ABC. Well done to Scott and Finlayson for ensuring that our ABC will stay relevant to all of us for years to come.
Congratulations to Adrian and the ABC!
Adrian joining the ABC is the equivalent of Auntie installing a television defibrillator!
I think he will make a great contribution and he’s obviously looking forward to the challenge. This is REALLY interesting.
Congrats Adrian, great hire, great talent, top bloke.
Sounds like Swift jumped ship at Nine rather than being pushed after the disappointing Voice ratings this year.
Great appointment for the ABC. Very timely. Congratulations Adrian.
Congrats Adrian
great appointment, Adrian is a really inspiring guy.
He did wonders for SBS I can see him doing it again for the ABC
Wow. A massive loss for Nine and a major coup for the national broadcaster. Congratulations Adrian.
Now for Adrian to sack all the dead wood at the ABC. It will be a long broom. He will walk around the ABC corridors wondering what all these people do. 50 people at the ABC do the job of 8 at Channel 9.
Many years ago Kerry Packer said there were far more people working at the ABC in Adelaide than at Nine in Adelaide. Then he discovered those at the ABC ran a number of radio stations a well as a number of TV stations. He had to eat his words. How do you like your words cooked jennifer?
Point well made Lindsay.
Let’s throw in that the ABC’s charter also means that they HAVE to service – equally – all the rural and remote markets, markets that the ‘efficient’ metropolitan commercial operators wouldn’t thinking of servicing.
For example, Sydney is just over 12,000 sq. kms of our national 7.7m sq. kms., or about 0.15% of the land mass (remember you need LOTS of broadcast towers to cover large land masses). It has a TV population of around 4.8m out of our national population of around 23.55m people, or around 20% of all people (or around 100x the TV population density).
Imagine if the commercial channels had to provide an equivalent service!
Well Lindsay I have walked around the corridors of Melbourne and Sydney ABC, as well as the halls of Channel 9, and even the staff at ABC, and I mean nearly all of them, admit middle and upper end management is hugely over managed. A 10 minute meeting at channel 9 to decide next Thursdays updated run down can involve three meetings at the ABC, with 10 people, not just the three at channel 9. So do some basic research and ask any staff member at the ABC, are we overstaffed in middle to upper management ? the honest answer is yes. Adrian Swift will gladly pass this on privately once he has settle into the job for a few months. The cut of 800 or so staff due in October from the ABC is years overdue. Lets see how many of them get a job in commercial tv ?? about 20 if they are lucky as they live in the public service world of yesterday.
Well Jennifer, I too have walked the corridors of the ABC in Sydney as well as those at Channel 9. The people I met at the ABC all say if only there was more time and equipment life would be easier. At 9 they had it all and little to do. Many had worked in both establishments, but all agreed life was a lot easier at 9 and they were paid better too.
Lindsay you live in a different world. Ask Adrian in 3 months who is right. And asking ABC staff ? you must mix in the wrong circle. Ask actual middle/senior management. They all rightly fear for their jobs, yet most admit they will not find a job in commercial tv when they are terminated. The leftie bias is hilarious. A cull of only 800 means they are getting off lightly. Like SBS privatise the whole place and let the staff live in the real world. A bit like SBS making radio at 3am in 4 languages for 300 people is a joke.
ABC news 24 with minute audiences ? Running in High Definition ?
Again don’t take my word. Ask Adrain in a few months. He already chuckles at the staff he has met at the ABC.
Jennifer, I do not know anyone working at the ABC who is not in fear of for their job. The Abbott government has made it obvious there will be job cuts. Many at the ABC came from the commercial world and many in the commercial world are ex-ABC. So if there are jobs available people will get them regardless where they may have worked.
I also do not know of the leftie bias people on the political Right complain about. It is all a bit silly really; their problem is the ABC is that it is not biased to the Right, totally different than being Left biased. You also seem a little confused, mixing SBS with the ABC and blaming the staff for things they do not control at ABC 24. If your description was half true then it is a wonder Adrian took the job.
Jennifer, this is silly stuff, truly. Privatise the public broadcasters? The loudest opponents of that would be those paragons of free enterprise , the owners of Australias commercial TV and Radio networks. ABC TV already consistently out performs one commercial network it’s radio stations around the country regularly top the dial. SBS radio! which you attack, runs on the oiliiest of rags and is mostly a valued podcast for its listeners. Your perception of bias reveal your own prejudice..ABC is polls as the most trusted media organisation in the country year after year, by far. As public media habits fracture, there has never been a better case for national public broadcasting. Audiences flock to,it in vast numbers, can it improve? of course. Adrian clearly got sick of commercial TV. I am sure he is not alone. Think you could succeed in public broadcasting? Not by the sounds of it
No Leftie bias of the ABC ? Hilarious.
Left bias in the ABC is a lot like the mythical bunyip. Often talked about but nobody has ever proved it exists.
Given that ‘the left’ has become the ‘centre-right’ over the past 30 or so years, there is basically no left anymore. So ‘leftie bias’ and any perceptions of it is an artefact of those who cling to the politics of the Cold War.
Jennifer
That’s what I like about trolls. They work in a fact free universe. Latest Essential Poll on Trust in Australian Media:
Lot/Some Trust: ABC 58% Commercial TV: 29%.
No Trust At All: ABC TV 7% Commercial TV: 19%
http://essentialvision.com.au/tag/trust-in-media
Bias, by definition, is in the eyes (and ears) of the beholder. Overwhelmingly, Australians do not agree with you Jennifer. And thanks for ignoring the fact that the organisations who would object most to the ABC being privatised are the very businesses you idolise: commercial broadcasters. Oops.
Ask any staff member at the ABC who they vote for and almost universally and with a snigger it is Labor or the Greens. Journos joke you have to be a leftie to work in the place. Read a survey of journos-
http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6647246897
This has been much discussed and the ABC staff will confirm it.
(34 ABC journalists who agreed to declare their voting intention, with 41 per cent of them saying they would vote for the Greens, 32 per cent declaring support for Labor and 14 per cent backing the Coalition.)
Simon you sound like a university leftie troll trying to hang on to the bloated ABC of old. Lets see how many of the 800 who get sacked in October get picked up by the commercial networks. I can assure you it would be less than than 40 people if that. These amazing talented people have had it easy for too long, and the 36 hour week they cling too does not exist in the commercial world.
Got to laugh at the hypocricy of this appointment with the ABC crying poor that the government have cut their funding so they have been forced to make a whole bunch of people redundant yet they are fine to shell out how ever many hundreds of thousands of dollars to attract this guy.
It’s not Adrian’s fault I know and I am sure he is worth every cent but if I were one of the people who just left their job, I would be reviewing my letter to see exactly the reason was they were letting me go then marching of to Fair Work.
Jennifer,
you make the usual error, conflating ABC News and Current Affairs with the entire organisation. Unless you are like Piers Ackerman and concerned about leftie bias of Pepper Pig, it kind of ignores the reality that as we (have to ) vote, its probably not the determining factor in our entire lives, or even our world views. Personally I’d prefer the right not to vote for any of the current lot, but I don’t have that luxury. Your survey is no more useful a guide to actual outcomes than the (correct) claim that of former ABC staff in politics, nearly all are on the conservative side. 7,910 have all laid off hundreds in recent years, is it relevant where they are working now? Likewise newspaper staff? Its just a nothing argument (bolstered by pure assertion). And by the way, I have run my own production company for 25 years…don’t work for the ABC and never finished uni. Australia as a grown up democracy would be infinitely poorer without pubic broadcasting, for all its imperfections.. You can go on Being Lara Bingle if you wish, that’s your right, but leave the rest of us out of it. And why don’t we judge Adrian by what he achieves, not where he’s come from.