Ben Lee suggests shock jocks host Triple J Hottest 100. No, not quite

Showing all posts about entertainment

Ben Lee suggests shock jocks host Triple J Hottest 100. No, not quite

19 July 2025

The shock jocks in question are Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, who host a show — The Kyle and Jackie O Show — on a Sydney based commercial Australian radio station. The pair, especially Sandilands, often find themselves in hot water, on account of inappropriate and offensive comments made on air.

Last Wednesday, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article making the claim Australian musician Ben Lee had suggested Kyle and Jackie O host Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 countdown.

Triple J is a non-commerical Australian radio station with a focus on broadcasting new and independent local music, but mixed with non-Australian indie music. The Hottest 100 charts listeners’ favourite songs of the previous calendar year, regardless of country of origin.

But next Saturday, 26 July, Triple J will broadcast a one-off Hottest 100 of listener’s all-time favourite Australian only songs, as part of their fiftieth birthday celebrations.

In response to the Herald article, Lee posted a clarification on his Instagram page, saying Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown, in its present format, should be broadcast by a commercial station. The jays, Lee explains, as a government funded station, should only support Australian music.

What I’m saying is let commercial radio handle servicing multi-national major labels — that’s their job. Triple J is taxpayer funded and I think those funds would be better used almost exclusively supporting Australian artists and culture.

I get where Lee is coming from here.

But the Hottest 100 is a draw card event for the jays, and likely introduces new listeners to the station, who in turn go on to hear the station’s predominately Australian music programming. On the other hand, as Lilya Murray, writing for Arc, a UNSW student publication, points out, representation of Australian artists in the Hottest 100, has been declining in recent years:

In 2024, only 29 Australian artists featured in the Hottest 100. This was a significant drop from 2023, which featured 52 local artists, and 57 from 2022.

Triple J has a mandate to broadcast a minimum of forty-percent Australian music, though the station claimed in 2019 they played closer to sixty-percent. Why then would fewer Australian musicians be featuring in the annual countdowns?

One suggestion here is that many Hottest 100 voters are not regular Triple J listeners, and are voting up music they’ve heard elsewhere. But I’m not sure you can stop people voting for non-Australian music, unless maybe it wasn’t aired on Triple J in the first place. After all, the Hottest 100 is meant to be a poll of Triple J listeners, not other stations.

But I doubt a one-hundred percent focus on local music, both played by Triple J, and included in the countdown, is the answer either. I’ve always enjoyed the jay’s mix of new and independent, and predominantly Australian music, and the annual Hottest 100 that results.

But more discussion about local music can only be a good thing, something the misleading notion that Kyle and Jackie O host the Hottest 100, might have precipitated.

Cast of The Castle reunite, but not for a sequel, nor a prequel

16 July 2025

Alisha Buaya, writing for Media Week:

Uber has reunited Australian film icons, stars of The Castle, Michael Caton, Stephen Curry and Anthony Simcoe, to highlight Uber Green’s transition to a fully electric rideshare product.

The Castle, was made by Australian actor, comedian, and filmmaker, Rob Sitch. The 1997 film is a feel good, David versus Goliath comedy, about a working class family attempting to stop property developers taking their home, their castle, away from them.

But wait until you see where the home is located.

The Uber promotion informs riders they now have the option to hire an EV for their journey. As yet, I’m not sure just how much of The Castle — aside from the stars — comes into this.

Triple J turns fifty, will rank Hottest 100 Australian songs to celebrate

12 July 2025

Happy birthday to the jays, which clocked the milestone back in January.

To mark the momentous occasion, a special all-time Hottest 100 countdown of Australian songs will be broadcast in a week, on Saturday 26 July 2025. This chart varies from the annual Hottest 100 countdowns, which rank the favourite songs of Triple J listeners, released each calender year, regardless of country of origin.

Voting closes on Thursday 17 July 2025, at 5PM AEST, so if you haven’t participated, time is running out. Now to the thorny question. What would I vote for? After giving the matter some thought, here’s what I came up with:

Alive by RÜFÜS DU SOL
Lie to Me by Vera Blue
Evening Star by All India Radio
Anthem for the Year 2000 by Silverchair
Rabbit Hole by Jess Day
Never Dance Alone by Crooked Colours
Let Me Down Easy by Gang of Youths
Under the Milky Way by The Church
Heart Attack by Flight Facilities
The Trouble with Us by Chet Faker and Marcus Marr
Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil

There are more I’d choose, but I think ten songs is the most you can vote for, as is I’ve listed eleven.

Netflix adapting My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin into a TV series

27 June 2025

Talking of Miles Franklin, the late Australian author, not the literary award named in her honour, Netflix is filming an adaptation of her 1901 novel, My Brilliant Career.

Principal photography is currently underway in parts of South Australia, with Melbourne born Australian actor Philippa Northeast in the role of Sybylla Melvyn. Here’s the novel’s synopsis:

Trapped on her parents’ outback farm, Sybylla simultaneously loves bush life and hates the physical burdens it imposes. She longs for a more refined lifestyle – to read, to think, to sing – but most of all to do great things. Suddenly her life is transformed when she is whisked away to live on her grandmother’s gracious property. There Sybylla falls under the eye of the rich and handsome Harry Beecham. Soon she finds herself choosing between everything a conventional life offers and her own plans for a ‘brilliant career’.

Anna Chancellor portrays Sybylla’s grandmother, and Christopher Chung has been cast as Harry Beecham. At this stage, word has it the show will screen either later this year, or in early 2026.

While you’re waiting for the TV show, track down and watch Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film adaptation of My Brilliant Career, which starred Judy Davis and Sam Niell as Sybylla and Harry respectively.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the third and final Downton film

25 June 2025

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, trailer, directed by Simon Curtis, with a fair chunk of long time Downton cast members reprising their roles, will be released globally on Friday 12 September 2025.

I’ve only ever seen series three of the original TV show, which aired in the second half of 2012, and that’s because I was gifted the DVD set of the series some years later. I saw the first spin-off film, simply named Downton Abbey in 2019, but missed the 2022 follow-up, Downton Abbey: A New Era.

It’s tricky to work out what’s happening based on the little of the story we see in the trailer for The Grand Finale. One thread of the preview seems to revisit the earlier part of series three, where the possibility the Crawley family would have to leave the Abbey, loomed large. But who knows.

There’s no missing the finality of that title though.

AI-host presents Australian radio show undetected for six months

28 April 2025

CADA, a Sydney based radio station, was, without a word said, using an AI-generated DJ to host one of their shows, for possibly as long as six months. The ruse came to light after Australian writer Stephanie Coombes, acting on a tip off, was unable to track down any bios, press releases, or social media presences for Thy, the twenty-something presenter of the four-hour, weekday show.

Australian Radio Network (ARN), who owns CADA, later said in a statement to Mediaweek, that Thy was part of a “trial” of AI audio tools. Thy’s voice, according to the statement, was based on that of a woman working in the ARN office.

There’s a few things at play here. One is the broadcaster’s failure to disclose their presenter was AI-generated. Another is the time it took to pick this up. I don’t listen to CADA, and never heard Thy’s show, but the AI avatar must have been convincing in the extreme, if others listeners didn’t think anything was amiss, even after six months.

There’s also the point that this is the direction broadcast media might be moving in, that is, away from people as presenters, to AI-created entities. In addition, the suggestion has been made that other broadcasters might already be using AI hosts for shows, that have not, so far, come to light.

One well known AI-radio presenter however is Debbie Disrupt, a newsreader on Melbourne based radio station, Disrupt Radio. In this instance though the station made it clear from the onset that Debbie was not a real person. That particular stance seemed to move in Disrupt’s favour.

Han Solo shoots first: original 1977 Star Wars print to screen in London

17 April 2025

The British Film Institute (BFI) has kept a copy of the 1977 print of Star Wars in their archive, which will screen as part of Film on Film festival, in the British capital, taking place from Thursday 12 June until Sunday 15 June 2025. I have the feeling tickets will sell quickly.

After making changes to the original edition, Star Wars creator George Lucas dismissed the concerns of fans in 2004, berating them for liking “half a completed film”.

Numerous alterations were made to A New Hope, and the other two titles in the original trilogy series, but the most contentious saw Greedo, a bounty hunter, firing his weapon first at Han Solo during their confrontation at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Viewers of the 1977 print will recall it was Solo who shot first. The edit went on to spawn the Alderaan shot first meme.

How many people will Oscar winners thank? How long will they speak for?

3 March 2025

A forty-five second limit for Oscar acceptance speeches was introduced in 2010, but that doesn’t always stop the motivated. Or those who feel they need to acknowledge everyone who contributed to their award. Back in the day — seventy plus years ago — acceptances were usually only a few words long. But a decade ago, they were pushing three-hundred words, says Stephen Follows:

Acceptance speeches in the middle of the 20th century were exactly that, a chance to accept the award and say thank you. Over time, they have evolved into a platform to express opinions, share emotions, and highlight personal journeys.

Why the increase? Having the undivided attention of what was once a large, captive audience, might have been something to do with it. Today, of course, Oscar recipients have the social media platforms, offering a continuous outlet, not just forty-five seconds of television.

On the subject of social media platforms, the size of Oscar television audiences has, overall, been in decline — at least in the United States — plunging to a nadir of about ten million viewers in 2021. What’s going on there? Were people keeping tabs on the Oscar’s ceremony through the likes of TikTok and Instagram, or has there been a general loss of interest in the awards?

Next up: the James Bond sequel trilogy and Bond villain origin stories

24 February 2025

Long time producers of the James Bond films, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, have agreed to sell the decades old film franchise to Amazon. The new arrangement gives the tech giant full creative control, and Amazon has already indicated they intend to “move beyond the franchise of the James Bond movies”.

Who knows exactly what that means at this stage, but looking at what happened to Star Wars, after series creator George Lucas sold the sci-fi saga to Disney in 2012, probably gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Good luck 007.

I gave up on the Bond films years ago. I think 2012’s Skyfall was the last one I went to a cinema to see. I never made it to No Time to Die, the Daniel Craig finale, which was released in 2021.

But Bond had stopped being Bond a long time ago. Indeed, the entire premise belonged to a bygone era. The barely plausible Bond had ceased to be relevant. Even Roger Moore, who portrayed the fictional British intelligence agent seven times between 1972 and 1985, once told late Irish–British broadcaster Terry Wogan, he thought the character was ridiculous:

“Bond films are so outrageous, the stunts are so outrageous,” Moore told Wogan. “Everything is beyond belief.”

In a way though, the slapstick nature of the earlier films was a big part of their allure. The stories were a bit of light-hearted, if fast paced, escapism. Efforts in recent decades to make the series darker, and grittier, to appeal to a new, and wider audience, seemed futile to me. Why not retire the James Bond films all together, and create a brand new character, and story arc, instead of rehashing something that’s decades old? But this is a point I’ve made before.

It’s not like there’s a shortage of new stories to bring to the big screen. That, however, is clearly not the way Amazon sees the situation. As with Star Wars, they know there’s a ready, nostalgia craving audience, waiting to see whatever new Bond offerings are forthcoming.

I take Amazon’s desire to “move beyond” will see movies, TV shows, video games, and graphic novels, among other things, based on other characters — from what will no doubt become the Bond universe — assuming centre stage in stories of their own. With nary a glimpse of Bond in sight. I don’t know, some of this stuff might be ok, but maybe it won’t.

Good luck 007 fans.

RELATED CONTENT

entertainment, film, trends

Chappell Roan wins best new artist at the 2025 Grammys

4 February 2025

American singer/song writer Chappell Roan, who topped the 2024 Triple J Hottest 100 just over a week ago, was named best new artist at the 2025 Grammys yesterday.

Roan used her acceptance to call on record companies to offer more support to emerging artists, in the form of improved healthcare and financial support, telling gathered industry executives: “we got you — but do you got us?”

RELATED CONTENT

awards, entertainment, music

« older posts