Only women will be seen and heard across ABC programming on Wednesday as the broadcaster celebrates International Women’s Day.
Starting with ABC News Breakfast, an all-female line-up will lead the radio and TV news bulletins and current affairs programs and present across the day on radio and News 24, and Triple J.
It’s a controversial move that’s been criticised by many, but Today show host Karl Stefanovic is supportive of the decision and showed us why with a brilliant stunt this morning.
While interviewing News Corp’s Sunday Mail editor Peter Gleeson, who was critical of the move, Karl asked what would happen if The Today Show gave all women on set “two minutes off”.
Then the studio went black.
A visibly distressed Karl said, “Okay can we have the women back and make TV great in this country please?”
It was a clever stunt that had presenters Lisa Wilkinson and Sylvia Jeffries laughing and saying “the place falls apart” before giving Karl a round of applause.
Listen: Meet Helen Fuller. Grandmother of ten who overheard a conversation on a train….and stepped in.
However, ABC’s all-female line-up has not been so well-received by other media organisations.
Former federal government staffer Peta Credlin slammed the move as a “token gesture” in the Daily Telegraph.
Top Comments
Well done ABC. And well done men who invented TV, Radio and Internet so this message could be sent in all the broadcasters mediums.
And we'll done those women like Stephanie Kwolek and shirley jackson who played an integral part in the invention of fibre optic cable so you can stream that tv, or thank Hedy Lamar if your streaming via wifi and don't forget Katherine Blodgett and non reflective glass. Etc etc
And well done Ada Lovelace, "the first programmer" for her work, without which the internet could not exist.
And to Charles Babbidge, designer of the first computer. It was steam powered, and sadly never built, but it lay the foundations for Ada Lovelace and others to build and program increasingly complex machines.
Champ