Six months out from Australia’s 64th Logie Awards, the television industry’s biggest awards ceremony is about to undergo some major changes in both the award categories and the judging process.

The August 18 ceremony, to be held in Sydney on for the second year running, will look remarkably different this year.

While the top three awards of the night will continue to be presented as “most popular” – with nominees decided by a panel of
independent industry experts, before being voted on by the public – the remaining 20 awards have been renamed.

There will now just be “best” – a combination of the previous “most popular” and “most outstanding” categories. Previously, the popular awards were voted on by fans. The most outstanding shows were voted on by a jury of Australian TV industry professionals.

Winners of all the “best” awards will be decided by a combined score as determined by judges, according to the assessment criteria, supplied audience data and number of Australian public votes.

“Re-naming the categories “best” makes it a little easier to understand, though it does take away most of the people’s voted ‘most popular’ categories,” TV Blackbox expert Steve Molk tells The New Daily.

“The Logies runs long and reducing the number of awards helps, and which is more important? Most Outstanding or Most Popular? I think we both know.”

Host of The Front Bar, Sam Pang, did a splendid job of hosting last year’s Logie Awards at The Star in Sydney: Photo: Getty/TV WEEK Logie Awards

A statement from Logies organisers explains the changes include separating comedy from drama in the acting categories
given its popularity and success as a genre. Separate categories for best actor and actress awards is similar to how the Emmy Awards operates in the US.

Drama has been 
separated from miniseries and telemovie, and the comedy and reality categories will, for the first
time, be split into Scripted Comedy and Comedy Entertainment, and Competition Reality and
Structured Reality, respectively.

Judging panels will also be expanded “with the aim of securing greater representation from Australia’s rich
and diverse television industry”.

Recruitment is now underway for anyone with at least five years TV or screen experience.

TV Week’s editorial director Amber Giles told the Sydney Morning Herald the organisers met with broadcasters after last year’s awards, hosted by The Front Bar‘s Sam Pang to discuss future changes.

“[We] … met with all broadcasters after last year’s awards for feedback and to discuss what could be put in place to modernise and future-proof TV’s night of nights, which hadn’t quite caught up to where Australia’s screen industry is now and where it is heading,” Ms Giles said.

Reaction

Flaws in the way voting for who wins the most popular category were raised by Hard Quiz host Tom Gleeson in 2019. His tongue-in-cheek guerrilla campaign saw him pull off a shock victory and walk away with the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian TV.