They Said We Wouldn't Make It: 2019 in a nutshell

Welcome to the gateway, to QLD television’s sixtieth. Kuttsywood’s Couch in 2019, will be a cornucopia of wonder, including a major piece being shifted out of 2018, due to the feeling that it would be stronger as a look back this year. But first, let us entertain you with a major announcement, right off the bat and has been promoted since Christmas, and it concerns one post that has been alive and well for 10 years straight in 2019.

The future of Kuttsy’s Pitch.

After 10 years of posts, and three spinoffs to date, Kuttsy’s Pitch as a yearly mainline concept will be rested after 2019’s Pitch Weekend. This has been a tough decision, but it means, the spinoffs can be focused better, and not come out yearly too: after all: Radio and Fare Pitch were received well (because they were spinoffs far removed from the television focus of the mainline series), along with Kuttsy’s Pitch X in 2018: but if the spinoff series is to continue beyond 2019 with some complexity (e.g. get a spinoff post out every two years or so): the TV focused series will have to be rested. The TV landscape has changed dramatically since Kuttsy’s Pitch’s birth in 2009. Perhaps a break, is better than working to the bone.

But before we send Kuttsy’s Pitch in it’s current form, into the grave: let me give you a introduction to what will be the game changer.

Lock in this date:  August 10, 2019. That will be the date (and incidentally, six days out from QLD TV’s sixtieth and six weeks after the tenth anniversary of Extra’s demise), the final (for the time being) Kuttsy’s Pitch in it’s classic form will come onto Kuttsywood’s Couch.

Some highlights:

-The Lost Doug Murray Melbourne Cup Tip for 2010.

-Ten News First… at coming last.

-A historic first: running from Anzac Day to May 22, we will be undertaking a four week local news study: where each network’s QLD evening news service (that is, not just 7/9, but 2/7/9/10) will be studied for 7 days each, and have monitored, items such as local stories, and live crosses: to see who really is the local news king: perfect for news promos or just plain old evaluation.

And finally -Our P.I.T.C.H tips, so you can continue to put the pressure on, after we aren’t around to do just that.

Kuttsy’s Pitch: Stand Up 4 The Northside.

The fourth spinoff, will be coming sometime in 2019.
What is “Stand Up 4 The Northside” you may ask? It’s a intensive look at the issues that will dominate talk at the 2020 LGA elections, along with a few issues that, in our minds should get a look in at the same time: and it’s building off the momentum that #bris3xit should have driven.

Another highlight from 2018, that will be pushed into 2019:

Sargent, Taylor, Carroll, Barton: The 6:30 War.

The renaming, of this post (better recognizing the fact that the compares (Haydn Sargent (Haydn Sargent’s Brisbane/The Sargent Report), Glenn Taylor (Today Tonight/State Affair), Andrew Carroll (Today Tonight/7:30 Report QLD/Carroll at 7) and John Barton (Today Tonight) helped shape the war for hearts and minds just as much as the content did) also allows us to expand the scope: that is, not have it at a dead end in April 1987, but push it out until Hinch’s arrival in 1989.

Main Line Evolution:

Our counter towards the “North Coast Connect” proposal, for a new rail line to the Sunshine Coast.
30 years after the completion of Main Line Electrification, between Caboolture and Rockhampton, and 21 years after the introduction of tilting trains on the Rockhampton-Brisbane route we ask whether it is now feasible to start planning for the future: a passenger-only rail line between Brisbane and Rockhampton that can achieve speeds of up to 140km/h average (cutting Brisbane-Rockhampton travel times down to just 4 hours and 30 minutes: inc. stops in major centres only (with the increased frequency (and better connections), compensating for the removal of Mt Larcom (bussed to Rockhampton), Miriam Vale (bussed to either Gladstone or Bundaberg), Howard (bussed to Maryborough West), Cooroy, Nambour and Landsborough (replaced by a Maroochydore long distance station), and potential shift of Moreton Bay’s QR Travel station to Petrie from Caboolture) which would not only push the potential of narrow gauge rail, but open up opportunities (with the right improvements north of Rockhampton, inc. possibly a Rockhampton rail bypass and electrification) to eventually run a daylight rail service from FNQ to Brisbane (that is, leaving Brisbane at sunrise, getting into Cairns at sunset, with a potential second benefit: development of a regional rail service for North Queensland.)

Network 2021: Northern Region bus network rebuild.

This entails, a critical rewrite and redesign of the bus network implemented with Moreton Bay Rail, alongside a wider scope: evolving the networks that have been existent for forty years or more, and adding more spokes to the Moreton Bay mobility wheel, just when it is needed, with USC at the Petrie Mill site becoming a wider reality.

A salute to 60yrs of QLD TV:

A series throughout 2019, looking back at some of the best stuff relating to our industry from the microfiche archive, on our Facebook and Twitter presences, which will kick off on March 12: our 10th Twitterversery, with a literal throwback to the past almost every week.

The Diamond of Confidence:

Our 60yrs of TV logo, will be attached to the 6:30 War piece, when it is delivered, along with any other significant pieces that come up along the way this year: that have not been announced today.

And, finally: Expo Fever… is running behind schedule.

Lost TVQ: Expo Fever, will be out within two months. The post is at practical completion, bar a few minor touches, and will also include a passionate plea, about making what is rightly “our” Expo 88 audio-visual heritage accessible to all, and preserved before we lose it forever.

And did I say that was all?

Our symbolic project, in QLD’s 60th year of television will indeed be something that I have been vocal about for years. As far back as 2012, I have stated, that the TV Week Logies Hall of Fame deserves to be chosen by the people, along with removal of the immediate posthumous induction rule, that will likely see older women, and some early years legends get ignored in favor of more  recent programs. That thought eventually tied in with the astounding lack of women enshrined in TV Week's hall: which is still a club of three women: Ruth Cracknell, Noni Hazelhurst and Kerri-anne Kennerley: with only Noni and KAK living long enough to continue basking in it’s glow.

I want to change the world, and I want TV Week and the industry to stand up and listen.

Thus, in 2019: the same weekend as the Logies, we will announce a people’s Hall of Fame class, of 2019. Four women, four men inducted as part of the “People’s Australian Television Hall of Fame” and it will be decided by the people, not by a industry that is rapidly losing sight of the past.

The “People’s Australian Television Hall of Fame” will be the one huge legacy we will hope to take out of Queensland TV’s sixtieth year. And, we want our fellow TV reporting sites (e.g. TV Tonight and BlackboxTV) to support the concept, so we can work in concert, to bring this concept to life.
And remember: The P.A.T.H.O.F success is a long one, and it will begin with one small step.

#PATHoF