ABC in talks of new show with original MasterChef judges
MasterChef Australia's three original judges – Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris – are in talks to reunite for a mystery television project.
Six years after Preston, Mehigan and Calombaris last collaborated, executives at the ABC are hoping the three can be brought together to recreate the MasterChef magic in a new culinary program on the public broadcaster.
Industry sources last week said the trio hoped the yet-to-be-greenlit program would relaunch their prime time television careers.
Flamboyant food critic Preston and restaurateur/chefs Calombaris and Mehigan enjoyed 11 seasons as presenters and judges on MasterChef before the three made a pact in 2019 to jointly walk away from the Ten Network reality series if they couldn't extract a better deal.
Industry claims, reported by your scribe at the time, had it the men had each demanded a million dollar contract from Ten.
This was 18 months after the financially embattled network had been acquired by American media company CBS (later rebranded Paramount) after entering into voluntary administration in 2017.
Despite the program's consistently high ratings, Ten refused the trio's demands and the presenters left the program.
The following year Preston and Mehigan were signed to Seven's short-lived cooking show, Plate of Origin, alongside chef Manu Feildel.
The program lasted just four weeks and was cancelled due to poor ratings however both would be invited to appear on the 2022 season of Seven's My Kitchen Rules.
The two have remained regular collaborators and this year have joined forces to conduct food adventure tours in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as a tour of India.
Meanwhile prior to and after his departure from MasterChef Calombaris was sunk in financial scandal after it emerged he had underpaid restaurant staff $7.83 million.
Following the closure of his 21 restaurants his company went into voluntary administration.
He eventually made his return to television in 2022 on Ten with a six-part docu-series entitled Hungry after working diligently to rehabilitate his career and reputation.
All three men are said to be keen to re-establish the chemistry that made them household names from 2009 and to relaunch their on-screen partnership, even with the expected downsized ABC pay cuts.
SEVEN'S POWER MOVE
Departed Nine Network journalist Chris O'Keefe has received an approach from the Seven Network to return to television.
Former Seven Perth news director Ray Kuka was only days into his new job as replacement for recently departed national news boss Anthony De Ceglie when Kuka started canvasing for an experienced hand to take the reins of his Sydney newsroom.
The approach follows this column's revelation Seven's Sydney news director Sean Power, promoted under De Ceglie to move across from executive producer of Sunrise to run Seven's Sydney newsroom, is headed home to Melbourne.
We hear the well-regarded Power is currently without a job to go to in Melbourne but is hopeful Kuka will find him a role.
It's news that has to be unsettling for the network's appointed-under-De-Ceglie Melbourne news director Chris Salter.
Power's impending departure would be less of a problem for Kuka were he now permanently relocated to Sydney.
With his family remaining in Perth – and Kuka apparently in no hurry to quit Perth for Sydney – he's under pressure to appoint a strong and loyal 'number two' to helm his newsroom in the nation's news capital.
O'Keefe, who was a reporter for Nine for over a decade before trying his hand at talk radio on Nine-owned Sydney station 2GB, quit the media, and Nine, at the end of last year.
After announcing he was to start his own political advocacy business he surprised former colleagues by joining the Clean Energy Council as its national spokesman.
According to our Seven sources, O'Keefe didn't hesitate in declining Kuka's offer leaving the Perth news veteran, another chairman's pick by Kerry Stokes or so we hear, to go hunting for a new contender.
JULIE'S ANGUISH CONTINUES
Julie Martin's heartbreaking statement to a coronial inquest has confirmed claims the mother-of-three has become a virtual recluse in her eastern suburbs home since her daughter died in a random attack at Bondi Junction 13 months ago.
Friends of the lawyer say she has been held up in her eastern suburbs home for over a year refusing to leave the house or take phone calls.
Sources say the grieving mother has, since her 25-year-old's daughter's tragic death, stopped leaving the house to shop for food and provisions and now has groceries and supplies delivered to her home to help avoid public scrutiny or contact.
A second statement tendered to the inquest this week also contradicted media reports the soon-to-be married Dawn had been at Westfield Bondi Junction to shop for make-up for her upcoming wedding.
Friends of the deceased have previously informed this column Dawn was set to have her makeup done by a professional on her wedding day, and had no need of wedding-day cosmetics.
Having received a stern rebuke from Dawn's younger sister Daisy for granting an interview to 60 Minutes, Dawn's father John Singleton has taken a lower profile since the inquest began on April 28.
PAY PARITY TAKES BACKWARD STEP AT NINE
The last word for the week must surely go to a report in The Australian earlier this week that Sarah Abo is earning $800k-a-year as co-anchor of Nine's Today show.
The figure is roughly a quarter (or 28.5 per cent based on the lowest end of his estimate) of the salary currently being paid to her co-host Karl Stefanovic whose salary has been put at between $2.8 million and $3 million.
Now this injustice should stick in the craw of Nine's news boss Fiona Dear, the first woman ever installed to run Nine's TV news division.
If Dear (and Nine CEO Matt Stanton) has crunched the numbers, as indeed we have, the gender pay gap between the two Today co-hosts has grown since former anchor Lisa Wilkinson lost her job at Nine in 2017 for fighting hard – some have claimed too hard which we reckon is nonsense – to achieve pay parity with Stefanovic.
While comedian and radio host Dave Hughes will always be a hero in our eyes for taking a pay cut in 2017 to ensure his co-host Kate Langbroek, who was on 40 per cent less, was given an equitable salary bump and even Kyle Sandilands insisted early in his radio partnership with Jackie 'O' that his 2DAYFM increase her salary from $80k to an equitable arrangement, it seems sexism is still king in television or at least in Nine's light news division.
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