Agencies
CX Lavender promotes joint client services directors
CX Lavender has announced the promotions of Georgina Thomas and KaLing Ng to the role of joint client services directors.
Thomas, who served as business head, is a long-term CX Lavender employee and has been with the agency for 12 years.
Ng joined the communication and customer experience agency one year ago and was previously in senior roles at Richards Rose and Leo Burnett.
Thomas and Ng join the CX Lavender leadership team to helm its business management function and are charged with the delivery of consistent client experience and results across the agency.
M&C Saatchi Australia promotes Emma Robbins as national executive creative director
M&C Saatchi Australia has announced the promotion of Emma Robbins as national executive creative director.
Robbins will work alongside Cam Blackley, chief creative officer of M&C Saatchi Group ANZ, to build better connected creative leadership across the agency’s Australian operations.
Robbins joined the Melbourne agency four years ago and has secured several notable wins, including Victorian State Government, Origin and WorkSafe.
The new position has been designed to create broader opportunities for creative solutions across M&C Saatchi’s Australian network as the ecosystems and ambitions of their clients diversify.
Entertainment
MTV VMAs 2022: Taylor Swift wins and Johnny Depp surprises in chaotic ceremony
Taylor Swift took home the night’s biggest prize – and announced a new album – during the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, a chaotic, bleep-heavy show that nodded to music phenomena past and present, and featured a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp, reports The Guardian’s Adrian Horton.
Swift, who won best longform video and video of the year for All Too Well (10 Minute Version) for her 2021 re-recorded album Red, was the only artist to double-up on televised awards. Across three hours, MTV moonmen statues went to industry veterans such as Nicki Minaj (best hip-hop) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (best rock); non-English superstars such as Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny (artist of the year) and Blackpink’s Lisa (best K-pop); and newer faces Jack Harlow (song of summer), Lil Nas X (best collaboration, with Harlow, for Industry Baby) and Dove Cameron, a former Disney child star turned actor, who surprised some to win best new artist.
Radio
Meet the new host of 3AW’s Wide World Of Sports
Sam McClure will be the first host of 3AW’s Wide World Of Sports, which is set to begin on November 2, reports 3AW.
McClure, who is well known to the station’s audience, will be joined by a rotating roster of superstar footy and sport commentators, with details to be announced in the coming weeks.
He spoke with Tom Elliott on Monday after the news was announced.
[Listen to the interview here]
Television
What Logies speech? Lisa Wilkinson returns to The Project
In a year where both of The Project’s main female hosts, Lisa Wilkinson and Carrie Bickmore, have been absent for extended periods of time, Wilkinson finally returned to hosting duties on the show last week, reports News Corp’s Nick Tabakoff.
Her low-key return came more than two months after her tumultuous Logies victory speech led to her disappearance from the show in June, with sources close to the Wilkinson camp confirming to Diary at the time she had taken herself off air due to the ‘toll’ from widespread criticism of the speech.
During her hosting hiatus, 10 secretly whisked Wilkinson off to Los Angeles (in, by all accounts, a military-style operation) to conduct interviews with the likes of celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and pop legend Don McLean. Oddly, she then briefly returned to The Project for a week of hosting duties in July, before again disappearing on scheduled holidays at the start of August.
Fresh batch: New hosts, judges for Great Australian Bake Off
Foxtel is hoping some fresh new judges and saucy new hosts with provide the right ingredients for the new season of it’s wholesome reality TV cooking show, The Great Australian Bake Off, reports News Corp’s Karlie Rutherford.
World renowned culinary expert Rachel Khoo and pastry king Darren Purchese will replace long-time judges Maggie Beer and Matt Moran.
Comedian Cal Wilson and You Tuber Natalie Tran, whose observational videos have been watched over half a billion times, become the show’s new hosts, stepping in for Mel Buttle and Claire Hooper.
Hughesy doesn’t discuss Masked Singers with his kids (but apparently they picked Mirrorball)
A number of readers have expressed cynicism around Dave Hughes correctly guessing Melody Thornton as Masked Singer‘s very own Mirrorball, because his answer seemed to come from nowhere late in the final episode, reports TV Tonight.
But also because the former Pussycat Doll isn’t exactly a household name in Australia.
How did someone so terrible with answers suddenly turn into Sherlock Holmes?
“I actually got my family to listen to Don’t Cha (Wish Your Girlfiend Was Hot Like Me). They listened closer than I did and they said ‘Who’s that voice?’ and I said ‘I don’t know.’ But I Googled that voice and it was Melody Thornton, one of the Pussycat Dolls!”
But was it really his genius kids or was it a helping hand from producers keen to get her name out there and stop the audience from collectively asking “Who?” when the mirrorball was removed?