29 April, 2017. 10:23
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
After close to a month of speculation, Sky News Australia has announced that Mark Latham’s Outsiders program will be replaced by Rock Bottom, a popular tabloid news show featured on US animated series The Simpsons.
Earlier this month, Austar’s most watched news channel specularly dumped Latham after a string of highly publicised controversies that saw him question the sexuality of a Sydney schoolboy and make derogatory comments about some of his female media colleagues.
However, the network is looking to move on with a fresh, new angle aimed at luring in the nation’s youth.
Speaking to The Advocate earlier today, a senior executive at Sky said he was ‘excited’ and ‘prepared’ for the future has in store for the joint media venture.
“Rock Bottom is instantly recognisable and relatable to anybody under the age of 30, which is a market Sky is looking to poach as Channel 10 is looking more and more likely to fold this year,” he said.
“Host Godfrey Jones has the integrity and journalistic fire that we love to foster here at Sky, I can’t wait for the show to begin in the winter time.”
But Rock Bottom is not without its own controversies.
In 1995, the show aired a segment that detailed how a Scottish landscape architect took voyeuristic and perverted videos of unsuspecting people, which later turned out to be false – destroying the man’s reputation in the process.
“We have also been made aware of the ‘sorghum sex farm’ controversy, but steps have been taken to mitigate the risks involved with running a show such as Rock Bottom. We’re not concerned at all.”
More to come.
