Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Newsreader
The Newsreader is an Australian television drama series created by Michael Lucas and broadcast on ABC Television, starring Anna Torv and Sam Reid. The show explores the personal and professional lives of the journalists and crew in a 1980s Australian newsroom.
The first season premiered on August 15, 2021 and became the ABC's most-viewed drama program of that year. The second season premiered in September 2023. Each season was met with critical acclaim and received the most nominations of any show or film at the AACTA Awards in 2021 and 2023. The third and final season was released on 2 February 2025 on ABC iView.
On 19 September, all remaining episodes (episodes 3–6) were made available on ABC iView, on-demand, prior to their linear broadcast. Each episode was accompanied by a podcast that interviewed talent and other guests pertinent to the events of each episode.
All episodes were made available on ABC iView prior to linear broadcast; on the morning of 2 February 2025, the series' premiere date.
The series was created by Michael Lucas and Joanna Werner and directed by Emma Freeman. Filmed in Melbourne, the series was written by Michael Lucas, Jonathan Gavin, Niki Aken and Kim Ho. Joanna Werner and Stuart Menzies, along with Brett Sleigh and Sally Riley on behalf of the ABC, executive produced the series. The series was supported through investments from Screen Australia and Film Victoria.
Lucas began working on what would become The Newsreader around 2015, during his work on Party Tricks and the fifth series of Offspring. Initially, it was not based around a newsroom setting, and the series was instead built upon a male and female lead that represented the flipping of gender stereotypes; a male lead "desperate to live up to [...] a particular version of masculinity" that "wasn't an actual fit" for him", and a female character required to match and contrast this male character with, who would comprise "those traditional masculine qualities" instead. The 1980s and newsroom setting was decided upon later, which Lucas concluded both elicited and compelled "more pressure on [both characters] to fulfil certain roles", with the masculine qualities of a newsreader juxtaposed against the misogyny of the 1980s that "punished" women that held them. Lucas' research into newsrooms of the 1980s over 2015 and 2016 – which included spending time interviewing those who worked in them at thetime – found that female newsreaders were caught in an "era of change", in how to present themselves and "look in a workplace" and industry dominated, and influenced by how "viewers liked the news [being] read" by, "very masculine voices of God". He undertook an assiduous and mammoth task of reading "nearly every newspaper from 1986", with a particular focus on letters to the editor, which Lucas claimed "give you the full picture of what people were making of things then".
The first iteration of The Newsreader was written on spec; Lucas approached the ABC – having previously worked with them on sitcom Rosehaven – with the script of a pilot. ABC responded positively "really quickly", and Lucas boasted of their extensive archive of news footage that could be utilised. Brett Sleigh of ABC, who would become an executive producer of the series, suggested using real-life events as the structure of the series – instead of basing it around "generic stories" like the more expansive rollout of ATMs – as he was keen to "make the most of ABC archives"; he recommended Joanna Werner to Lucas, who became "really connected" with the draft pilot script. Of this new direction, Lucas was clear from the start that it would begin with the Challenger explosion, claiming it was the first major news event he remembered from childhood; for the rest of the series, he simply looked at major news events of the first half of 1986, those with fixed dates that were unavoidable but also less "date-specific" stories of issues prevalent in society at the time that could be slotted in anywhere, and enabled Lucas greater creative control that news stories with set dates to operate in and around did not afford him. A decision was taken to "tightly stick to a real-life timeframe" with episodes taking place across a few days at most. Crew received tapes of broadcast news bulletins from certain days to better judge how to prioritise certain news stories on the days episodes took place on. Lucas described the process of weaving real-life events in with "pure fiction" as both "maddening" but also a "fun puzzle". When Lucas established a writers' room in 2017 – composed of those Lucas knew would provide valuable assistance in developing the programme (such as Niki Aken, who came from a research background), but also carrying on a practice he had used on other shows he had worked on, and hiring emerging talent (Kim Ho) – the team were "bouncing back and forth" evaluating how character arcs fit into the way in which real-life events were depicted in the show. Before the writing of each episode, research and archive footage was "locked in" before writing progressed onto working out these character arcs; it meant that when writing began, a "comprehensive outline of the factual events involved would already be in place" for the writer(s) to work around. The "emotional arcs and storylines" were less set in stone throughout episode production, with amendments to their depiction even taking place as late as the post-production edit.
Of the second series, Lucas said that events remained chosen and placed throughout the series according to whether they were grounded by certain dates or not – "a balance of really date-specific things with a couple of broader arc '80s news stories". An episode on the heroin crisis, for example, was able to be placed anywhere within the series, Lucas commenting that he had "a little bit of leeway to put that story at an appropriate time for our cast of characters". Additionally, the nascence of current affairs shows and TV journalists "becom[ing] brands themselves" at the time is explored in the second series, with the character of Geoff hosting his own eponymous current affairs show a deliberate attempt at this, with Lucas and producer Werner having read several memoirs of journalists from the era. Lucas recalled that figures who had previously worked in the industry during the temporal setting of the series had written into the production company in light of the first series to "directly ask" if characters were based on them.
Hub AI
The Newsreader AI simulator
(@The Newsreader_simulator)
The Newsreader
The Newsreader is an Australian television drama series created by Michael Lucas and broadcast on ABC Television, starring Anna Torv and Sam Reid. The show explores the personal and professional lives of the journalists and crew in a 1980s Australian newsroom.
The first season premiered on August 15, 2021 and became the ABC's most-viewed drama program of that year. The second season premiered in September 2023. Each season was met with critical acclaim and received the most nominations of any show or film at the AACTA Awards in 2021 and 2023. The third and final season was released on 2 February 2025 on ABC iView.
On 19 September, all remaining episodes (episodes 3–6) were made available on ABC iView, on-demand, prior to their linear broadcast. Each episode was accompanied by a podcast that interviewed talent and other guests pertinent to the events of each episode.
All episodes were made available on ABC iView prior to linear broadcast; on the morning of 2 February 2025, the series' premiere date.
The series was created by Michael Lucas and Joanna Werner and directed by Emma Freeman. Filmed in Melbourne, the series was written by Michael Lucas, Jonathan Gavin, Niki Aken and Kim Ho. Joanna Werner and Stuart Menzies, along with Brett Sleigh and Sally Riley on behalf of the ABC, executive produced the series. The series was supported through investments from Screen Australia and Film Victoria.
Lucas began working on what would become The Newsreader around 2015, during his work on Party Tricks and the fifth series of Offspring. Initially, it was not based around a newsroom setting, and the series was instead built upon a male and female lead that represented the flipping of gender stereotypes; a male lead "desperate to live up to [...] a particular version of masculinity" that "wasn't an actual fit" for him", and a female character required to match and contrast this male character with, who would comprise "those traditional masculine qualities" instead. The 1980s and newsroom setting was decided upon later, which Lucas concluded both elicited and compelled "more pressure on [both characters] to fulfil certain roles", with the masculine qualities of a newsreader juxtaposed against the misogyny of the 1980s that "punished" women that held them. Lucas' research into newsrooms of the 1980s over 2015 and 2016 – which included spending time interviewing those who worked in them at thetime – found that female newsreaders were caught in an "era of change", in how to present themselves and "look in a workplace" and industry dominated, and influenced by how "viewers liked the news [being] read" by, "very masculine voices of God". He undertook an assiduous and mammoth task of reading "nearly every newspaper from 1986", with a particular focus on letters to the editor, which Lucas claimed "give you the full picture of what people were making of things then".
The first iteration of The Newsreader was written on spec; Lucas approached the ABC – having previously worked with them on sitcom Rosehaven – with the script of a pilot. ABC responded positively "really quickly", and Lucas boasted of their extensive archive of news footage that could be utilised. Brett Sleigh of ABC, who would become an executive producer of the series, suggested using real-life events as the structure of the series – instead of basing it around "generic stories" like the more expansive rollout of ATMs – as he was keen to "make the most of ABC archives"; he recommended Joanna Werner to Lucas, who became "really connected" with the draft pilot script. Of this new direction, Lucas was clear from the start that it would begin with the Challenger explosion, claiming it was the first major news event he remembered from childhood; for the rest of the series, he simply looked at major news events of the first half of 1986, those with fixed dates that were unavoidable but also less "date-specific" stories of issues prevalent in society at the time that could be slotted in anywhere, and enabled Lucas greater creative control that news stories with set dates to operate in and around did not afford him. A decision was taken to "tightly stick to a real-life timeframe" with episodes taking place across a few days at most. Crew received tapes of broadcast news bulletins from certain days to better judge how to prioritise certain news stories on the days episodes took place on. Lucas described the process of weaving real-life events in with "pure fiction" as both "maddening" but also a "fun puzzle". When Lucas established a writers' room in 2017 – composed of those Lucas knew would provide valuable assistance in developing the programme (such as Niki Aken, who came from a research background), but also carrying on a practice he had used on other shows he had worked on, and hiring emerging talent (Kim Ho) – the team were "bouncing back and forth" evaluating how character arcs fit into the way in which real-life events were depicted in the show. Before the writing of each episode, research and archive footage was "locked in" before writing progressed onto working out these character arcs; it meant that when writing began, a "comprehensive outline of the factual events involved would already be in place" for the writer(s) to work around. The "emotional arcs and storylines" were less set in stone throughout episode production, with amendments to their depiction even taking place as late as the post-production edit.
Of the second series, Lucas said that events remained chosen and placed throughout the series according to whether they were grounded by certain dates or not – "a balance of really date-specific things with a couple of broader arc '80s news stories". An episode on the heroin crisis, for example, was able to be placed anywhere within the series, Lucas commenting that he had "a little bit of leeway to put that story at an appropriate time for our cast of characters". Additionally, the nascence of current affairs shows and TV journalists "becom[ing] brands themselves" at the time is explored in the second series, with the character of Geoff hosting his own eponymous current affairs show a deliberate attempt at this, with Lucas and producer Werner having read several memoirs of journalists from the era. Lucas recalled that figures who had previously worked in the industry during the temporal setting of the series had written into the production company in light of the first series to "directly ask" if characters were based on them.