Frontline
Genre	Comedy/Satire
Starring	Rob Sitch Jane Kennedy Tiriel Mora Bruno Lawrence
Country of origin	Australia
No. of episodes	39
Production
Running time	26 minutes per episode (except for "The Art of the Interview" which is 19 minutes)
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC TV
Picture format	4:3
Original run	1994 – 1997
External links
Official website

Frontline is an Australian comedy television series which satirised Australian television current affairs programs and reporting. It ran for three series of 13 half-hour episodes and was broadcast on ABC TV in 1994, 1995 and 1997. The word comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humor with an intent to provoke laughter in general). ... 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... Rob Sitch on the left as Mike Moore Robert Ian Sitch (born March 17, 1962), is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter and actor. ... DVD cover for Series 1 of Frontline. ... Tiriel Mora on the far-right in the above DVD cover Tiriel Mora (born 19 October 1958) is an Australian actor. ... Bruno Lawrence (February 12, 1941–June 10, 1995) was a musician and actor, born David Lawrence in Brighton, England. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC is Australias national non-profit public broadcaster. ... The word comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humor with an intent to provoke laughter in general). ... The ABC or Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the national, Australia. ...

Production

Further information: Working Dog Productions

The series was written, directed, and produced by Jane Kennedy, Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch, and Tom Gleisner. They created and performed in The D-Generation and The Late Show and a stint on radio they created Frontline (as well as Funky Squad between seasons 2 and 3). After Frontline they moved into feature films, making several popular Australian movies including The Castle and The Dish, and for several years they have hosted The Panel. Working Dog Productions is a small film and television production company based in Melbourne, Australia. ... DVD cover for Series 1 of Frontline. ... Santo Cilauro born in Melbourne, Australia in 1962, is an Australian television and feature film producer and screenwriter. ... Rob Sitch on the left as Mike Moore Robert Ian Sitch (born March 17, 1962), is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter and actor. ... Tom Gleisner (born 1962) is an Australian director, producer, writer, occasional actor and author. ... Nick Bufalo in the Thunderbirds Pizza sketch. ... The Best Bits of The Late Show: Champagne Edition (DVD) The Late Show was a popular Australian comedy show, which ran for two seasons on ABC TV from 18 July 1992 to 30 October 1993. ... Funky Squad (1995) was a short-lived Australian comedy television series which satirised 70s-era U.S. police television dramas, such as The Mod Squad. ... This article refers to the Australian movie The Castle. ... you suck ... The Panel is an Australian television show, first aired in 1998, and was very popular in its first few years. ...

The series was partly inspired by a 60 Minutes special Has the media gone too far. It bears some similarity to UK series Drop the Dead Donkey. 60 Minutes premiered February 11, 1979. ... Video Cover, with main cast Drop the Dead Donkey was a situation comedy that ran on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1998. ...

Setting

A commercial network

The series follows the fortunes of a fictional current affairs show, Frontline, which airs on a fictional commercial network, much like real networks Channel 7 and Channel 9. In the show, Frontline competes directly with Nine's A Current Affair and Seven's Real Life, which changed its name to Today Tonight from 1995 onwards. The Seven Network is an Australian television network, owned by the Seven Media Group. ... The Nine Network, or Channel Nine, is an Australian television network, available in major markets across Australia. ... A Current Affair (or ACA) is a nightly tabloid current affairs programme, broadcast on Channel Nine every week night and hosted by Tracy Grimshaw. ... Today Tonight is an Australian tabloid television current affairs program, broadcast on the Seven Network every weeknight at 6:30pm in direct competition with A Current Affair on the Nine Network and indirectly with The 7:30 Report on ABC Television. ...

The Frontline office showcases and satirises the machinations of the ruthless producers, the self-obsessed airhead host, and the ambitious, cynical reporters, all of whom resort to any sort of underhanded trick to get ratings and maintain their status - including the use of hidden cameras, foot-in-the-door, bullying interview techniques and chequebook journalism. They ingratiate themselves with the all-powerful network bosses, while the real work is in fact done by their long-suffering production staff. Foot-in-the-door technique is a persuasion method. ... Chequebook journalism (or checkbook journalism in American English) is the form of journalism where the essential characteristic is that the journalist pays the subject of the work money for the right to publish their story. ...

The station itself also runs other television shows referenced by Frontline staff, such as 6 o'clock news program, a 3 hour news review show Sunday Forum, a sketch show The Comedy Bunch, a game show Jackpot, a teen soap opera Sunshine Cove which later changed to Rainbow Island, also lesser mentioned shows such as the football show Kick-to-Kick, Late-Night OZ, Cartoon Crazies, The Comedy Bunch and Vacation. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... “Quiz show” redirects here. ... For Philippine soap opera, see Teleserye. ...

As a commentary

What gave the show its special edge was that the stories and the actions of the characters were often thinly-disguised parodies of recent real events and real people. Episodes such as The Siege were replays of controversial events which had occurred a few months prior, told as though Frontline had covered the story.

The dim witted, egotistical host Mike Moore was a parody of current television hosts and journalists. Sitch has claimed that none of the characters were directly based on a single person, and indeed the character of Moore was a combination of well-known characteristics of several high-profile television figures, including A Current Affair host Ray Martin, Martin's predecessor Mike Willesee, and Real Life host Stan Grant. Ray Martin (born 20 December 1944, in Richmond, New South Wales) is the Australian Nine Networks Senior Correspondent. ... Michael Willesee (Born June 29, 1942) is an Australian television presenter. ... Stan Grant (junior) was born in 1963 and is a member of the Wiradjuri tribe of Indigenous Australians from the south-west inland region of the state of New South Wales, Australia. ...

Parallels might also be drawn between Frontline and ABC's Media Watch. Much of the real life journalistic misconduct reported on Media Watch later appeared on Frontline in fictionalised form. One example of this was when Media Watch reported that Dave "Sluggo" Richardson's had made a highly misleading report on Christopher Skase for Today Tonight. Richardson was suspended from duty for a month, and in the One Rule for One episode of Frontline, fictional reporter Martin di Stasio is suspended for a month for doing exactly the same thing. Media Watch is an Australian television series screening on the ABC. It currently screens from 9. ... Richardson David Sluggo Richardson is a reporter on the Seven Networks Today Tonight programme. ... Christopher Charles Skase (September 18, 1948 - August 5, 2001) was a noted Australian businessman who later became one of his countrys most wanted fugitives, after his business empire crashed spectacularly and he fled to Majorca in Spain. ... Today Tonight is an Australian tabloid television current affairs program, broadcast on the Seven Network every weeknight at 6:30pm in direct competition with A Current Affair on the Nine Network and indirectly with The 7:30 Report on ABC Television. ...

• A video of Media Watch's original report about Richardson's Skase story

Also, multiple episodes of Frontline featured Media Watch segments criticising the show.

Characters

Reporters

• Mike Moore (Rob Sitch) anchors Frontline. He is a dim-witted narcissist. Many gags centre around how easily he is manipulated by his executive producer, the most typical case being when Mike refuses to present a story and then is convinced to run it by an appeal to his supposed fearlessness or journalistic integrity. In the first two series Mike's position is constantly under threat from senior reporter Brooke Vandenberg, who has a better press profile, but by the last series he has been cemented as one of the network's most valuable stars and considerably more effort is made to pander to his whims. While Mike is usually portrayed as simply dumb (for example, in A Man of His Convictions in series 2 he writes a letter to media commentator Stuart Littlemore full of basic spelling and grammatical errors) he occasionally surprises his colleagues with his sneakiness: in Give 'em Enough Rope (series 2) he traps the network owner into admitting to contravening the Broadcasting Act in a live interview, after first getting the owner to publicly commit to allowing him to ask difficult questions without threat to his job.
• Brooke Vandenberg (Jane Kennedy) is a senior reporter on Frontline. She is ambitious, amoral and publicity hungry. While there are constant rumours that she has affairs with male celebrities in order to build her profile, in some cases she simply creates the rumours herself; in The Desert Angel (series 1) she confesses to Pat Cash that she started a rumour about having an affair with him. Like most of the employees of Frontline, she has no ethical problems with any action the show takes to get a good story. In A Hole in the Heart (series 3) she discovers she is pregnant to a former boyfriend and is bribed into having an abortion by a new hosting offer.
• Martin (Marty) Di Stasio (Tiriel Mora) is a reporter on Frontline. He is Mike's major antagonist on the team, often baiting him about sensitive topics, such as the supposedly anti-Semitic golf club of which Mike is a member (A Hole in the Heart). He is the most experienced journalist on the team: a few references are made to him winning a Walkley Award. Like Brooke, he is uncritical of the show's journalistic tactics (although in the episode "Judge and Jury, he has reservations about their persecution of a priest accused of rape, mainly because he is a lapsed Catholic); in fact he is usually the confidant of the executive producers, and the one they can trust to do what is needed to get a good story, or to persuade Mike to present a story. His position on Frontline is more tenuous than that of Mike or Brooke: in Dick on the Line (series 3) he tells Mike and Brooke that at his age he signs his yearly contract immediately and doesn't mess about negotiating.

Rob Sitch on the left as Mike Moore Robert Ian Sitch (born March 17, 1962), is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter and actor. ... Littlemore hosting Media Watch Stuart Littlemore QC is best-known as the former host of the ABCs Media Watch program. ... DVD cover for Series 1 of Frontline. ... Patrick Hart Pat Cash (born May 27, 1965 in Melbourne, Victoria) is a former professional tennis player from Australia. ... A pregnant woman Pregnancy is the process by which a mammalian female carries a live offspring from conception until it develops to the point where the offspring is capable of living outside the womb. ... Tiriel Mora on the far-right in the above DVD cover Tiriel Mora (born 19 October 1958) is an Australian actor. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... The Walkley Awards are an Australian journalism award given out annually. ...

Producers

• Emma Ward (Alison Whyte) is the Line Producer on Frontline. She questions the show's practices most frequently and acts as the viewers' conscience. In Heroes and Villains (series 2), she is the only member of the team to have read the supposedly racist book the show is attacking and objects to their incendiary treatment of its author. Early in series 2 and 3, the executive producers of the time approach Marty and ask him to explain Emma. Marty explains that while she has moral qualms like Mike does, she is more difficult to handle because she is intelligent. Despite often objecting, Emma is usually party to ethically questionable practices and occasionally finds them amusing. In A Hole in the Heart, to placate Mike she allows the executive producer to yell at her and pretend to fire her over one of the show's decisions, when in reality she is receiving a large pay rise in return for her part of the act.
• Kate Preston (Trudy Hellier) is the segment producer. While Kate is friendly with Emma, who has a more senior position, Kate has fewer ethical qualms about stories than Emma, and tends to be in the middle of conflicts between Emma and the executive producer.
• Brian (Thommo) Thompson (Bruno Lawrence) is the executive producer during series 1.
• Sam Murphy (Kevin J. Wilson) is the executive producer during series 2, hired immediately after Brian is fired. Thommo and Sam's characters are similar; a hard-nosed EP who would not hestitate to air questionable stories to attract ratings.
• Graeme (Prowsey) Prowse (Steve Bisley) is the executive producer during series 3, hired after the producer who took Frontline to the top retires. Prowsey is much more aggressive and unpleasant than his two predecessors. He has a bad temper, is unpleasant to the staff and is unashamedly sexist: groping the female staff, dismissing bulimia as a "chick thing" and writing off Brooke's bad moods as PMS. He is however, like his predecessors, capable of being charming when needed to deceive Mike, placate Emma or feed Brooke's ego.

Alison Whyte is an Australian actress best known for her role on Frontline. ... Trudy Hellier is an Australian actress with many TV credits to her name. ... Bruno Lawrence (February 12, 1941–June 10, 1995) was a musician and actor, born David Lawrence in Brighton, England. ... Steve Bisley (born 1951 at Lake Munmorah, New South Wales, Australia), is a well-known Australian actor, who attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art. ... Sexism is discrimination between people based on their Sex rather than their individual merits. ... Bulimia nervosa, more commonly known as bulimia, is a psychological condition in which the subject engages in recurrent binge eating followed by intentionally doing one or more of the following in order to compensate for the intake of the food and prevent weight gain: vomiting inappropriate use of laxatives, enemas... PMS redirects here. ...

Supporting staff

• Domenica Baroni (Anita Cerdic) is the office receptionist, and the only person in the office who truly admires Mike. Her increasingly bizarre hairstyles become a running gag, culminating in Give 'em Enough Rope, when she is completely bald and festooned with ribbons. Her reactions to the show usually reflect the target audience's responses. She is a reluctant and sometimes traitorous party to the office's determination to keep Mike away from production meetings. She is always very supportive of Mike and there are often hints that she actually has a crush on him.
• Shelley Cohen (Linda Ross) is the executive producer's secretary.
• Stuart (Stu) O'Hallaran (Pip Mushin) is the office's main cameraman and shoots most of Brooke's and Marty's stories. He, Marty, and Jase are all friends and frequently make fun of Mike.
• Jason (Jase) Cotter (Torquil Neilson) is the sound recorder who works with Stu. Jase is not actually heard speaking until series 3 despite appearing in most episodes in series 1 and 2.
• Hugh is the editor of videos, who is almost always seen smoking a cigarette and coughing wildly.

Network employees

• Geoffrey Salter (Santo Cilauro) is the network's weatherman and Mike's closest friend at work. Geoff usually appears in private conversations in his office with Mike, and is often the catalyst for Mike to question the reassurance he has been given by a producer that the story of the moment is being ethically pursued. He is the focus of a running gag where he will laugh hysterically along with Mike at any anecdote Mike tells him, before admitting that he doesn't get it.
• Ian Farmer is the Station Manager, the boss of the local studios. He appears only in season one. He and Brian Thompson are good friends, and frequently play golf together.
• Bob Caville is the Network's Managing Director, and definitively pulls the office into line.
• Jan Whelan (Genevieve Mooy) is the network's head of publicity in series 1 and 2. Jan refers to everyone as "poppet" and "darling" and has extravagantly camp mannerisms, but is in fact practical and efficient.
• Trish (Lynda Gibson) is the network's head of publicity in series 3.
• Elliot Rhodes (Boris Conley) is a comedian and musician, performing short musical sketches about current events at the end of Friday night episodes of Frontline. Mike detests his act but is required to laugh uproariously and compliment it on air every week.

Santo Cilauro born in Melbourne, Australia in 1962, is an Australian television and feature film producer and screenwriter. ... Camp is an aesthetic in which something has appeal because of its bad taste or ironic value. ...

Special guests

Frontline frequently featured celebrity cameos, unusually including major Australian politicians appearing as themselves, often but not always as interviewees. The most memorable appearance is that of Pauline Hanson in The Shadow We Cast (series 3), in which she turns her famous "please explain?" phrase on Mike. Noel Pearson appears as an interviewee later in the same episode. Other appearances include: John Hewson in The Soufflé Rises (series 1); Pat Cash in The Desert Angel; Cheryl Kernot in We Ain't Got Dames (series 1); Bert Newton and Anne Fulwood in This Night of Nights (series 1); Glenn Ridge in Add Sex and Stir and Office Mole (series 2); Molly Meldrum in Add Sex and Stir, George Negus in Add Sex and Stir and Dick on the Line (series 3) and Ian Baker-Finch in A Hole in the Heart. Harry Shearer also appeared on the show. Merv Hughes also starred in the series 1 episode Workin' Class Man. Pauline Lee Hanson (born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician who was the leader of One Nation Party, a party with an anti-immigration, nativist platform. ... Noel Pearson (born in June 1965 in Cooktown, Australia) is an Indigenous Australian lawyer and land rights activist. ... Dr John Hewson Dr John Robert Hewson (born 28 October 1946), Australian Liberal politician and economist, was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of a working-class, politically conservative engineer. ... Patrick Hart Pat Cash (born May 27, 1965 in Melbourne, Victoria) is a former professional tennis player from Australia. ... Cheryl Kernot (Pronounced Ker-no) (born December 5, 1948) is a former Australian politician. ... Bert Newton Albert Watson Bert Newton, AM, MBE, (born 23 July 1938), is an Australian television, radio, film, stage performer and author. ... Glenn Ridge is an Australian television presenter and owner and managing director of the Q Media Group, a production company which produces television specials and documentaries. ... Ian Molly Meldrum (born January 29, 1946) is an Australian popular music critic, journalist, and record producer, and musical entrepreneur best known for hosting the seminal popular music program Countdown from 1974 to 1986. ... George Negus is an Australian author, journalist, and television presenter who as of 2005 is hosting the Dateline current affairs programme for the SBS network. ... Ian Baker-Finch (born 24 October 1960 in Nambour, Australia) is an Australian professional golfer who is best known for winning The Open Championship in 1991. ... Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American comedic actor and writer. ... Mervyn Gregory Hughes (born 23 November 1961, Euroa, Victoria ) was a mercurial fast bowler who represented Australia between 1985 and 1994 in 53 Test matches taking 212 wickets and scoring over 1000 runs. ...

Other guest stars appeared in mock-ups of their own shows: Mike Moore appeared on fictitious episodes of Burke's Backyard with Don Burke, Rex Hunt's fishing show, and The Footy Show with Sam Newman. Stuart Littlemore, who at the time was hosting the media commentary show Media Watch, appeared in several fictitious episodes as a critic of Frontline. Burkes Backyard was an Australian gardening and lifestyle television programme that broadcast on the Nine Network from 12 September 1987 to 26 November 2004. ... Image:Don burke. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The Footy Show is an Australian sports television program, shown on the Nine Network and its affiliates. ... John Noel William Sam Newman (born December 22, 1945 in Geelong, Victoria) is a retired Australian rules football player for the Geelong Cats and is now a local celebrity, television personality and part-time specialist ruck coach. ... Littlemore hosting Media Watch Stuart Littlemore QC is best-known as the former host of the ABCs Media Watch program. ... Media Watch is an Australian television series screening on the ABC. It currently screens from 9. ...

Production strategies

Frontline broke new ground for Australian situation comedy, by adopting some innovative production strategies. Its rapid production schedule was inspired by UK series Drop The Dead Donkey, where each episode was written and taped in a single week and scripts were closely based on the real news stories of the preceding seven days. Video Cover, with main cast Drop the Dead Donkey was a situation comedy that ran on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1998. ...

The Frontline scripts were likewise written and the series filmed with a short period, often within a single week. It was a fully collaborative effort, with Cilauro, Kennedy, Gleisner and Sitch all sharing writing and directing duties, and the cast all contributing ideas during all stages of production. So sometimes when the show appeared on then-current events, it was a coincidence, as episodes were delayed by several months. In other cases there was direct commentary on real events, albeit not extremely recent ones.

To create a heightened illusion of grainy documentary realism, footage was shot under fluorescent lights in an actual office building set, and taped on hand-held Hi-8 video cameras usually operated by Gleisner and Cilauro. The footage was then transferred onto film and finally transferred back to videotape^[1] (see: Kinescope). Footage that was portrayed as being part of the Frontline broadcast (ie. Studio or field reports) was shot at broadcast quality, to increase the "realism" of the satire and complement the behind the scenes footage. Fluorescent lamps in Shinbashi, Tokyo, Japan Assorted types of fluorescent lamps. ... A 8mm Camcorder The 8mm Video Format (official name: Video8) is a type of video cassette recorder and video tape. ... Sony DV Handycam A camcorder is a portable electronic device for recording video images and audio onto an internal storage device. ... Kinescope (IPA: [], []) originally referred to the cathode ray tube used in television monitors. ...

Other airings

In 1997, Channel Seven bought the rights to the series^[2], however they only aired a handful of episodes. The Comedy Channel has shown the series as late as 2005. The Comedy Channel (promoted on air as comedy) is an Australian subscription television channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In America, Frontline was shown as either Behind the Frontline on cable or as Breaking News on PBS (which already has a news series entitled Frontline).

Impact

The series was extremely popular through its run, winning a Logie award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Comedy in 1995. A Sydney Morning Herald industry poll rated it #2 in the 25 all-time greatest Australian TV shows. The Logie Awards are the Australian television industry annual awards. ... ...

Six episodes from series one are now a core text in the Year 12 English Advanced syllabus for the Higher School Certificate in New South Wales for Module C: Representation and Text: Elective 1: Telling the Truth. The episodes are Playing The Ego Card, Add Sex and Stir, The Siege, Smaller Fish To Fry, We Ain't Got Dames and This Night of Nights. The show has also been used as a text response for both Years 11 and 12 in the English units of the Victorian Certificate of Education. This article is about the New South Wales Higher School Certificate. ... Capital Sydney Government Constitutional monarchy Governor Professor Marie Bashir Premier Morris Iemma (ALP) Federal representation  - House seats 50  - Senate seats 12 Gross State Product (2004-05)  - Product ($m)  $305,437 (1st)  - Product per capita  $45,153/person (4th) Population (End of March 2006)  - Population  6,817,100 (1st)  - Density  8. ... The Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE] is the credential given to students who have completed Year 11 and Year 12 of their secondary schooling, in the state of Victoria, Australia. ...

Notes

Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ...

References

• Cilauro, Santo; Jane Kennedy, Rob Sitch, Tom Gleisner, Lawrie Zion (1995). Frontline: the story behind the story ... behind the stories. Melbourne: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-86768-3. 

Santo Cilauro born in Melbourne, Australia in 1962, is an Australian television and feature film producer and screenwriter. ... DVD cover for Series 1 of Frontline. ... Rob Sitch on the left as Mike Moore Robert Ian Sitch (born March 17, 1962), is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter and actor. ... Tom Gleisner (born 1962) is an Australian director, producer, writer, occasional actor and author. ... Melbourne (pronounced ) is the second most populous city in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 3. ... It has been suggested that Penguin Modern Poets, Penguin Great Ideas be merged into this article or section. ...

See also

• Working Dog Productions

Working Dog Productions is a small film and television production company based in Melbourne, Australia. ...

External links

• Frontline at the Internet Movie Database
• Frontline website (Extremely out of date circa 1997)
• Interview with Rob Sitch on the tenth anniversary of Frontline
• Frontline DVDs at the ABC shop online
• Frontline at the National Film and Sound Archive

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...