Hamish Blake took the Gold Logie at the 62nd annual television awards at the Gold Coast on Sunday night, with the show he hosts, Lego Masters Australia, collecting a further two awards. Blake also won the newly named Bert Newton award for most popular presenter, an award he won previously in 2012, while the Channel Nine show, now in its fourth season, won outstanding entertainment or comedy program.
“If you’re still watching this you’re an insomniac,” said Blake as he collected the Gold Logie, with what proved the last of a running series of jokes throughout the night about the televised ceremony’s four-hour duration.
Blake beat fellow nominees comedian Julia Morris, Today host Karl Stefanovic, Masterchef presenter Melissa Leong, Home and Away veteran actor Ray Meagher, The Voice Australia presenter Sonia Kruger, and ABC quizmaster Tom Gleeson, who won the award in 2019.
The ABC dominated the peer-judged awards, with The Newsreader winning outstanding drama series and Anna Torv winning outstanding actress for her lead performance in the 1980s newsroom drama. Outstanding actor went to Richard Roxburgh for his role in the ABC miniseries Fires, which also won outstanding miniseries or telemovie. Neither actor was present at the Star Gold Coast venue to accept their awards.
Former AFL player turned ABC News Breakfast journalist Tony Armstrong won the Graham Kennedy award for most popular new talent and the ABC’s international cartoon hit Bluey won outstanding children’s television program.
The outstanding supporting actor went to Colin Friels for his role in the ABC drama series Wakefield. ABC talent also won most popular actress and most popular actor – Kitty Flanagan for the comedy Fisk and Guy Pearce for the crime drama Jack Irish.
Channel 10’s The Project beat stalwarts Four Corners and 60 Minutes to take out most outstanding news coverage or public affairs report for Lisa Wilkinson’s Brittany Higgins interview, which the presenter described as “the most important work I have ever done”.
Outstanding sports coverage went to Channel Seven for its coverage of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, while its longstanding sports commentator Bruce McAvaney, who has covered every summer Olympics since Moscow in 1980, was inducted into the Logies’ Hall of Fame.
A special tribute was also paid to entertainer Bert Newton, who died in October 2021.
The national Indigenous television network NITV recorded its first Logie, for the SBS co-produced documentary Incarceration Nation.
The viewer-voted most popular categories were won by Seven’s Home and Away for most popular drama, The Project for current affairs, and Foxtel/10’s Gogglebox for entertainment television.
Nine’s Travel Guides and Network 10’s Masterchef and Have You Been Paying Attention? won the most popular lifestyle, reality and comedy categories respectively.
