The ABC has shelved its consumer affairs program The Checkout and the producers say the broadcaster has cited budget cuts and high production costs as the reasons.
The program, which premiered in 2013, couples comedy and entertainment with consumer awareness.
“We’re disappointed the ABC’s funding priorities do not include The Checkout,” the executive producer Julian Morrow said. “A public broadcaster that’s independent of commercial influence is the natural home, probably the only home, for a show like The Checkout.”
He added: “I know for a fact from a few years ago – when I did what The Checkout always recommends and shopped it around – that no other commercial media organisations would do a show like The Checkout.”
The Checkout is a show that noone else on TV could make. Only the ABC could make a bold and funny about how consumers are constantly being duped. I'm very sad it's been cancelled. Also it was funny.
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) July 6, 2018
I don't like most things but I liked the checkout. It was funny and practical, and almost nothing on TV empowers people in ways that are practical.
— Benjamin Riley (@bencriley) July 6, 2018
Morrow said the broadcaster’s decision came as a bit of a surprise. “They actually told us they were happy with how the last season went – and in fact until a few days ago all the indications were that season seven was going ahead.”
He said the cost of making the show had not increased for two years, and the next season – slated for production before the federal government’s freeze on ABC funding came into effect – would have cost the same or less. Legal costs had been kept low too, he added.
“I’ve actually been disappointed by how little we’ve been sued in the last couple of years,” he told the Guardian. “Other than Swisse vitamins and A2 milk [which had taken the show to court], it’s been fairly quiet on the litigation front.”
The Checkout was being praised on Twitter for coupling humour with practicality, and fostering new talent.
Morrow said he was most sad for the people he worked with. “The Checkout has been a particularly good sponsor of emerging female talent, and that’s something I’m very proud of,” he said, citing Kirsten Drysdale, Zoe Norton Lodge, Hanna Reilly, Penny Greenhalgh and Nina Oyama as alumni. “Obviously it doesn’t go any way to undoing the shame of being associated with an all-male comedy group like The Chaser, but it’s a minor push in the right direction.”
The writer and presenter Ben Jenkins said he was devastated.
“I loved this show so much, loved the wonderful family of brilliant idiots who made it, loved how it could effect real change and also be incredibly silly ... it felt like the kind of thing the ABC does uniquely well.”
An ABC spokesman said: “The ABC has decided not to commission a seventh series of The Checkout for 2018-19 at this time. The programming slate regularly changes for any number of reasons, including the need to strike a balance between new and returning programs for audiences. Putting The Checkout on hiatus does not preclude the program from returning in the future.”
