At the end of 2007, after a year of near death experiences, Rachel and I embarked on a five week round the world trip. We began in Sydney where we attended a filming of Australian Idol. While NZ Idol, which we had had quite a lot of involvement with, was pre-recorded on Friday nights for a Sunday night broadcast, Australian Idol was filmed entirely live.
While the editors had the ability to cut parts of NZ Idol out if need be, the pressure was on with Australian Idol to ensure the program didn’t extend beyond its allocated time or interrupt the ad break schedule. Having seen how things were done in New Zealand, Australian Idol was a completely different beast and one heck of a well oiled machine. Continue reading »