Just when you think that everything about the recent ABC management meltdown has been said and done comes news that makes you go “alright, fine, news: you win. I’ll go make some more popcorn.”
And this time it involves the sacked managing director, the resigned chair of the board, Kylie Minogue, and three million dollars.
Justin Milne, the recently-resigned former chair of the ABC board, thought it would be, in his own words, “cool” to get Ms Minogue to do a 30 second jingle for the national broadcaster. And indeed it would have been.
However, the sacked now-former MD Michelle Guthrie was more worried about the three million dollar price tag attached to the promotion, including the cost of getting Our Kylie to lay down said jam.
Reportedly she “hit the roof” when the suggestion was presented to her, aware that the optics of sacking hundreds of staff and then giving Kyles a $750k personal payday was maybe not great optics.
Then again, the thinking was to make the promotion coincide with the ABC renegotiating its funding arrangement with the government with the not-unreasonable idea that maybe risk-averse MPs might be more swayed by Minogue than, say, Tim Minchin and Claudia Karvan.
Fair few fans of the Cardinal Pell in the current government too.
And sure, arguably the most significant thing about this new revelation is that it means there is still an active battle going on between Milne and Guthrie. These things don’t leak themselves, after all.
But still, pause for a moment and imagine the jingle of which we, the people of Australia, have now been deprived.
You just know it would have been a banger too.