Live Music Is Returning To Australian TV

Live music is set to make its return to Australian TV thanks to the new ABC show Frankly. Frankly will be hosted by legendary Australian broadcaster Fran Kelly and each episode will feature interviews with actors, musicians, comedians, big thinkers and cultural changemakers. Excitingly for fans starved of live music on TV, each episode of Frankly will feature a world-class house rock band, rocking the house. 

The glitzy Frankly is set to be a change of pace for Kelly, who had previously hosted Radio National Breakfast for 17 years, stepping away from the mic last December. 

Speaking about the new role, the much-loved veteran of the national broadcaster commented "I’m so excited about this new show. Leaving RN Breakfast was bittersweet … I’m loving the sleep-ins but missing all those incredible conversations with fabulous guests from around Australia and the world."

“People have been asking ever since what’s next for me. Well, this is it and I can’t wait. More great conversations, a live audience and my own band … what’s not to be excited about? It’s such a privilege and going to be so much fun.”

For Kelly, the presence of the band is a bit of a return to her youth, having studied arts at the University of Adelaide, sung for several acts in the 70s and 80s and worked in art industry admin before launching her storied journalism career.  

Since ending her stint at Radio National Breakfast, Kelly who got her start at the ABC in 1988 via triple J's The Hack, has been keeping busy, making appearances on radio and TV to provide political commentary, covering politics and even launching a podcast The Party Room with the new host of Radio National Breakfast, Patricia Karvelas. 

The launch of Frankly also marks the return of the chat show to ABC which has been without a show in the popular format since Adam Hills’s In Gordon Street Tonight ended in 2013. 

The return of live music to Australian TV is a welcome one and will continue a proud legacy at the ABC which has previously been home to loved formats the ilk of Countdown and Recovery and experimented with the format during the pandemic with The Sound.