Crown Casino Faced With Bad PR as Key Event Approaches

In the land "down under" sometimes hard news is kept quite for a while, but invariably the cat gets out of the bag. You want evidence, well look no further than the Australian Government Internet "blacklist" and proposed internet filter.  The more they tried to keep it quite, the bigger the story got, pushed along nicely by Media Man and Gambling911 we might add.

Today the blacklist may be the Australian governments biggest headache, on both a national and international scale. Even the U.S President and his Administrative army are none to pleased to hear that Australia is becoming one of the world's biggest 'Emeny's Of The Internet' according to Reporters Without Boarders.

Now Conroy and Rudd are trying their luck of rolling out a multi million (or billion) dollar broadband network, something that may take up to a decade to complete, and yes, its supposed to come with censorship measures included (which the majority of technology experts say will slow the bloody thing down), but that's another story and scandal building for the dynamic duo of Kevin "Bloody" Rudd and Stephen "Mr Censorship" Conroy. We think Tony "The Bruiser" Abbott will have defeated Rudd via knockout punch soon enough.

Recently our friends at James Packer's Crown Casino had a problem to iron out in relation to the annual Logie awards, which Packer and Billionaire Inc have managed to keep under the hard of Crown City Casino in Melbourne

Media Man and Gambling911 go undercover with this report...

Crown Casino has been the hosting venture of the TV Week Logie Awards for years now, despite competitors such as Tabcorp's Jupiters on the Gold Coast trying to steal it away.

Less than a month before Australian television's "night of nights", ACP Magazines furiously fired the PR outfit it engaged to handle this year's Logie's at Crown.

The PR in the lead-up to the Crown Casino event on the 2nd has put cold water on what is Australia's major annual red carpet and television event.

The event is usually good PR for Packer's Crown aka 'World Of Entertainment', but this year is proving most challenging that most, even though Crown bean counters and legal eagles are happy.

The firing of specialist fashion PR outfit Torstar came just four days after News Limited revealed the Logie nominations breaky held at Sydney's Ivy Bar 10 days prior had been heavily criticised and panned severely by the television networks for being "disorganised".

Insiders said one of the Torstar publicists had not known who Rebecca Gibney (last year's Gold Logie Award winner and star of Packed to the Rafters), was.

Media Man and Gambling911 advise that its possible that there was a conspiracy to get rid of the original PR firm, especially giving the often "bitchy" and "precious" nature of the Australian entertainment - showbiz landscape, and the high stakes involved. A Media Man insider whispered "The Australian media and entertainment landscape and business is extremely political. If certain folks decide they want to get rid of X, that's it, it happens".

Gibney is one of a eight contenders going for the coverted Gold Logie, including comedians Shaun Micallef, Paul McDermott, Rove McManus and Wil Anderson, and actors Ray Meagher and Esther Anderson.  Australian casino king James Packer has not being nominated for any awards (but we enjoyed his guitar smashing antics anyway exhibited at City Of Dreams Macau last year).  A birdie tells us a few folks from 'Underbelly' fame has been nominated, some of which played out gambling themes in the international smash hit.

Last week ACP Magazines (owner of The Logies), made an approach to The Lantern Group about taking over the event. "ACP and Torstar have mutually agreed not to continue to work together on the remainder of the TV Week Logies project 2010," ACP advised in a media statement.

Torstar's Tory Archbold told News Limited's The Australian that her contract with ACP was secure and she remained the "mouthpiece for TV Week".

"I know we did a good job" she proclaimed.

However, last night, ACP confirmed that The Lantern Group had been engaged to run the event.

Media Man - Jac Bowie burlesque queen and main squeeze, is rumored to attend the Logie's with of or two of her world class burlesque performers. MM and JB partner in crime, Grant Galea, famous for his Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra act, is also strongly rumoured to appear. Buzz builds that communications and property entrepreneur, Kym Illman, may show up with his famous 'Money Girl' in toe (dressed in nothing but $50 and $100 notes we understand!). Illman, a former Media Man client (from a Shane Warne spinner campaign) is understood to be a key Media Man "secret weapon" in Australia's casino war. Bowie and Galea are extremely excited about Australia's casino war opening up more opportunities for the elite of the Australian and international entertainment industry. At the time of publication it remains unclear if Shane Warne will attend the event, as Warnie has been very busy of late (and that's not including the 888 poker brand situation). Media analysts reckon Warnie would do well to change brands, maybe jumping ship to PartyGaming's PartyPoker and friends, if a deal can be reached. Betfair may also be another option. Ah, its nice to be wanted isn't it Warnie. Warne enjoys a long and largely positive history with Network Nine and ACP, as does most of the Media Man family.

Team Packer and Team ACP Magazines will likely be glad when their affair is history. Crown Casino has bigger fish to fry, such as their focus to lure in the world's biggest gamblers, Gulfstream Jets and all, as NSW competitor, Star City Casino gets jets of their own, as Australia's casino wars continue to heat up. No word as yet if plastic handcuffs will be used on guests, performers or burlesque queens, but we promise to keep you posted.

If its true that news is something, someone, somewhere, doesn't want someone else to know, everything else is PR, I think we proved the point once again here at your uncensored, unfiltered, friendly gaming, igaming, betting, entertainment and political window to the world. Gambling911, dedicated to providing you with the news... not always what you want to hear, but what you need to know... just ask Jesse "The Body" Ventura at 'Conspiracy Therory', if he's not too busy investigating the Australian political and casino landscape 'Casino Jack' style. A bridie tells us one of his key targets is Senator Stephen Conroy (Minster of Communications aka Minister of Censorship and Silly Lists). Good hunting and punting.

*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911

*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. Gaming is just one of a bakers dozen of industry verticals they report on. Media Man operate websites portals in Australia, Asia, Canada, Europe and the United States.

*The writer owns shares in Crown Casino