Insiders (Australian TV program)

As a Sunday morning talk show, the format of the program usually starts with the show's host discussing political issues of the week and the weekend newspapers, followed by a long form interview of around 15 to 20 minutes with a current Australian political figure, usually an Australian politician. Following the interview in the first half hour, current political issues are discussed with a changing panel of three commentators/journalists of varying political perspectives. Similar in format to Sunday morning talk shows in the United States, Insiders analyses and discusses Australian politics with the use of a panel of political journalists and columnists and interviews with prominent politicians and commentators with a number of regular weekly segments, such as 'Talking Pictures'. The show ends with the panel members asked for their "final observation and predictions".

The program features a wide array of regular commentators from various Australian media outlets and think tanks. The show is part of the ABC's Sunday morning line-up, commencing with Insiders, and since 2006 has been followed by a similar panel format show Offsiders, a sports program initiated and initially hosted by Cassidy.^[1]

The program first aired on 15 July 2001 on ABC TV, and was hosted by Barrie Cassidy for 18 years until his retirement in June 2019. The first guest interview was with Prime Minister John Howard.^[2]

"Insiders entered a very crowded Sunday morning political market in 2001. But our approach was to provide coverage with so many more elements, and to do it in a way that is informative but irreverent. And of course have a few laughs along the way. If you took politics too seriously you'd go mad," — founding host, Barrie Cassidy.^[3]

Fran Kelly hosted Insiders when Barrie Cassidy tooklong service leave, and Chris Uhlmann, prior to his move to the Nine Network, also hosted the show in Cassidy's absence.

The 2007 series included small changes to the format of the show: re-ordering the segments, commencing the program with the political interview, followed by 'Your Shout'. Paul Kelly's discussion (this segment was discontinued in 2010) was then used as a starting point for the panel discussion. 'Talking Pictures' continued to provide a break point within the panel discussions.

In 2011, the usual program format began with a brief monologue from Cassidy followed by a brief video summary of the major events of the preceding week. Cassidy then reviewed the Sunday papers with the studio panel before moving on to the studio guest. If the guest is present in the studio the interview is introduced by a short video clip relating to the first interview question. The interview usually lasts until midway through the hour and is followed by a video clip which concentrates on events surrounding a major news topic of the week. This was followed by a panel discussion between Cassidy and his studio guests. Cassidy introduced 'Talking Pictures' towards the end of the hour, which is followed by further panel discussion in the studio. The show usually wound up with Cassidy introducing amusing or otherwise interesting media clips followed by an observation or prediction from each panel member before Cassidy ended the show with a final media clip or two.

In March 2019, Cassidy announced he would be leaving Insiders after the 2019 Australian election and after eighteen years in the hosting chair.^[4] His last show was on 9 June 2019; regular fill-in presenters Fran Kelly and Annabel Crabb alternated hosting duties until the end of the year.^[5]

On 11 July 2021, Barrie Cassidy returned to the show as a guest on 'Talking Pictures' to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.^[6]

In June 2019 David Speers was announced as Cassidy's replacement from 2020.^[7]

Since David Speers became host in 2020 the format has remained relatively consistent, with an opening edited video compilation that frames the weeks key events, opening remarks and discussion with the three panellists, a look at the Sunday newspaper stories followed by a political interview of around 15 to 20 minutes in duration. The discussion returns to the panellists for around 20 minutes then breaking to a prerecorded 'Talking Pictures' package (hosted by Mike Bowers with a weekly guest), then returns to the studio for closing comments and observations.

In June 2020, the program received criticism for having an all-white panel discussing the Black Lives Matter movement.^[8] An investigation by Junkee discovered that there seemingly had never been a person of colour on the panel in the show's history.^[9] Consequently, ABC journalist Bridget Brennan accepted an invitation to be on the following week's program, seemingly becoming the first non-white person to ever appear on the Insiders panel.^[10] Addressing the criticism, Speers admitted the previous week's edition of Insiders lacked an important perspective and that the program needed to do better in having more diverse insights into political debate.^[10]

In May 2023, it was announced that the show would relocate from the ABC's Melbourne studio to Canberra later in 2023.^[11] The first episode broadcast from Canberra was on 9 July 2023.^[12]

Presented by Mike Bowers, the Talking Pictures segment analyses political cartoons and photographs featured in the nation's newspapers, magazines and news websites from the previous week in around a four minute timeslot. Regularly appearing cartoonists and photographers have included Warren Brown, Bryan Dawe,^[13]Bill Leak, Geoff Pryor, Bruce Petty, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Peter Hoysted, Matt Golding, Andrew Meares, David Pope, Amanda Copp, Paul Batey, Cathy Wilcox, Sean Leahy, Fiona Katauskas and Alex Ellinghausen. The segment is produced by Fiona Katauskas.

Presented by Casey Briggs,^[14] The Curve^[15] started in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic providing weekly analysis and information graphics of infection and hospitalisation rates. The segment has evolved into other subject areas including electoral polling analysis and the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum called The Crunch. Federal election polling analysis segments are titled as Australia Votes.

The 'Matt Price Moment'^[16] is an annual award and is included in the final Insiders episode of each year with an edited shortlist, and a selected winner decided by the show's producers. It showcases humorous, oddball, quirky and lighthearted political moments from the previous 12 months, often highlighting politician gaffes or amusing event, speech or media interaction. The segment honours journalist and sketch writer Matt Price, a regular Insiders panellist who died in 2007.

The Your Shout segment (which was dropped in 2010) gave a member or group of members of the public a chance to air a grievance or present opinions about topical political issues that concerned them, in a short, pre-recorded segment shown during the program. It appears^{[original research?]} that the program attempted to ensure that the members of the public selected from week to week represented a broad range of political opinion and were spread across different parts in Australia.

Presented by Andrew Catsaras, the Poll of Polls segment aggregated and reviewed political polling from the previous month. This segment commenced in February 2012, appearing during the last week of each month in 2012, moving to the first week of each month in 2013.^[34]

Up until May 2022 the program's editor, Huw Parkinson, produced dozens of video mashups compositing the faces of political figures onto well known films and other pop culture footage.^[35][36] Parkinson's videos won him a Walkley Award for multimedia storytelling in 2015.^[37]

The Insiders opening and closing theme music uses a track titled "Call It 95" by American jazz musician Herbie Hancock, from the 1994 album Dis Is da Drum.^[38] The track includes the line "you're making us all feel very excited about being here".

Panellists who have appeared since July 2022^[49]