‘The only recipe for success’: How Charlie Pickering became one of TV’s great survivors

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Charlie Pickering is too much of a gentleman to gloat that his satirical current affairs show, The Weekly, has outlasted The Project on Ten, which he left in 2014 to branch out on his own. But with the latter axed in June, the same month the ABC’s Q+A got the chop, The Weekly is looking very much like a survivor. And there is much to celebrate this Yearly, which marks the program’s 12th annual recap.

Charlie Pickering is a TV survivor, with his show The Weekly hitting its 12th year.

For starters, the writers can “release some pent-up comedic frustration”, by responding to the Erin Patterson mushroom murders trial, which has been off limits for legal reasons. This Yearly also sees the return of its Gold Logie-winning alumnus, Tom Gleeson, who will Hard Chat with the prime minister, 10 years after Anthony Albanese first sat down for this ruthless grilling.

“Tom asks the questions that journalists would be too scared to ask,” says Pickering. “And I would say that Sarah Ferguson looks at the questions that Tom Gleeson asks and thinks, ‘If only I were that brave’.”

This is also the first year Pickering will allow his 11-year-old son to watch.

“I’ve been overprotective,” he says. “I felt that we had a few too many adult concepts. But it was Tom Gleeson telling me that his kids loved The Weekly. And my eldest is older than his youngest. So I was like, ‘Right. I think I’m going to let him watch it’. He is addicted to BTN – Behind the News, the ABC youth news show. He’s obviously inherited my obsession with news.”

Charlie Pickering with his original The Weekly co-hosts Tom Gleeson and Kitty Flanagan.

The kid also has designs on a television-hosting career: “He’s been lobbying to take over as host of Hard Quiz.”

Among the guests joining The Yearly, which has been extended by 15 minutes, will be Rhys Nicholson, Margaret Pomeranz and Offsiders’ Abbey Gelmi. “Abbey is one of the great emerging broadcasting talents around. She knows her sport and she’s really funny, and also has a news background.”

While UK correspondent Andy Zaltzman will be “somehow explaining to us how Prince Andrew is no longer Prince Andrew, from the British perspective”.

For political analysis, Pickering has looked to a different source. “He’s someone who mainstream media won’t know about, but digital media knows very well, and that’s Punter’s Politics [Konrad Benjamin]. He has a podcast and a thriving social media feed, but he’s having conversations about politics that legacy broadcast media aren’t having.”

Of his impressive track record of nurturing new talent, Pickering is typically humble.

“I’ve been very lucky to work with some great people,” he says. “When we started The Weekly, the first two people I called were Tom Gleeson and Kitty Flanagan, not just because they were friends. I just knew that they were the two funniest people in the country. I couldn’t believe that people had not been throwing opportunities at them … I choose people that make me laugh and come up with things that I couldn’t think of myself.

“And there’s this other little thing that’s important, and there’s not enough of it in comedy, but they can speak with a tone of authority, even if it’s based on bullshit. They also have to be comfortable bullying me on my own show because I might employ them, but I want them to be fearless at all times.”

His greatest skill, he says, is knowing when to step aside.

“I see my job as removing as many obstacles as possible between great comedians and the audience,” he says. “Most producers I’ve seen in various other networks do the opposite. They get in the way. They tell comedians how to be funny and what audiences like. And I know that you hire the best comedians in the country because they know how to be funny, and they know what audiences like. And so my job is to get everything out of their way and have them working with freedom to express themselves. And that is the only recipe for success.”

The Yearly 2025 airs at 7.30pm on Wednesday, December 17, on the ABC.

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