Remember Stephen Conroy? He’s a former Communications Minister, occasional internet censorship proponent and avid Whovian. We already know that he tracks the exploits of The Doctor closer than anyone else in government, but his nerdiness actually saw him pressuring the head of the ABC over the future of the series.
At the unveiling of a Doctor Who exhibition at the ABC last night, ABC managing director Mark Scott said that Conroy would always be on the phone asking questions about what the national broadcaster would be doing with the show.
TV Tonight reports Scott saying:
The only calls that I ever calls I ever got from Conroy were always around Doctor Who. It would be on the availability of Doctor Who merchandising in his local ABC Shop, it would be whether in fact we were fast-tracking the new series when it arrives, or to tell me that he was one of those people who would get up at 4 in the morning to watch it when it arrives…
Do we, in-fact, have Stephen Conroy to thank for the fast-tracking of Doctor Who to iView last season? Is it any coincidence that he’s no longer in government and we have to wait for the new episodes like we always had to? I smell a conspiracy.
Conroy’s love for Doctor Who has been well-documented in the past. He most recently joined Twitter and set his avatar as a red Dalek, and in an interview with AFR Magazine, Conroy hauled his massive Dalek toy out of his office for the photoshoot. [TV Tonight]
