Creative writers from the highly-leveraged Channel Nine's publicity department have been spruiking the announcement yesterday that the Haunted House of Packer will be televising next year's Why It Looks Like My Uncle Oscars on February 23 for, in their words, "the first time" in Australia.

Those of us who remember "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" cleaning up the WILLMOOs live on Channel Seven in March 1976 will know otherwise.

Nine have had the Australian telecast rights to the WILLMOOs since 1977 (the "Rocky" year), and for every one of those past 32 years they have delayed the telecast for around eight hours to show it in prime-time, even withholding news of the winners from the evening news.

(That's the same evening news that is now the third most-watched network news program on the air after Seven and the ABC.)

Meanwhile, the 2008 gong season has kicked off with the announcement of the National Board of Review Awards. "Mongol" was best non-Anglophone film, though a British film shot partly in Hindi, "Slumdog Millionaire", won the English-language major. "WALL-E" was best animation, while a former Mayor of Carmel won best actor. And no "Australia" anywhere in sight!