Race Around the World

Race Around the World was an Australian documentary series produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1997 and 1998 . It was based on a Canadian(Aa) television series.

Both seasons were hosted by Richard Fidler, a former member of the Doug Anthony All Stars comedy group.

For each series, eight "racers" were selected from video auditions from the Australian general public. The only stipulation for the video auditions was a lead in of ten seconds of black. John Safran submitted his audition with ten seconds of yellow. The successful applicants undertook a brief course in documentary film-making, before deciding on an itinerary for their journey around the world. They were then given a digital video camera, and sent to their first destination.

Over the next 100 days, the racers were required to devise, arrange and film a series of ten four-minute documentary films, as well as a stand-by documentary and five "postcards". This gave them ten days to travel to their next destination, film the video, and send it back to the ABC in Sydney with detailed editing instructions.

The series was broadcast as a weekly half-hour program, with four films shown per episode. Each film was then judged by a panel of three media and film experts including Sarah Macdonald, Tony Squires and Sigrid Thornton, as well as being put to a popular viewer vote. Points were deducted for late submissions.

Olivia Rousset was the winner of the first series.

Series Producer Paige Livingston

Tony Wilson was the winner of the second series.

Series Producer Jennifer Collins

Although receiving fairly high ratings for its timeslot, Race Around the World was a considerable logistical and financial drain on the publicly funded ABC. In 2000, the series was scaled down into a local version restricted to the Australian continent, entitled Race Around Oz.

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