Australia's favourite actress Asher Keddie is the one to beat as high-profile television personalities line up in the annual race for gold: television's biggest prize, the Gold Logie.

Keddie, who won last year's top gong at the TV Week Logie Awards, is one of four returning nominees in the category of most popular personality on TV. The others are comedian Andy Lee, presenter Carrie Bickmore and actor Stephen Peacocke.

There are two new entrants in this year's race: actress Essie Davis, who stars in the hit ABC1 drama Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, and television presenter Scott Cam, who hosts Nine's reality renovation series, The Block.

Their inclusion effectively bumps out Hamish Blake and Adam Hills, who have both featured as nominees in the category before. Blake has been nominated twice, winning once in 2012. Hills has been nominated six times previously but never won.

The Nine Network goes into the race with the most solid form: just under half of all the Gold Logies given out for most popular personality on TV since the awards were created in 1959 have gone to Nine, with the balance divided between Seven and Ten.

The ABC has only won three times, in 1962, 1963 and 1976, though it has the rare honour of making history with the first Gold Logie won by a woman: actress and television personality Lorrae Desmond, who won in 1962.

Television icon Graham Kennedy holds the record for wins with six Gold Logies: the TV Week "star of the year" award in 1959, plus five more (after the award was officially named) in 1960, 1967, 1969, 1974 and 1978.

Only one other personality has come close since: journalist and former Midday presenter Ray Martin, who has five from 1987 and a four-year unbroken run between 1993 and 1996. Behind him, tied with four apiece, are Lisa McCune and Bert Newton, and behind them, with three piece, are Daryl Somers and Rove McManus.

The American pop duo MKTO, English singer John Newman and Australian pop icon - and former Gold Logie winner - Kylie Minogue will perform during the telecast. Minogue was the youngest Gold Logie winner in history when, in 1988, she won the Gold Logie.

Meanwhile, Australia's public broadcasters and pay TV outfit Foxtel have carved off the lion's share of nominations in the race for outstanding television drama, taking seven of 10 places in the drama and miniseries/telemovie categories.

The ABC's Paper Giants and Redfern Now, and Foxtel's Top of the Lake and Wentworth all secured nominations. Only three commercial dramas were nominated: Seven's A Place To Call Home and Ten's Offspring in outstanding drama and Nine's Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story in outstanding miniseries/telemovie.

Seven's ratings blockbuster miniseries INXS: Never Tear Us Apart was screened outside of elgibility for this year's Logies. It will be a contender - and you could safely predict a formidable one - at next year's awards.

Public broadcasters also accounted for half of the nominations in the news coverage and public affairs report categories, notably the Four Corners report "A Gracious Gift", about organ donation, by reporter Sarah Ferguson and produder Deb Masters. The report was unusually personal for the pair; it featured their ABC colleague, Mark Colvin, who underwent a kidney transplant.

Seven's news report, "Dark Side of the Force", about a sex ring inside the Australian Defence Force, was nominated in the news coverage category. Seven reporter Robert Ovadia and investigative producer Paula Doneman have already won a Walkley Award for the report.

The ABC and SBS also took four of seven nominations in the outstanding factual program category, notably the SBS1 vaccination documentary Jabbed, the ABC's Desert War, about the North African Campaign during World War II, and the Foxtel observational series Kings Cross ER: St Vincent's Hospital.

Foxtel's reboot of the iconic 1980s drama Prisoner, Wentworth, was nominated for outstanding drama series. Two of its stars, Danielle Cormack and Shareena Clanton, were also nominated: for outstanding actress and for the Graham Kennedy Award for most outstanding newcomer respectively.

Australia's fascination with media soap opera also reaped rich rewards for the ABC and Channel Nine. Both Paper Giants: Magazine Wars (ABC1) and Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story (Nine Network) were nominated in the outstanding miniseries/telemovie category.

The stars of both projects also secured nominations: actor Lachy Hulme, who played Sir Frank Packer in Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story, and Mandy McElhinney, who played magazine editor Nene King in Paper Giants: Magazine Wars. They were nominated for outstanding actor and actress respectively.

Despite some well-publicised (and valid) criticism and calls for TV comedy to be given its own category, scripted comedies and variety/talent shows remain awkwardly shoehorned into the outstanding light entertainment program category, where The Voice is pitted against four scripted comedies: SBS's Housos and the ABC's It's A Date, Please Like Me and Upper Middle Bogan.

A similarly poor one-size-fits-all approach exists with the most popular light entertainment category where a lone scripted comedy, the ABC's Ja'mie: Private School Girl, is up against a talent show (Seven's The X Factor), a news magazine panel show (The Project) and a comedy/travel series (Nine's Hamish & Andy's Gap Year Asia).

The ABC led in total nominations with 32, including two nominations for its ABC3 channel and one each for ABC2 and ABC4Kids. The Nine Network followed with 24 nominations, and then the Seven Network with 19 nominations and the Ten Network with 17 nominations. SBS secured nine nominations, plus a nomination for its indigenous digital channel NITV.

Because actress Caren Pistorius appeared on three programs on two networks last year - Offspring, Network Ten; Redfern Now and Paper Giants, ABC1 - the nomination totals for Ten and the ABC increase slightly when counted on a channel by channel basis.

Foxtel's haul of nine nominations was spread across seven of its channels, led by the basic cable drama channel SoHo, which mixes original Australian drama - notably Wentworth - with content from the HBO library.

SoHo scored three nominations while six other channels - UKTV, Sky News Australia, Crime & Investigation, Nick Junior, Lifestyle Channel and Lifestyle You - took home a single nomination each.

Several categories have been altered this year, according to the organisers of the event, TV Week magazine. They include merging the male and female most popular new talent into a single category, and removing the most popular factual program category entirely.

It would appear that the Seven Network took the biggest hit in the nomination count as a result: its dramas, such as Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters, featured prominently in the new talent categories. In 2005 it took six of eight possible nominations. In 2011 it took four of the eight. This year is only has three nominees in the merged category.

Ultimately all eyes on the night are trained, however, on the last category: the prized Gold Logie, which is one of two given out every year. The recipient of the first, an individual or program inducted each year into the TV Week Hall of Fame, will be announced in its magazine in the next few weeks. Naming the second is the denouement of the telecast.

The 56th Annual TV Week Logie Awards will be held on Sunday, April 27, in Melbourne. They will be broadcast on the Nine Network.

NUMBER OF NOMINATIONS BY NETWORK

ABC: 32

Nine Network: 24

Seven Network: 19

Network Ten: 17

SBS: 10

Foxtel: 9

NUMBER OF NOMINATIONS BY CHANNEL

ABC1: 28

Channel Nine: 24

Channel Seven: 19

Channel Ten: 17

SBS: 9

Soho: 3

ABC3: 2

ABC2: 1

ABC4Kids: 1

Crime & Investigation: 1

Lifestyle: 1

LifestyleYOU: 1

Nick Junior: 1

NITV: 1

Sky News Australia: 1

UKTV: 1