After 25 years and 735 episodes of mostly live television, the axe has finally fallen on one of the most talked about programs on Australian television.
In a late-night media release designed to frustrate the Herald-Sun, NINE has confirmed production has ceased on the latest incarnation of the AFL Footy Show. The decision comes after weeks of appalling ratings with last week’s episode garnering just 53,000 viewers in Melbourne.
Football fans completely rejected the “new-look” Footy Show hosted Lehmo, Neroli Meadows, Dylan Alcott and Brendan Fevola, and who could blame them, this latest reboot of a once proud franchise was a near-unwatchable mess.
I’m bloody disappointed The Footy Show has been cancelled but I’m grateful for the opportunity to host it with Nez, Fev, Dylan and Crawf and am really proud of the shows we made. Our team were brilliant and spare a thought for the crew, some of whom had been there for 25 years!
— lehmo (@lehmo23) May 9, 2019
In truth The Footy Show never stood a chance. It found itself competing for attention against The Front Bar, a little show carefully crafted for two years on the internet, before being picked up by SEVEN and evolving into one of the most professionally produced TV shows in Australia.
The Front Bar is a joy to watch. Every segment is tightly scripted by skilled comedy writers, yet the material is delivered by skilled comedy performers in Mick Molloy, Andy Maher and Sam Pang who know how to make every moment look so natural and engaging. Guests on The Front Bar are treated as kings, rather than descending into a ‘comedy roast’, guests are lovingly mocked, but ultimately applauded.
By contrast, this latest reboot of the Footy Show was an un-holy mess. Produced by Eddie McGuire’s Jam TV productions for a network which after years of budget cuts and retrenchments, has now clearly lost the skill-set required to produce live variety television.
With an entire new cast and executive producer at the helm, one would have thought every effort would be made to give the new team a fighting chance, yet TV Blackbox understands the team had just one full-dress rehearsal before its premiere.
Much of the disorganisation came from NINE’s failure to secure a contract for the shows co-host Neroli Meadows until days before opening night, her other employer Foxtel happy to make things unnecessary complicated.
Another speed-hump was the title of the program, producer’s had hoped to shed the past and relaunch under new brand ‘More Than A Game’, Nine’s Sydney management had other ideas demanding ‘The Footy Show’ title continue.
Opening night was a mess, dialogue was a awkward, guests were forced to sit oddly placed chairs, a nervous laugh from Meadows over-powered everything, and it was never really explained why Tennis champion Dylan Alcott was even part of the show.
Forced to air on Wednesday’s due to an expanded AFL schedule, the new show was unable to run through team-lists as it had in the past. The departure of ‘news-breaker’ Damien Barrett also contributed to the show lacking purpose.
Health issues forced the shows new executive producer to miss several live broadcasts in the opening weeks. The lack of leadership was obvious with segments regularly running overtime with real purpose.
The Footy Show had been on a downward spiral for a long time. It possibly should have been axed in 2016 when Garry Lyon departed. It probably should have been axed in 2017 when James Brayshaw departed. It definitely should have been axed in 2018 when Sam Newman quit LIVE on-air.
Love him or hate him, Newman was the heart and soul of the AFL Footy Show. The entire format was built around him. If he was engaged, the show was electric. If he was disinterested (a regular occurrence in later years) the entire format fell apart. Newman had run his race as a primetime TV host, but to continue the show without him was also foolhardy.
Footy Show Ratings – Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth Metro Markets
So what next? NINE has plenty of World Cup and Ashes cricket coming up. Currently scheduled to air on 9Gem, it’s likely the network will move this content on to the main channel in non-nrl states.
The network had previously promised a few “Eddie & Sam” Footy Show specials to finish the year. Hopefully this idea will also be axed.
In its prime The Footy Show was an electric Television experience which led to a revolution in Australian Sports coverage, and helped build the AFL into a multi-million dollar industry.
In many ways The Footy Show was a victim of its own success. It spawned an AFL media industry that now produces 100’s of hours of TV every week. Program’s such as Footy Classified and AFL360 delve deeply into the big issues, while newer shows such as Fox Footy’s, Up The Guts deliver edgy satire.
The Footy Show deserves to be remembered fondly, but Television and the audience has already moved on. It’s a shame it took Channel 9 so long to realise it.
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It was difficult to see how the show could be sustainable given the ratings! Social media roasted it also, despite the individual talent being popular and generally well-liked. Tough times, but seems inevitable.
Some speculation (I have no evidence to support these thoughts): maybe The Footy Show abandoned its core audience.
The show originally seemed to support & celebrate the tribal and ‘bogan’ elements of traditional footy supporters. Newman in particular played astutely to this crowd. Eddie M also carefully fostered this core audience. Lyon & Brayshaw kept the faith, although not as smartly as EddieM.
This year’s rejig of the show seemed to want to play to a more sophisticated audience. It also seemed to adopt the growing trend to inject ‘Before the Game’ style comedy into the format. The latter was ground breaking in its time, but has worked best since as a side dish to the central presentation of footy facts, gossip, & players for the core audience.
The Front Bar succeeds with a strong dose of nostalgia for the simpler footy culture of previous generations, presented with genial comedy rather than barbed satire. (The show trades largely on Mick Molloy’s skills in this regard, and flags badly on the rare nights he is unavailable.)
Analysis of AFL marketing & focus group data probably provides firm evidence of the degree to which footy crowds have diversified away from traditional AFL supporters. It probably also indicates how much truth there may or may not be in the views put forward by some that footy culture was too ‘blokey’ and need to change to broaden its appeal and support.
The Footy Show’s traditional audience clearly was not interested in the new version of the show. That audience has either shrunk, or was alienated by the new format.
AFL has a much larger audience in Melbourne than NRL in Sydney. TV programs that want to attract that unique audience will have to seriously research the key values of the core audience, and reflect those values in their presentation. In that regard, less political correctness, and more respect for the Footy Show’s traditional
audience, might result in a commercially successful venture.
Each of the presenters on this year’s revised format of The Footy Show is a successful football or sports personality in other formats. It was their bad luck to be part of a new show that lost sight of the majority of AFL supporters.
An aside – the graph of footy show ratings in the article above surprised me. I didn’t realise audiences for all programs except The Front Bar were around the 100,000 mark. That seems low. I understand the shows on Foxtel are limited to subscribers, but free to air shows Footy Classified and Talking Footy don’t seem to do much better. Presumably they pay their way, but the audiences are much smaller than the general following for AFL would seem to warrant. I guess I’m part of a smaller demographic than I had previously assumed.