After a quarter century on TV the NRL Footy Show has finally been put out of its misery with Channel Nine announcing the show won’t be renewed for 2019.
This decision comes 12 months after the decision to remove Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin from the host chair and replace him with Erin Molan.
Some see this as a failing on Molan’s part and we’ve had Liz Ellis come out and say that it’s sexist to say it failed because of Molan. Ellis is right there.
To say it failed because of Molan would be sexist and, apparently Molan has been the subject of online ridicule because she took time to give birth earlier this year. None of that is fair to her and she no doubt gave it her best shot.
The axing of the Footy Show had many contributing factors.
Firstly, I do think the appointment of Molan to the show did ruffle some feathers, especially when Yvonne Sampson was let go by the network and now hosts her own show on Fox as well as being involved in Fox’s coverage.
Molan has never come across as particularly insightful on rugby league, whereas Yvonne Sampson seemed to find that balance of providing insight while still engaging her co-panelists.
But the appointment of Molan wasn’t the reason for the show being axed. I believe it would’ve been axed if Sampson or former co-host Peter Sterling was in the hot seat. Vautin’s replacement was almost always going to be on a hiding to nothing.
I’ll also highlight here that Molan has been retained by Nine and she’ll continue with much of the network’s sports coverage.
Erin Molan. Image: Wikipedia.
Secondly, and here’s where I think the main issues lie, the show wasn’t sure what it stood for. It started as a rugby league show bringing some light-hearted mid-week insight into the game while still being entertaining.
It then lurched to being an outright entertainment show with a rugby league theme before swinging too hard the other way and trying to be too serious.
Fox has shown a rather successful blueprint on this front. They have shows dedicated to insightful commentary, providing expert opinions (Buzz Rothfield and Paul Kent excluded) and shows such as The Matty Johns Show, designed to deliver laughs and entertainment. With each show the audience knows what they are going to get.
Thirdly, and I was a little surprised Channel Nine failed to pick up on this, the news cycle has changed.
25 years ago we had only the morning newspapers with a couple of evening editions, a handful of television stations with a couple of news programs, usually at night. Our fastest source of breaking news was radio.
The Footy Show, in its original form, looked at the rugby league news from the previous week.
They continued to try and do that while the news cycle shifted into a continuous format.
Now you can have a discussion on the judiciary charges on Monday, team lists on Tuesday, Wednesday judiciary appearances and Thursday we’re back into actual games of rugby league.
Courtesy of social media and Fox’s dedicated rugby league channel, these issues are dealt with as they occur.
A show airing once per week and trying to deal with all of those issues at once no longer cuts it. By Thursday we’ve pretty much forgotten what’s happened on Monday.
The axing of the Footy Show was a long time coming. Molan just happened to be there when it occurred.
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