Scott Cam reveals rogue Block move Nine won’t let him pull again

Scott Cam is as nervous as the contestants about this weekend’s Block auctions – but there’s one expensive thing he’s now been banned from doing.

As The Block contestants go to auction in the most difficult market conditions the show has faced in years, host Scott Cam has revealed that he and the team behind the show are also nervously fretting to see if all five houses sell this weekend.

Speaking on Today this morning, Cam said The Block was in an unusual position for an otherwise carefully planned reality show, effectively handing the finale over to external forces each year.

“We give it to real estate agents and the buying public, and we’ve got no control. We are very nervous – we never set anyone up to fail. For me, it’s about having them make money,” he insisted.

Scott Cam wants everyone to make money – but he won’t be intervening this year.

Cam’s desire for each team to get a happy ending saw him take the unusual step of intervening in the competition during last year’s finale, when the contestants complained that their reserve prices had been set too high.

Contestants only see profit if their home prices rise above their reserve, and last year the teams banded together to insist theirs should be lowered.

Cam agreed, and spoke to those higher up at Nine to have them all lowered by $100,000.

In the end, he needn’t have bothered – even the last-placing house last season made just shy of $300,000. He told Fox FM during a radio interview today that he’d “never again” meddle with reserve prices: “I got in big trouble there. I cost the network about half a million dollars,” he confessed.

Cam said Nine’s Chief Executive and Director, Mike Sneesby, had later personally told him: “You cost me a lot of money.”

But The Block has this year helped contestants in another way, as all struggled to even finish the builds on their mammoth 10-acre blocks.

“Because we had supply chain issues, everybody had a few unfinished things. The Block’s building company finalised a few of those things, so we could get them ready for market. We want everybody to make money on The Block,” he told Fox FM.

The Block contestants are mighty nervous ahead of this weekend's auctions.

And for years, making money hasn’t been a problem, with even contestants who place last in the competition going home hundreds of thousands of dollars richer. Between 2015 and 2021, only one team has gone home with under $100k – 2017’s Clint and Hannah, who scored $95,000.

Last year’s winners Mitch and Mark earned $744,000 for their efforts, while the year before, Jimmy and Tam scored the biggest win in Block history, with $1.066m.

But there have been horror years in the past – like 2014, when two teams earned just $10,000 apiece and another only $40,000.

And just across the pond, a worrying recent precedent, with The Block New Zealand’s most recent season ending in absolute disaster last month.

This season has taken a toll on contestants – but will they at least get a financial reward?

The winning couple netted just $NZ4000 ($A3046) in a record-low auction result for the Kiwi franchise.

Thankfully, they also received $NZ100,000 in prize money for coming out on top – their fellow competitors weren’t so lucky, with the couple who came in second place making a profit of just $NZ100 ($A76) once their home sold.

His fears are shared by one of last year’s contestants, Kirsty Lee Akers. She and husband Jesse Anderson raked in more than $300,000 during the 2021 season – but Akers said she had “a bad feeling” ahead of this year’s auction.

“Interest rates have shot up and the market has cooled, plus everyone is saying these homes will sell for $5 million, but some of the better homes recently sold in that area [the Macedon Ranges in Victoria] only made about $2 million,” she said.

“That’s a huge price difference.”

Originally published as Scott Cam reveals rogue Block move Nine won’t let him pull again