Annette Sharp: Channel 7 sports reporter Mel McLaughlin’s frosty reception
HER signature on a Seven Network contract in 2016 was trumpeted as a TV coup that would bolster Seven’s Rio Olympic coverage — but two years on sports reporter Mel McLaughlin couldn’t get a start on Seven’s prime time broadcast of the Winter Olympics, Annette Sharp writes.
Opinion
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Her signature on a Seven Network contract in 2016 was trumpeted as a television coup that would bolster Seven’s Rio Olympic coverage — but two years on sports reporter Mel McLaughlin couldn’t get a start on Seven’s prime time broadcast of the Winter Olympics from PyeongChang.
Network executives bypassed McLaughlin in favour of Sunrise reporter Edwina Bartholomew — a woman with a large fan base, though no sporting credentials — to co-host the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, leaving McLaughlin with only off-peak hosting commitments, a daily prime time news cross and a growing collection of ridiculous poofy parkas.
The oversight represents a stunning snub to McLaughlin, given Seven’s PyeongChang commentators are a B-grade bunch, comprising AFL commentators from Perth and Melbourne — Basil Zempilas and Hamish McLachlan — Melbourne horse race caller Jason “Richo” Richardson, and a former chippie and surfer from Sydney, Tom Williams.
It’s a team that makes a sports fan yearn for the days of “Mr and Mrs Olympics”, Bruce McAvaney and Johanna Griggs. Perhaps neither was available for South Korean hosting duties?
Poached from the Ten Network in 2016 on a lucrative yearly contract worth $500,000-plus, McLaughlin came on board at Seven spruiking her Olympics credentials as a former host of Ten’s 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
As a result she was handed a high-profile hosting role in Rio that same year and it was expected she would be a shoo-in to host the opening and closing ceremonies and prime time segments from PyeongChang.
But it was not to be. McLaughlin’s increased role was vetoed by sports executives — a move that reveals Seven’s changing attitude towards its 38-year-old star, say insiders.
While news bosses are still as enamoured of her smoky eyes and dark hair as touring Jamaican cricketer Chris Gayle was in January 2016, sports executives at Seven have fallen out of love with McLaughlin, recently benching her from a number of sports broadcasts after taking the view she lacks some experience with the bread-and-butter sports on Seven’s roster — among them AFL, tennis, rugby league, horseracing and yachting.
“She can present the evening news report well — and she does. (Covering sport) she looks great in short bursts but isn’t great at covering events for long periods of time,” said another. “And that’s because her sporting interests lie elsewhere.”
Both executives point out soccer remains McLaughlin’s first love.
She is passionate about the sport — both on screen and off.
For the past two years McLaughlin has been in a relationship with a low-tiered UK soccer coach, Ashley Westwood, who moved to India last year to coach an Indian team.
Controversy has plagued McLaughlin and Westwood.
For the first year of their relationship Westwood remained officially married — although separated, he later claimed — from his third wife, Huma, an Englishwoman with whom he has a baby son.
McLaughlin, who separated from her husband in 2014, has previously been linked to another soccer star and also a rugby league identity.
Perhaps because of her romantic entanglements McLaughlin has historically had an aversion to publicity — a problem first flagged with media when she was at Network Ten.
“She’ll do what she wants to do but you can’t coerce her when she doesn’t want to do something and that may prove a test for some at Seven,” a Ten Network boss said in 2016.
Last week McLaughlin gave her critics fuel when she posted to social media: “It always upsets me when people assume you’re a diva just cos you’re on TV. Lucky I’ll never be accused of that.”
Accompanying the caption was vision of four crew members offering drinks, rundowns, cosmetics — a dig at herself.
Yet the comment still provoked whispers behind the scenes at Seven, where she is yet to win everyone’s respect and admiration.
Police came rushing to Seven’s newsroom in March 2017 to investigate an incident involving McLaughlin.
Seven’s news boss Jason Morrison later said McLaughlin had received threats from a stalker, prompting a police investigation. No one was ever arrested and no charges were laid.
McLaughlin’s boyfriend moved to India to take up his new coaching role soon after and the matter, police informed this columnist last year, “resolved itself”.
But in the year that followed, McLaughlin, who had legitimate reasons to feel stressed and fragile in 2017, is yet to find her feet in Seven’s sports department, leaving some wondering whether she ever will.