Gossip Queen: Sam Newman’s powers put to the test in Footy Show shuffle
SAM Newman is going to need superhero powers to carry The Footy Show through a daunting five-week period where the AFL fixture kicks the ageing Channel 9 show to Wednesday nights.
Fiona Byrne
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SAM Newman is going to need superhero powers to carry The Footy Show through a daunting five-week period where the AFL fixture kicks the ageing Channel 9 show to Wednesday nights.
The out-of-sync programming could be the nail in the coffin for the 25-year-old show, which has been savagely challenged by Channel 7’s Front Bar offering this year.
The ball bounces on Thursday night footy as of this week with matches scheduled for June 14, June 21, June 28, July 5 and July 12, meaning The Footy Show will move forward a day into a Wednesday night timeslot.
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The show’s ratings have traditionally slumped when it airs on Wednesday, an unfamiliar time to its rusted-on fans.
A drop in ratings can be carried when a show is flying, but is hard to hide when the viewing figures have already started a downward trend.
The move could not come at a worse time. The most recent episode of The Footy Show averaged 167,000 viewers in Melbourne and was beaten by The Front Bar, which averaged 228,000 viewers. The previous week The Footy Show averaged 173,000 viewers to The Front Bar’s 210,000.
Newman, The Footy Show’s teflon headline magnet, was on Saturday in superhero mode, slipping into a Superman costume at Oz Comic Con at the Melbourne Convention Centre to film a Street Talk segment for the show.
He was joined by an uncharacteristically camera-shy Dane Swan, who was dressed as The Riddler.
Meanwhile, the show is sending Shane Crawford to Russia this week to file segments on footy of a different kind — the soccer World Cup.