Media Street: Footy Classified’s decimation and future unpacked

The mass exodus from Channel 9’s flagship show Footy Classified has rocked football media, with serious questions raised to bosses at Nine. Scott Gullan dives into the carnage.

The footy landscape at Channel 9 is set for a big change.

Eddie McGuire turned to AFL legend Allan Jeans when assessing the Footy Classified carnage this week, borrowing a famous quote from the four-time premiership coach: “Crisis creates opportunity”.

This was on Wednesday morning and McGuire had just summoned Craig Hutchison to his Toorak office for what was essentially an exit meeting. The show he’d created back in 2007 during his brief tenure as Channel 9 chief executive was now on its knees.

His baby had been decimated by Channel 7 who’d audaciously poached two of his most important assets, Caroline Wilson and Kane Cornes. Hutchison, who he’d put in as host when he was just a beat reporter, was also departing given his own new links to the rival network.

Channel 9’s flagship footy show is about to undergo some serious change. Picture: Channel 9

The trio had appeared on Footy Classified for the final time on Tuesday night but had ignored the elephant in the room. There was no mention of their departure, no final farewell for Wilson, who like Hutchison, had been with the show for the entire 18 seasons.

McGuire, whose production company JAM TV puts the show together for Channel 9, insists this was not his direction.

“I think the Grand Final was probably more important,” he said. “It certainly didn’t come from us.”

It turns out it did come from the very top with Nine’s director of network sport Brent Williams saying there was to be no more “free-kicks” for Channel 7 in terms of publicity for their massive coup.

There was an awkwardness early in the final show, particularly with the fourth – and now only remaining – panellist Matthew Lloyd who’d said the night before at the Brownlow Medal how “bitterly disappointed” he was with the turn of events.

McGuire’s mood has seemed to fluctuate every 24 hours. On Tuesday he had been steaming and mentioning legal threats at the Carbine Club lunch.

Twenty-four hours later he’d calmed down and was doing what he does best, putting a positive spin on the biggest shake-up of the football media landscape in years.

McGuire hosts the Wednesday edition of Footy Classified. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

“I’m quite sanguine about it and I wish everyone the best of luck,” he said. “You get a good offer, go your hardest, I have no issue.

“I love the rough and tumble (of the media game). These days you want people to do great and there are offerings everywhere.

“Let me tell you no-one is losing their mind at JAM TV. We invented it in the first place and we also came up with a show called The Footy Show over the journey.

“As the great Allan Jeans said: “Crisis creates opportunity”. We’ve got a number of shows that we’re looking for a home and how we freshen up things (on Footy Classified).”

Then on Thursday morning, the competitive juices were raging again with McGuire talking up the TV war and labelling the departing trio as “list cloggers”.

“End of the season, you get rid of the list-cloggers, and you move the new superstars in,” McGuire said on Channel 9’s Today Show.

“And that’s what we’re doing. The Footy Classified with Caroline Wilson and Craig Hutchison. That started 18 years ago.

“We commissioned it when I was up in Sydney, actually. And it’s been fantastic. And it’s great that Channel Copycat is just taking something we’ve done for 18 years and putting it on air.

“So that’s OK. While they’re doing that, we’ll come up with something fresh, new and exciting for next year and do what we always do.”

The question McGuire didn’t answer was how did it get to this?

The blame lays fair and square on Channel 9 executives who one observer said were “asleep at the wheel” when it came to looking after its talent.

While Eddie and his team produce the show, Channel 9 pays the bills and is in charge of contracting its stars.

Cornes’ move to Channel 7 was announced in August.

You didn’t have to be Einstein to forecast that the changeover into the new $4.5 billion AFL TV rights deal, which kicks in next year, was going to see a seismic shift in the landscape.

Despite Cornes, who had been with Footy Classified since 2020, quickly becoming the loudest and most polarising voice in the game – and there were rumours as far back as April that Foxtel were showing interest – Nine let his contract drift and drift.

The same with Wilson, who many believe is the key to Footy Classified given her fearlessness and news-breaking, There were no attempts to lock her in until it was basically too late which meant the ‘Godfather’ offer which had been speculated wasn’t even required.

She simply went where she was wanted the most. (Of course, with a handy pay rise or as McGuire called it “some good superannuation”).

The other alarm bell which should have rung loudly in Nine’s Docklands headquarters was when the deck chairs were changed at Seven back in July. Lewis Martin, the long-time head of sport and Melbourne boss, was shown the door, replaced by the younger and well-connected Chris Jones.

He had previously run the network’s cricket coverage but was now given the mantra – and a large cheque book – to shake things up. The AFL had been dirty on its free-to-air broadcaster about its lack of football content away from match days.

There was a lame attempt to do something about it this year with the reinvention of Talking Footy on Wednesday nights but it didn’t work with the panel of former champions Joel Selwood, Trent Cotchin, Tim Watson and James Brayshaw failing to gel with viewers.

Jones had a vision and a hit list.

Lewis Martin and his replacement Chris Jones.

He wanted to try and compete with Fox Footy’s domination of footy talk shows led by the award-winning AFL 360, its flagship Monday night program On The Couch and the new rising success story The Midweek Tackle.

Plus he needed to go head-to-head with Channel 9’s popular Sunday Footy Show and then take on Footy Classified with other programs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Cornes and Wilson were at the top of the list while formers St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt, who had been a star at Fox Footy before moving overseas, was also signed this week when it became apparent he was moving back to Melbourne next year.

But it was Jones’ long-time friendship with Hutchison which brought down the second of the original Footy Classified pillars.

The pair had lived together for several years as they were moving through the ranks – Hutchison at Channel 10 and then Channel 7, Jones as a junior Channel 7 reporter and then producer.

As part of Hutchison’s Sports Entertainment Group, which owns radio station SEN, he has a production company, Rainmaker, which had done some work with Seven in the past across its AFLW, hockey, athletics and surfing coverage.

When Jones took over, the two friends hatched a plan for Rainmaker to expand its relationship with the Kerry Stokes-controlled network and produce the new AFL shows planned for 2025.

This made Hutchison’s presence on Footy Classified untenable in the eyes of Nine. Whether he still appears on-air alongside Cornes and Wilson on Seven next year is questionable. He has only been on year-to-year contracts in recent times because of his increasing business commitments.

While the Seven raid has shaken Nine badly, Footy Classified will return next year but in what guise?

Craig Hutchison will be involved with Channel 7’s footy shows next year, but in what capacity?

The Wednesday night version, which is hosted by McGuire and has Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel and reporter Damian Barrett joining Lloyd, has been a success.

Regular fill-in host Sam McClure, would be a likely inclusion next year while Channel 9 reporter Tom Morris is a star on the rise.

A number of former AFL stars are likely to be looked at including former Hawthorn and Geelong premiership hero Isaac Smith and ex-Saint Leigh Montagna who has impressed in the commentary box with Fox Footy and Triple M.

Despite all the upheaval McGuire still had his reflective moments about the show which was originally going to be called Footy Confidential before a last-minute change due to a conflict with a rival organisation’s show.

So at the 11th hour Footy Classified was born on April 2, 2007 with a panel of Hutchison, Wilson, former Melbourne champion Garry Lyon and North great Wayne Carey.

Carey only lasted a year before being sacked after assaulting his girlfriend. Other panellists over the journey were North Melbourne champion Glenn Archer, former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas, Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd and current Saints coach Ross Lyon.

“Hutchy and Caro have been there since day one when I rang them up and said ‘I want you guys on there’,” McGuire said.

Wilson had been part of Footy Classified since its inception. Picture: AAP Image/Daniel Pockett

“Caro said to me I’ve got braces on at the moment, I don’t think I can do it. I said I’m not worried about what’s in your mouth, I’m more concerned about what’s coming out of your mouth. She laughed and said that was great support.”

Then it was time for another famous quote, or version of it, from former French president and war hero Charles de Gaulle.

“The cemetery is full of indispensable people of which I have been one at one stage,” McGuire said. “Mike Sheahan was at one stage, Sir Eric Pearce, Graham Kennedy …

“I would be suggesting to any young producers and young TV hosts, you got ideas, you’ve got my number.”