Daryl Somers: Back in the Room critics ‘disenchanted in their own lives’

DARYL Somers says the people who didn’t like his new show Back in the Room are “disenchanted in their own lives”. Or something.

TELEVISION veteran Daryl Somers has spoken about the reaction to his Channel Nine hit You’re Back In The Room, saying those who took to social media to criticise the show are in fact unhappy in their own lives.

“I think social media’s there for people to vent their spleen. If there’s something that’s disenchanting them in their own lives, they can have a go at someone else. Those that dug the show don’t neceassily tweet — they just think ‘I’ll watch it next week’,” he told Kyle and Jackie O this morning.

Somers also referenced an article which ran on news.com.au on Monday morning, which documented the mixed social media reaction to You’re Back In The Room and was later updated to include details of the show’s ratings win the previous night.

Hypnotist Keith Barry and Daryl Somers in You're Back in the Room. Picture: Channel 9

“Without naming the journo, there was an online thingo that came out the next morning, he’d gathered all the negative tweets he could find. As the morning went on it got smaller and smaller, because he realised how it rated. Now I’ve had a couple of positive articles … this business,” he said.

“Not everyone needs to like the show, that’s fine. It’s just great when the majority of people like it and it works.”

Jackie O then turned the topic to Hey, Hey It’s Saturday, and rumours of the program getting another reboot. Somers said he was keen to “set the record straight”:

“A lot of journos are saying ‘Daryl Somers is DESPERATE to get the show back on,’ – I’m not desperate to get the show back on. When we came back in ‘09, did the reunion shows, and more shows in 2010, we were asked by Nine. This time around, we’d been asked by Nine — before I got the offer, by the way, of You’re Back In The Room — if we’d come back and do another special or whatever. All going well, we might come back,” he said.

Daryl Somers, pictured here during the 1999 final episode of Hey, Hey’s original run. Picture: Craig Borrow.

“Online, on Heyhey.tv, I’ve been digitising all the old analog material, and we’ve been putting that up for people to have a nostalgic romp with it. We’ve still got so many people asking ‘When are you coming back?’. This year it’s been 45 years since we started — [we’ll do it] while we’re all alive and well.”

But would he let Jo Beth Taylor back on the show, after she infamously labelled him “egocentric” during her stint on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here earlier this year?

“Jo told me, they jump on the negatives all the time. She said she did 20 minutes of positive stuff about how I’d helped her early in her career, when she was going through some problems too. Jo Beth is a great performer, and she loved her time on Hey, Hey. I’d have her back on just like that,” he said.

Jackie O pressed Daryl on the topic, asking if he confronted Jo Beth about why she’d called him egocentric.

“I didn’t need to get into all of that, and she was horrified that it came out. Next she’ll be saying Red Symons has an ego. It was my production company doing the show, I hosted the show, I was EP of the show, it’s pretty hard to step back and say ‘You all do it’. It’s been my sandpit for 45 years.”

You’re Back In The Room screens 7pm Sundays on Nine.