Media Diary: Seven’s ‘Protect Bruce McAvaney’ plan in coronavirus crisis

Bruce McAvaney is set to call AFL games in a sterilised room as the network looks to protect its legendary star.

Bruce McAvaney will call games from a sterilised studio for the foreseeable future. Picture: Channel 7

Locking down Bruce McAvaney in a sterilised room to call footy games off a TV monitor. Diary can reveal this is a previously unimaginable crisis scenario that suddenly became very real over at Seven last week.

Seven, like the ABC, was last week war-gaming coronavirus emergency plans. It has already made fist bumps and elbow taps standard company policy.

Now protecting McAvaney, 66, for decades Seven’s legendary network sports anchor, has become a top priority, given he is managing a non-life threatening form of leukaemia and his health has to be carefully managed. So with AFL games now to be played before empty stadiums, McAvaney and fellow commentators may call matches from the safety of a sterilised room at the Seven Broadcast Centre, based at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium.

Diary can also reveal that from Monday, Seven is already separating its various divisions around Australia into “red” and “blue” teams that work from home on alternate weeks, to build “redundancy” into the business in case of a coronavirus outbreak. Closing Seven’s Martin Place and Docklands studios is also a big part of its crisis scenarios.

Bizarre scenarios for big-name network talent moved out of the realms of fantasy last week, with rival Nine forced to implement unprecedented measures in the aftermath of a David Campbell Today Extra interview with coronavirus-positive Hollywood legend Tom Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson. Campbell has now embarked on a self-quarantine period. Karl Stefanovic replaced Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair on Thursday and Friday nights, after Wilson had used the same make-up room as Grimshaw.

McAvaney is set to spearhead Seven’s Olympics coverage. Picture: Channel 7

But for Seven, it is live sport causing the big headaches. Seven continues to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, with McAvaney currently scheduled to spearhead the network’s coverage.

But in a cancellation scenario, plans are well afoot to replace two entire weeks of 18-hours a day Olympics coverage if necessary. Diary hears one option is to extend the upcoming season of Big Brother, starring Sonia Kruger, by a fortnight to accommodate a cancelled Olympics. There are few better shows than BB to fill vast empty hours of airtime.

Meanwhile, the word is Seven is facing unexpected costs for minutiae like the sterilisation of outside broadcast trucks for the AFL season. It’s extra spending Seven can ill afford, given that Diary hears the poor performance of My Kitchen Rules contributed to a double-digit hit to its ad revenues in February.