Quote Originally Posted by aker39 View Post
I saw Hutchy after the game and all the Dogs supporters were giving him high fives and thanking him for bringing the supporters to the game.
I actually sat next to Hutchie at a lunch a bit over a year ago. He was good to talk to personally. Unguarded and pretty natural. Decent bloke, rwally. Does his best in the media and fair to say his best is pretty good. Also like his Saturday morning show, as other posters have said.

Problems with The Footy Show do not lie with Hutchie. Its problems lie in the fact that it's no longer a footy show with a sprinkling of variety and humour. It's now a B grade variety show with a sprinkling of footy. Also, when the show first started, you just didn't see footballers in the media. I remember when it first came on thinking "Geez, is that what Doug's personality and voice sounds like! I'm fascinated to get to know him!"

Now, (no, make that the last 15 years) the show's problem is that everyone hears these players speak on a weekly basis. There's no intrigue. It's saturation. So that sprinkling of personality has lost its punch.

Instead of recognising that as the core reason why the show's viewership has dropped off, the producers have "chased the dragon" by thinking that more sprinkles are the way to go.

In fact, the exact opposite is the truth. They've needed to leverage the core value of the show - the football. Instead, they've pursued the wrong path and completely stuffed it. I turned off around 2000.

Now Fox Footy have stolen the march, whilst the Ch7 show with Mick Molloy, Sam Pang and Andy Maher (who's inferior to Hutchie, imo - not that it's an overly significant ingredient) has outflanked it for simple, laid back humour. Thing is, 2 of the 3 are actually comedians-cum-entertainers. That beats Sam Newman and a bunch of mundane footballers every time. It's so simple. I wonder why such highly paid TV execs can't work it out!