FTA-TV Open Mike

Oct 9, 2003
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Are there any plans to keep the format but with an alternative host who may be more amenable to certain other guests?
Nothing's been announced. I wouldn't be surprised though if someone in the Fox stable had a crack, similar to the Bob series from last year.
 

Flogwater

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Open Mike could be repackaged as 'Talking with Andy'. Andy 'Youse Blokes' Maher will be the host. There will be multi-part questions with rambling, 5 minute preambles. Plus a touch of Bob with random, cut-away camera shots around the room.

A timeslot of at least one hour per show will be needed.
 

Flogwater

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For those who think that Open Mike went downhill in the last few years, what's your view on the specific episode when the show jumped the shark?
 
I knew it wasn’t going to get raised but Gerard and Robbo really should have asked Mike about his role in knifing fitzroy. It was the one glaring absence from the discussion.

This is the only time in Sheahan's journalistic career that he didn't 'flipflop' on an issue.
 

Evolved1

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Most coherent i have ever seen Robbo.

Sad to see him step away. Don't get the personal vendettas against him, he wrote about footy ffs.
Mike Sheahan was chief football writer at the HUN. Now they have Robbo in the role.
 
May 5, 2006
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He wasn't too bad, he just needs to fawn less with the people he's interviewing, not come across as such a fanboi as he did with Richo, Fev and others.

He's not a journo, just a former player who interviews people he wants to. It's his own niche show and what I expect Fox Footy to run with in 2021. They also did On The Mark with Kelli Underwood, Neroli Meadows and Sarah Jones which was a serious show which mostly focused on off field stuff.

As for replacing Mike Sheehan for a comparable show to Open Mike, from the Fox Footy stables it would have to be Gerard Whateley, or Ed. Does the world want that? There really aren't many good footy journos these days. Mark Howard has an interview podcast, he could be another option.
 

wagstaff

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Watched the Whateley/Robinson interview with Sheahan; not bad as these things go. But on issue of Wayne Carey non-interview there was a big contradiction that went unexplored.

Sheahan said he just wanted to talk with Carey about footy but that seems hard to accept as Sheahan always explored off-field controversial issues. Indeed just a few mins before Sheahan was talking about how awkward his Des Tuddenham interview because of that (something Tuddenham asked him not to do pre-interview).

My guess is that if Carey initially wanted to do the interview he became aware of what Open Mike episodes covered and decided Sheahan couldn't be trusted. Is Sheahan that naive he doesn't know why it never went ahead?
 

Flogwater

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Watched the Whateley/Robinson interview with Sheahan; not bad as these things go. But on issue of Wayne Carey non-interview there was a big contradiction that went unexplored.

Sheahan said he just wanted to talk with Carey about footy but that seems hard to accept as Sheahan always explored off-field controversial issues. Indeed just a few mins before Sheahan was talking about how awkward his Des Tuddenham interview because of that (something Tuddenham asked him not to do pre-interview).

My guess is that if Carey initially wanted to do the interview he became aware of what Open Mike episodes covered and decided Sheahan couldn't be trusted. Is Sheahan that naive he doesn't know why it never went ahead?

This is a good example of the show not delving into something that comes up which is curious or doesn't add up.

It's interesting that Mike never interviewed on the program three super players who should figure in discussions of the best players over the last 50 years: Carey, Ablett Senior and Lockett.
 

Virus

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Just replace it with Gerard and Robbo interviewing Jack Riewoldt every week for an extra half hour.
Reckon you could swap Gerard and Robbo for Bruce and Jack for Cyril Rioli to give Hawthorn fans something to smile about for the next 5 seasons.
 
Watched the Whateley/Robinson interview with Sheahan; not bad as these things go. But on issue of Wayne Carey non-interview there was a big contradiction that went unexplored.

Sheahan said he just wanted to talk with Carey about footy but that seems hard to accept as Sheahan always explored off-field controversial issues. Indeed just a few mins before Sheahan was talking about how awkward his Des Tuddenham interview because of that (something Tuddenham asked him not to do pre-interview).

My guess is that if Carey initially wanted to do the interview he became aware of what Open Mike episodes covered and decided Sheahan couldn't be trusted. Is Sheahan that naive he doesn't know why it never went ahead?
That Tuddenham interview came across to me like Tuddenham only wanted to talk about how good a footballer he was
 

nobbyiscool

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For those who think that Open Mike went downhill in the last few years, what's your view on the specific episode when the show jumped the shark?

It wasn't a traditional shark-jumping, but I pretty much stopped watching after the Brian Lake episode. It was such uncomfortable watching, and I couldn't see who it benefit other than Fox Footy and Sheehan. It certainly didn't appear to help Lake.
 

Flogwater

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It wasn't a traditional shark-jumping, but I pretty much stopped watching after the Brian Lake episode. It was such uncomfortable watching, and I couldn't see who it benefit other than Fox Footy and Sheehan. It certainly didn't appear to help Lake.

That episode was brutal.
 
Jul 29, 2009
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For those who think that Open Mike went downhill in the last few years, what's your view on the specific episode when the show jumped the shark?
The Jacko episode. It was designed to draw people in and all we saw was a version of Abe Simpson barking incoherent stories (with the odd reasonable point thrown in) mixed with insults as Mike largely sat there.
 
May 5, 2016
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Just watched a whole bunch of these back to back as I started working from
Home and needed a distraction in the lounge room.
Naturally gravitated to the Geelong ones first.

Enright came across as a really nice guy but it was boring
Johnson was reasonably interesting
Barry Stonham wasn’t terribly interesting or revealing
I liked Billy Brownless he came across as a decent guy if a bit of a tit
Scarlett is very blunt and doesn’t really pull any punches - I like his honesty but it doesn’t make him look particularly engaging or charismatic

the ones I found most interesting were John Barnes and Cam Mooney.
Barnes comes across as you’d expect, different and almost simple but there is a bit more to him than that. Was very interesting hearing his words about GAS, they all get asked about him and talk about his footy but Barnes roomed with him a lot and talked about his personality and how much time he gave people away from footy.

Mooney is very self effacing and said how little he felt a part of the 99 flag - understandably - and you can tell he still takes responsibility for the 08 defeat even though you could pin it on any number of blokes or moments. Looking at the photo of the hawks on the podium he looked teary. He loved the club a hell of a lot. He is very modest and accepting that he wasn’t a superstar just a serviceable kpf and he accepted that he was ill disciplined and didn’t make light of it.

ottens comes across as a really nice bloke but again fairly uninteresting.

I’ve watched the Capper one about three times now and it still entertains me. He’s off the wall but I found him incredibly likeable
 
May 3, 2007
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A few of my memorable ones:
  • Robert Walls - stuff about Jack Elliot and the uk trip ( battle of britan) was fascinating.
  • Mark Eustace - harrowing
  • Peter Schwab- Sad
  • Jacko - bizzare !
I loved the Robert walls one from the simple reason about him working as a coach of the Brisbane bears.

Jacko was hilarious
 
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