Footy Show star Tony Jones is slammed after he said Nine Colleague put a spin on his low ratings
AFL reporters at war: Footy Show star Tony Jones is slammed as a ‘school holidays fill-in’ after he accused his Channel Nine colleague of not coming clean about his low ratings
- Sunday Footy Show host Jones accused Craig Hutchison of spinning ratings
- Sports Entertainment Network CEO hit back on Nine’s Footy Classified
- Hutchison’s stations have struggled in surveys, but he questions metrics
Sunday Footy Show host Tony Jones has become embroiled in a war of words with the boss of SEN radio after accusing him of using spin to hide the truth about the business’s poor ratings.
Jones returned to the program on Sunday morning after covering Wimbledon and wasted no time taking a shot at Sports Entertainment Network CEO Craig Hutchison during the show’s ‘What Caught My Eye’ segment.
When co-host and former Port Adelaide star struggled with his numbers while discussing the AFL ladder, Jones chipped in with: ‘Think he’s taking a leaf out of Craig Hutchison’s book with the ratings, he puts that spin on them.’
Jones (pictured left with AFL commentating legend Dennis Cometti) claimed SEN CEO Craig Hutchison is massaging his stations’ poor ratings results
Hutchison replied in withering style on Nine’s Footy Classified on Monday night.
‘Over 20 years as a professional fill-in, he (Jones) hasn’t been in a (radio) ratings survey ever. He’s filled in on the school holidays … off-Broadway TJ sitting in judgment of us.
‘Turn it up, TJ. When you get yourself one registered listener and actually get subjected to a ratings week over 20 years, then we’ll take your advice.’
SEN struggled badly in the Sydney radio ratings released earlier this month, grabbing just 0.4 per cent of the audience share to finish far behind competitor Sky Sports Radio.
Hutchison wasn’t taking that lying down and branded his fellow Channel Nine star a ‘fill-in’ who doesn’t have ‘one registered listener’
In Melbourne, Hutchison’s business remained level on 2.7 per cent, with 3AW and Triple M dominating footy coverage.
The SEN boss defended his stations’ ratings in May as they rebounded from bad figures in an earlier survey.
He disagrees with the ‘old school’ way the numbers are calculated and would prefer it if a more modern system was used.
‘Over the summer period we had a lot of challenges with people away and Covid,’ he said.
‘We had some new people come in like Nathan Buckley and others. We had the core teams on a bit later than normal. I knew that our next survey would be much stronger and it was.’
Jones took over from Hutchison as host of the Sunday Footy Show in 2016.
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