A reminder the game is on 7mate tonight.
MKR bumps AFL's Anzac Day eve clash to 7mate, but league not fussedAnthony Colangelo
The Age
24 April 2017The AFL has no issue with the Seven Network demoting the Melbourne versus Richmond Anzac Day eve clash to 7mate in favour of ratings behemoth My Kitchen Rules, however the Demons are not totally satisfied with the decision.
Seven will broadcast Monday night's wannabe-blockbuster fixture on 7mate around Australia – including Melbourne, which is a rarity – because it's 7:25pm kick-off pits it against MKR's 7:30pm start. And despite the AFL wanting to make the Anzac Day-eve match a tradition, a league spokesperson said there was no problem with the game playing second fiddle to a cooking show on 7mate.
"We understand MKR is a successful show for the Seven Network and showing this game on 7mate is just part of the relationship between the broadcaster and the league," the spokesperson said.
"7mate regularly broadcasts AFL into Sydney, Perth and Brisbane and so it's not an issue for us." But a spokesman for the Melbourne Football Club said they would "obviously" prefer the game to be on the main channel, but the decision was out of their hands.
Richmond has no issue with the decision, so long as the match is on free-to-air TV. Sydney and Brisbane tune into most matches on 7mate and those ratings are significantly lower than what Seven's main channel attracts for the same games in Melbourne and Adelaide. Seven said 7mate ratings in Perth were very strong and that the channel was known for its sport content which has included the AFL, AFLW, international women's football, NFL and golf.
MKR attracted 1.65 million viewers on Easter Monday and has averaged 1.23 million viewers the past five Mondays.
Of those five weeks it was the top rated show nationally twice, and second on one other occasion.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire is against the Anzac Day eve clash – which began between the Demons and Tigers last year – saying it would ruin a tradition that was working well. "If you have the same sort of thing the night before, it's like having Christmas twice," McGuire said on his Triple M breakfast program in 2014.
"I just shake my head sometimes and go 'Why do we go after the things that are working and tamper with them'.
"People will think I'm talking through my pocket at Collingwood, but part of having something significant is the exclusivity of it."
An impressive 59,968 people turned up to the MCG to see Richmond defeated by Melbourne last year on a Sunday night.
The game's demotion to 7mate is yet another difficult chapter in the AFL's fraught relationship with Monday night footy.
After the last Monday night game was played in 2014, the league showed it had given up on the idea with no Monday night games played in 2015 and 2016.
That came after eight Monday night games were played between 2009 and 2014, of which St Kilda played in six.
The AFL has now committed to starting its rounds earlier, with eight Thursday night games in its 2017 fixture, following five last year.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/anzac-dayeve-footy-off-menu-as-my-kitchen-rules-20170423-gvqpkk.html
