Tom Morris will be working with his former Fox Sports colleague (Sarah Olle) as well.
Very difficult to make a joke here that isn’t defamatory.
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He’s appeared on the ‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger’ podcast today with a good interview by Caro and an associated piece in The Age today.
He actually comes across as humble and very empathetic . I think he’s genuine and deserves a second chance.
The whole situation hopefully raises more awareness about respect for women especially in sport and the workplace in general.
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It’s a difficult one. No doubt what he said was vulgar and truly inappropriate, and had the even worse effect of publicly outing a colleague as gay against her choosing, so the initial punishment of dismissal from Fox fit the crime for mine. Having said that, it was a private conversation that leaked, so it wasn’t like he set out to publicly humiliate her, and if he’s genuinely remorseful and apologetic for a very poor piece of “off-field” behaviour it’s not like he should be forever denied any chance to obtain a livelihood in his field.
I think the article says it well - many support his right to a second chance, but he won’t get a third. Nor should he.
Of course, the court of public opinion will decide whether it’s appropriate that he’s back now. I’ll be interested to see how it all goes.
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What he said was awful, and he was quite rightly sacked.
It’s a year on now almost, he’s done his time and clearly learned a lesson from his mistakes.
Unfortunately there’s some particularly vocal sections of the community (especially those on Twitter) who probably wouldn’t be satisfied even if he had been put on the stocks in Fed Square and had rotten fruit thrown at him.
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SEN AND SENZ TO CALL ALL THE ASHES ACTION IN COMMERCIAL RADIO FIRST
Sports Entertainment Network’s commitment to cricket has been franked with a commercial radio first – The Ashes is headed to SEN and SENZ.
SEN Cricket today announced it had secured exclusive commercial audio rights for the upcoming Ashes series between England and Australia.
Led by Adam Collins, SEN will have a commentary team live on the ground in England to call every ball of the much-anticipated match-up. The series is billed as a battle between Brendon McCullum’s “Baz Ball” and a Pat Cummins led Australian team searching for a first Ashes win on English soil since 2001.
The broadcast will air on almost 60 SEN and SENZ stations including SEN 1116am, SEN 1170am, SENQ 693am, SEN SA 1629 am, SENZ Auckland 1476am, SENZ Christchurch 1260am and beyond.
The exciting news comes following recent confirmation that SEN and SENZ will also broadcast the ICC World Test Championship Final between Australia and India in England midyear.
Sports Entertainment Network CEO Craig Hutchison said: “It is an honour for the entire SEN Cricket team to call the Ashes. We’ve travelled with the Australian team to series in Pakistan and India and are committed to bringing cricket fans the best coverage live from in venues and across our stations, SEN app and @SEN_Cricket social channels.
“And what a series it will be. SENZ’s own Baz McCullum has reinvented this England team and arguably Test cricket itself – and the tactical battle against a seasoned and gifted Australian team that has taken all before it will be fascinating.
“We can’t wait for the first ball of this gripping series on June 16 and will be there to share every moment, ball by ball, live from in venue for our audiences who’ve come to know one thing: we’ll be there.”
2023 Ashes Series
1st Test – 16-20 June, Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham
2nd Test – 28 June-2 July, Lord’s Cricket Ground, London
3rd Test – 6-10 July, Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds
4th Test – 19-23 July, Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester
5th Test – 27-31 July, The Kia Oval, London
SEN and SENZ Stations
The 2023 Ashes Series will be broadcast on the following SEN and SENZ stations:
SEN
SEN 1116am, SEN 1170am, SENQ 693am, SEN Gold Coast 1620am, SENTrack 657am Perth, SEN SA 1629am, SEN Tassie 1629am, SEN Top End 1611am, SEN Fanatic (DAB+). A full list of SEN stations can be found HERE.
SENZ
SENZ Auckland 1476am, SENZ Christchurch 1260am, SENZ Wellington 711am, SENZ Dunedin 1206am A full list of SENZ stations can be found HERE.
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Excitement indeed!, wonder if anybody will bother to listen
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yeh i’ll stick to grandstand / test match special
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SEN in Sydney is barely listenable. Matty Johns is OK, but I’m biased. Needs to expand on the sports they do cover, and add others, and install the SEN Stadium feature in some Sydney stadiums.
Hutchy, word of advice - stop buying wanker teams like the Wildcats and concentrate on the core business. Since you brought them, they haven’t made the play-offs.
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Slightly off-topic, but unlike the NBA, the play-in games count as part of the playoffs, so technically the Perth Wildcats have been to the playoffs since SEG bought the team.
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The only way they might rate OK is if the ABC puts most of the coverage on DAB+/ABC Listen only. Very possible given their form with the India series.
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Apparently they turned it on at the SCG for the cricket this year, but that’s not going to help rugby league coverage.
Of course, it’s a lot easier to do for the football stadiums in Melbourne when they only use two (not counting Geelong) and Sydney still has all the suburban grounds, so even if you did it at the SFS, Stadium Australia and Parramatta, you’d still only cover less than half the games in a round.
They may bother with Stadium Australia or Lang Park once State of Origin comes around, but don’t hold your breath I guess.
I’d save my usual rant because it’d end up in the company thread, but I still doubt radio ever was their core business, even now.
The rest… well, I guess the problem is, if you’d grown tired of the Matty Johns shows on Fox League after a few years… well, there’s half your SEN 1170 out the window. (I don’t mind Matty either but I couldn’t listen to Brian Fletcher at drive for instance… nor could I listen to Andrew Voss by himself initially either… back to 2KY or elsewhere at breakfast quick-smart.)
The Ashes are always a bit different even if their coverage of away tests outside of digital has fallen by the wayside. I’m sure the ABC would want to find a way to take all of that on the main stations’ “conventional” services… with the usual opt-outs online and on DAB+ of course. World Test Championship just before it, probably less likely to be on AM/FM.
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Play-in tournaments can rack off.
SEN should be concentrating on its core businesses - Sydney needs massive improvements.
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Could they license it to other broadcasters? I’d love to hear ABC coverage of the Swans in crystal clear sound using Wifi at the SCG. Heck, I’d love to hear SportsEars audio over Wifi.
RL broadcasters aren’t the most adept broadcasters. Vossy is crap at radio. Bryan Fletcher is a dumbarse. Brandy is boring at times.
The problem is, they’ve tried to adapt the SEN model which works for AFL to NRL and it doesn’t work for Sydney. Sydney has its sporting outlets, but we’re not that much of a sports city - compared to Melbourne. Look at 2GB’s RL coverage - why has it lasted so long? Because its not just NRL - its a lot of silly crap that doesn’t take itself seriously. Triple M and SEN takes itself too seriously.
SEN could do better with expanding its sports coverage. Maybe create a national sports show during the morning with a broadcaster who is across all sports. Create the Lawsy/Hadley/Mitchell of the sports world.
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Problem with national sports stuff is, much the same as variety hits stations with a 3,000 song playlist: once you hit a sport you don’t like, you turn off, and it’s unlikely you come back for a while. (Worse if you shove it off to something totally foreign like Talksport, like EON Sports or MSR did after hours. Thankfully it’s only two hours of it in New Zealand.)
SEN Melbourne survives because it’s practically -all- AFL, even when the A-Leagues and BBL encroach during summer. [Plus they don’t have Hutchy owning part of Melbourne Utd in the NBL anymore, so less reason to cover that from a Melbourne standpoint.]
Radio Sport in NZ similarly survived [beside the cheeky tone and the ubiquity of The Farming Show keeping the guys on tractors listening] because you could easily spin off plenty from rugby in the winter, and probably the Blackcaps in the summer.
I think we both know that the northern cities (even Brisbane who often wear their love of the Maroons like a medal) aren’t quite like that.
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Let’s not forget about the phenomenal & historical fall of 693AM.
I believe SEN need to bring more “entertainment” to its programming.
Whether it be adding some male-skewed music, or even the occasional light-hearted program similar to what 2GB’s Continuous Call Team does so well.
Sport will forever be SEN’s core. But I am sure there are other areas which could/should be explored to grow its terrestrial audience.
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Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear! 
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I don’t believe it does but they have good balance.
Their Sunday show is really good if you love your NRL.
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That’s the impression that I get. They all think they’re king shit. To parapgrase Andrew Tate-r Tots, they’re all top Gs - top gronks.
Not so much music, but try to be more entertaining and less tosspot.
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There was an opinion piece in The Guardian today, mainly focused on Kane Cornes’ roles in the media but probably reflective of what I probably find issue with SEN these days (and some of the other footy media, Footy Classified obviously comes to mind as to much of the starting point)…
And I sorta agree with @thesub1 on wishing it had more “entertainment” than “opinion” these days… it’s probably little surprise given Hutchy’s exposure to the US, and that’s probably why someone like Kane’s been a natural for the newer style of SEN. (And probably same with the likes of Caroline Wilson on Classified, to be fair. Of course Hutchy’s on that too.)
And of course, it’s clickbait and adds to SEN’s presence in the Melbourne footy media bubble, which as a whole borders on insanely self-serving at the best of times IMO. Which is what they obviously want, no matter if the radio station is rating a 2 rather than a 4 or 5 during the days of KB and Finey being on air.
I guess the question is: who is really up for more than an hour a week of a radio version of Classified (well maybe not that much, particularly Gerard Whateley’s show isn’t that bad). Not hugely me.
Guardian article:
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