Fed: Tough, smart and busy: McGuire an asset for Nine

AAP General News (Australia)
02-10-2006
Fed: Tough, smart and busy: McGuire an asset for Nine

(Eds: This replaces the story repeated earlier today)



By Mike Hedge, Senior Correspondent

MELBOURNE, Feb 9 AAP - Until now, the most important public role among the many that
Eddie McGuire performs was his presidency of Australia's best-supported football club.

Now he heads the country's top-rating television network.

As well as being president of the Collingwood Football Club, McGuire, 41, is a top-rating
TV football commentator and host of the country's most popular football and games shows.

When he has a spare moment, he is a newspaper columnist, a major figure in the republican
movement, on the board of the Victorian Major Events Company, Logies host, head of a cancer
charity and husband and father.

He's also available for weddings and bar mitzvahs, and, seemingly, he does them all rather well.

But now, Eddie will no longer be everywhere.

McGuire has succeeded to one of the most powerful positions in the country.

The kid whose first jobs were compiling football statistics for the Melbourne Herald
and cricket reports for Australian Associated Press will run the TV station that, until
last Christmas, was ruled by Kerry Packer.

McGuire's rise and rise has been as well-managed as it has been spectacular.

And his best manager has been himself.

A popular sport in Melbourne has been to take pot-shots at the kid from working-class
Broadmeadows who made it to Toorak without seriously offending anyone - except the considerable
body of AFL fans who hate Collingwood.

It has been a largely futile sport.

McGuire first appeared on television in 1982 on the Ten Network, where he remained until 1993.

The following year he switched to Nine and soon after became the host of a football
show that was as unique as it was successful.

His Victorian version of the Footy Show topped the ratings despite suffering the disadvantage
of not being allowed to show any football footage.

At the same time, McGuire formed his own media company which produced and packaged
radio shows as well as a children's football program and a series of other specials.

Despite the obvious workload, the biggest problem for McGuire has been dealing with
the conflicts of interest, real or apparent, that arose from having so many irons in the
same football fire.

Some of the same issues are bound to follow him into his new job, but they will only
be short-lived.

From next year, Nine won't be broadcasting AFL matches.

Even if it had, McGuire wouldn't have been part of the picture - or sound.

As pointed out by Fairfax newspapers TV commentator Ross Warneke, one of the big questions
surrounding McGuire's appointment concerns whether he's a bigger asset to Nine on the
screen or off.

AAP mh/dk/it/sd/br/de

KEYWORD: MCGUIRE PROFILE (REPEATING)

2006 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.