Glorious turn of 7’s hot mic saga

Channel 7’s “hot mic” saga – which saw Melbourne newsreaders Mike Amor and Rebecca Maddern sledging tennis pro Novak Djokovic amid his legal stoush with the Australian government this week – is the kind of winning marketing campaign that should be taught in universities.

Australia loves two things:

1. Stories about TV hosts who don’t realise they’re still being recorded.

2. The US talking about us.

And the Channel 7 hot mic scandal gave us both.

This time of year is always a bit of a snooze when it comes to fun news. Celebrities are on holidays and the crappy free-to-air TV shows that we all love to hate-watch haven’t started yet. So when we woke up on Wednesday morning to headlines about leaked footage, it was like Christmas all over again. I’ll click on anything that even remotely promises access to “leaked footage”.

(On a side note, let’s just say it: If anyone was gonna get muddled up in a hot mic saga, we all thought it’d be Karl Stefanovic. But Maddern and Amor were a fun surprise as the busted trash-talkers. The only thing that would’ve made it better was if it were leaked footage of Leigh Sales talkin’ smack about that Stan Grant.)

In the recording, Maddern — who only debuted on the Seven newsdesk a week ago after jumping over from Nine — told Amor: “Whatever way you look at it, Novak Djokovic is a lying, sneaky, a***hole. It’s unfortunate that everybody else stuffed up around him. To go out when you know you’re Covid-positive — well, I don’t think he was even Covid-positive …”

Amor piled on, also calling Djokovic an “a***hole” and adding: “You’ve got a bulls**t f***ing excuse and then he fell over his own f***ing lies, which is what happens right? That’s what’s happened.”

It went on, with the word “a**hole” and other expletives thrown around further.

The video clip was destined for internet virality. Of course it went global, almost instantly. Even late night US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel cragged gags about it on his show.

And that just made us even more excited about it – because we adore it when the US talks about us. Even if it’s for bad things, like our poo joggers. For some reason, we just get a kick out of it.

With all the doom and gloom of Omicron, two buttoned-up news anchors calling the tennis pro an “a**hole” multiple times was just the thing we needed to really lift our spirits.

And every day since the footage leaked, new angles just kept cropping up like mushrooms after rainfall. Who leaked it? Was it a PR stunt? Will the anchors get fired? So many questions that could only be answered by our favourite kind of sources: “industry insiders”. Nothing’s more thrilling than when the industry insiders start talking to the media and spilling all the details of an in-progress witch hunt.

The leaker turned out to be some random nobody at the company that provides the captioning service for Channel 7 and has access to the raw feed in the studio where the newsreaders were chatting. Boo. This revelation was kind of a let-down because we were secretly hoping it was someone unexpected, like Edwina Bartholomew.

But the story’s not over. Now we want a name and a face! And Channel 9’s Tracy Grimshaw better get in on the action by sending Reid Butler down to bang on the culprit’s screen door. There’s still juice in this scandal and we’ll lap up every drop.

Our thirst for leaked hot mic yarns is insatiable. I still remember the afternoon jacketgate broke, the same way other people remember the moment they found out about the death of Princess Diana. The withering stare of Channel 9 newsreader Amber Sherlock is permanently scorched into my memory as she persistently demanded reporter Julie Snook put on a jacket because they were both wearing matchy-matchy white tops.

Then there was ABC newsreader Natasha Exelby, who got caught off-guard playing with a pen – live on-air – instead of reading the news. That one wasn’t technically a hot mic scandal but it shared enough of the qualities we enjoy – a newsreader cocking up on camera.

A hot mic saga can go one of two ways: You cop irreversible backlash and possibly get in trouble with management. Or it works in your favour – as it has for Mike Amor and Rebecca Maddern.

Their bulletin enjoyed a ratings spike of about 40,000 viewers following the leak. And only two weeks into her new gig, Maddern’s rant has won her new fans and applause from the internet – skyrocketing her profile. All because of an a**hole.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir

Originally published as Novak Djokovic: James Weir recaps Channel 7’s hot mic saga