Channel 10 honcho David Mott has spoken out after yesterday’s news the network’s former hit program Thank God You’re Here has defected to Channel Seven.
Mott said he woke up on Tuesday thinking he would have the hit program, which pulls up to 1.7 million viewers an episode, but learned later that day he’d been outbid by Channel Seven.
While Mott is hurt he still has great affection for the team behind the show - Working Dog Productions.
“It’s fair to say I’m very disappointed after all the work we have done together,” Mott told News Limited.
“I know what we put on the table was very significant and we were willing to go there on that and truthfully I thought that would do it given what we’d all achieved together.”
“And truthfully I thought that would do it because I know they would be making more money than they had every made before.”
“But clearly I was wrong.”
Working Dog have a long history with the network producing The Panel and Russell Coight’s Aussie Adventures for the network in years past.
But Channel Seven is said to have offered the money conscious Working Dog $1 million an episode.
Mott’s opposite number at Seven, Tim Worner, says he has little sympathy for Mott.
“Rule No. 1 in arse coverage when you’ve lost something is to say that the opposition has paid too much,” he said.
But Working Dog honcho Tom Gleisner has told media he wanted to try some new things with the show after a year off and one of those things was a change of network.
But he doesn’t deny both networks were offering significant amounts of cash.
“We could have stayed with Ten and both Seven and Ten made generous offers… I don’t think we would have gone broke staying with either.”
Ten has already suffered a dodgy year with the collapse of their massive Big Brother franchise, flagging ratings for Australian Idol and other experiments like Kenny’s World falling short.
