Seven seeks production costs from Olivia’s charity

The Seven Network demanded $130,000 from a cancer charity for the production costs to cover a Olivia Newton-John’s Great Walk to Beijing.

Sunrise reporter Monique Wright was due to join the charity fundraiser and had nine sponsors listed on her profile on the Great Walk to Beijing website.

“I lost my grandmother to cancer, along with two aunts and several friends,” she says.

But Wright declined to answer questions put by The Australian yesterday. Her publicist said she could no longer go because “her schedule did not allow it.”

Seven’s sales director, James Warburton, told the charity it had to come up with the network’s production costs or Sunrise would withdraw from the walk. Mr Warburton yesterday claimed the charity had promised to find a sponsor to pay for the network’s production costs, but had failed to do so. He said the network had supported the charity by giving it exposure on Sunrise in an interview with Newton-John and Jimmy Barnes.

But charity executives were angered by Seven’s request as it would be inappropriate for a charity to give money to a commercial concern, sources said. Centre fundraising director Peter Dalton could not comment on Seven’s involvement.

Sunrise has apparently not told its viewers the deal is off. It’s certainly disappointing given the network must already have a production infrastructure at the ready for the Olympics. This isn’t the kind of publicity the network needs when viewers want to be associating Seven with China.

Meanwhile somebody has to film this! With walkers including Joan Rivers, Dannii Minogue, Leeza Gibbons, Cliff Richard and Ian Thorpe it could be a fascinating mish-mash of personalities buckling under the physical strain. Could the Today show now step in?

Source: The Australian