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Santo, Sam and Ed get Seven fever

Another SBS show is headed to commercial telly, this time with Santo Cilauro, Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee.

Santo Cilauro, Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee will front a new Sports Fever! show for Seven.

The three who hosted a World Cup Fever series for SBS will host the weekly comedy show celebrating sport from Australia and around the world.

The humble Working Dog show aired lived in front of an intimate audience from ACMI at Federation Square. It was defiantly loose and worked due to the rapport of the hosts, without ever aiming too high.

But this marks yet another occasion when SBS loses a show to a commercial broadcaster.

Seven announced the Sports Fever! show would be hosted by Cilauro as part of its 2012 Programming Launch, but at the time Ed Kavalee was busy with Joy of Sets for Nine.

Seven has been hunting for local sports shows ever since losing The Bounce, with several media reports Before the Game was in their sights.

While Sports Fever! won’t stick exclusively to AFL, it may be just the ticket for a chilled out double act.

38 Responses

  1. I’d argue on this occasion that SBS haven’t lost these guys to Seven, rather Seven are simply dusting them off. But I won’t argue with anyone who says Seven are a wealth of original ideas. 😉

  2. How did SBS lose this show exactly? It was commissioned for the World Cup. Then it ended. They never planned another series. So they’ve lost nothing.

  3. Hope they play it late enough at night that the ratings don’t matter too much. It was a fun little show, so cheap that it didn’t really matter when they got the sound wrong on live tv and even when the jokes didn’t work they just shrugged it off. I really hope Seven don’t ruin it with notes.

  4. Buck, I highly doubt Sam Pang has a deal with Seven that stops him from doing Eurovision.

    Disappointing that this is not on SBS and not focusing on football (which is the only sport Ed and Santo like I’m pretty sure), but it’s still better than the show never coming back in any form I guess.

  5. I really think Cup Fever was excellent. i just hope they follow the same formula and dont let seven ruin it. Keep the budget down, keep the pressure down and dont put it in a slot where it will be axed in two episodes. They did a great job with Cup fever, i would definitely watch this.

  6. Noooooooooooo!!!!!!

    Does this mean Sam Pang won’t be heading over to Azerbaijan to co-host Eurovision with Julia Zimero???

    I had just gotten used to those 2 as the Australian hosts after SBS dropped the wonderful Terry Wogan commentary in favour of Julia & Sam (although I hear Graham Norton does the UK commentary now anyway).

    I really started getting into the groove and chemistry of Julia & Sam last year. And they are especially good at getting good, entertaining mini interviews with the competitors.

    Who could every forget Sam and the UK guy Josh Dubovie running their fingers through each others hair.

    Please stay with Eurovision Sam!

  7. Largely agree with Stanchez47.
    Aussie’s are pretty parochial when it comes to sport so trying to cover most sports humourously will be doomed to fail, especially if they take the piss out of the high profile codes too often. I’m not a soccer person but suspect WCF worked because of it’s narrow focus and scheduling with the World Cup.

  8. @deedeedragons – Cutting them off? More like running them over while waving a glass or Penfolds Grange in the air!

    @Cameron – Monday at 10.30 is when 9 currently show Footy Classified. I dont know how it rates but 7 havent bothered with a replacement to “Talking Footy” since they got the AFL coverage back.

    When was the last time any of the networks had a succesful show programmed for 10.30pm or later.

  9. I would have thought Ed would have known better with Seven after “TV Burp”, which I am probably the only person who thinks it was better than “The Joy of Sets”.

    This show will very quickly get screwed because it will try and cover too many different codes.

    AFL people wont care about the league stuff and vice versa.

    People will only care about the soccer stuff if it is EPL or a world cup year.

    Rugby people will be too busy cleaning there tweed jackets and sending there kids to private schools.

    Cricket fans will be watching Fox Sports because during the winter cricket does not exist on commercial television.

    When people say 10.30 on Sunday do they mean am or pm? If its AM it will get smashed by onsiders, the thinking mans sports panel show. If it is PM it will be gone in a couple of weeks.

  10. ABC and SBS are taking the risks in trying new types of shows. When these shows succeed, the commercial networks swoop in and take them. However, in most cases the shows are ruined by a move to commercial TV.

    I don’t see this show lasting long especially in the 10.30 timeslot.

  11. Working Dog have enough pull these days that they can do whatever they like.

    I am sure that they will have a water tight contract guaranteeing them “x” amount of weeks and that they will stick to a timeslot. If they didnt get what they want (within reason) they would have just walked away from the table.

    I think its a good move, its just a pity its on 7.

  12. I can’t see it lasting on a commercial broadcaster, it would be suited to the expected audience of SBS. Even with the production of Working Dog, I doubt it will go beyond 2-3 weeks in the one time slot.

  13. I loved World Cup Fever, it was very funny. Sam Pang is hilarious, though I can take or leave Cilauro and Kavalee. The three of them do have very good chemistry and this could work, as long as it doesn’t just concentrate on AFL.

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