Seven veteran wins again, Whatley #2 then four-way tie for third
Network Seven veteran Bruce McAvaney has won the Mediaweek Industry Award for Best Sports Broadcaster for a second consecutive year with double the votes of the next best in the category.
While there was a clear preference for the broadcaster at #2, there was a four-way tie for the four people in third spot.
These days McAvaney is best-known for his association with the AFL as Seven’s #1 broadcaster. He will also be at the forefront of the network’s Olympic Games coverage in 2020. In recent times he has had to let go of tennis after Seven lost the Australian Open rights to Nine, and this year he spent Melbourne Cup Day working on radio for SEN after Seven lost the broadcast rights to Network 10.
There has been plenty of speculation about McAvaney’s future with Seven and his plans to further scale back his workload. Earlier this year News Corp reported Seven’s new CEO James Warburton had axed a plan that would see Gerard Whateley join Seven to take over some of McAvaney’s roles.
Bruce McAvaney and his wife Anne have this year sold two properties – a house in Glenelg and an apartment in Fitzroy – as they plan to rent in Sydney in Paddington as Bruce prepares for Tokyo 2020. The couple will then return to Adelaide to live in their most recent acquisition, a new unit development in Glenelg.
Seven Sport broadcaster Bruce McAvaney
The man who was tipped to replace McAvaney at Seven, Gerard Whateley, has taken second place in our Sports Broadcaster poll.
Whateley hosts a morning show and commentates on Melbourne sports station SEN 1116 in addition to co-hosting AFL 360 on Fox Footy.
Whateley finished the radio year with an overall share of 10.4% of the male 25-54 audience, up 5.3% year-on-year, with an additional 14,000 listeners. Whateley also attracts a big audience to the podcast of his daily SEN show and it sits in the top 10 on the November Australian Podcast Ranker Top 100 – coming 4th overall.
The race for third spot was a four-way tie between Seven and Optus Sports’ Mel McLaughlin, Nine’s James Bracey and Ray Warren and Fox Sports Matty Johns.