EXCLUSIVE:
When Matt Shirvington left Foxtel and joined Seven in 2020, it might properly have been his finest TV profession transfer to date.
After a decade at FOX Sports, he modified allegiances and was not too long ago put in as the brand new co-host on Sunrise as successor to David Koch.
Shirvington tells TV Tonight the transfer was a giant threat.
“It was merely that Seven had the rights to the Olympics and I needed to be concerned in one other Olympic Games. I reached out to (CEO) James Warburton and stated, ‘Look, if there’s ever an opportunity, how do I get throughout to be part of the Olympics?’ I had a chat with Andy Kay, who was Head of the Olympics (for Seven) on the time. He stated, ‘There’s nothing in the intervening time, however dangle tight, who is aware of, perhaps down the monitor…’” he says.
At FOX Sports he had begun to maneuver away from FOX League, doing extra with FOX Sports News, protecting all sports activities.
“I’d already been considering, ‘How do I get out of (Fox)? What do I do? I’d like to spend a while at a industrial community,’” he explains.
“James known as and stated, ‘Look, we’ve got a change-up with Jim Wilson going over to 2GB and it leaves a void for our sports activities reads on the weekends. Would you be completely happy to try this?’ So I jumped on the probability.”
Seven additionally started to steer him into different TV initiatives, with combined success -but there was a long run profit.
“I did Holey Moley which I actually loved. I liked that present a lot. And then Ultimate Tag, which was a difficult present. It didn’t actually land the place we needed it to land,” he admits.
“But exterior of that, all the pieces that I’ve carried out at Seven has ready me for this and I didn’t realise that on the time.
“Whether it was Holey Moley, Ultimate Tag, studying the information, doing the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the Beijing Winter Games and the Commonwealth Games, I type of ticked all these packing containers, and was filling in (on Sunrise) in between.”
In June he was formally introduced as successor to David Koch, who stepped down after 21 years. For Shirvington, the breakfast present supplies the proper combine.
“Sunrise is all the pieces I like about TV. I get a little bit of sport. I get a little bit of all the pieces. It’s nice. It was a giant name stepping away from sport, and Fox had been the beginning for me. Brian Walsh introduced me into Foxtel as a part of the Games there,” he recollects.
“Walshie stated, ‘Go and spend a while within the SKY newsroom and also you’ll study all the pieces you must know.’”
He provides, “To put it into perspective in that sports activities group, both simply previous to me arriving or throughout was Mel McLaughlin, Roz Kelly, Megan Barnard, James Bracey, Yvonne Sampson, -these at the moment are key broadcast hosts on different networks. So there was a extremely nice group of individuals there.
“It simply occurred that I used to be in there at that second and had some nice mentors, some nice folks to work with and that basically set me up.”
Next week: Natalie Barr & Matt Shirvington on Sunrise.
