It’s
amazing what a bit of prompting to a columnist can do.

Yesterday
the flacks from the Nine Network’s PR service sent this email to more than
25 journalists around the country, poisoning the waters:

Many
mourners were questioning the sincerity of Seven after their no-show at the
Memorial Service for Graham Kennedy today in the packed theatre. This despite all Seven’s grandstanding and chest-beating about
wanting to pay a sincere and fitting tribute to the king of comedy.

Seven waged an ongoing PR campaign to claim exclusive rights
to the Memorial Service, which was shown live this morning by Seven, Nine and
Sky News, but not one person from Seven bothered to appear in Mittagong
today to pay their respects. No David Leckie, no Peter Meakin, none of the publicists
trying to point score over the king of comedy’s farewell.

Nine was represented by a big contingent, including Sam
Chisholm and his wife, Sue, Vicki Jones, Ken Sutcliffe, Mike Munro, Ray Martin,
John Mangos, Tony Barber, Geoff Harvey, John Mangos and Coast to Coast
producer, Rob Hurst. Other high profile attendees were Maggie Tabberer, David
Williamson, Toni Lamond, Stuart Wagstaff.

Compare this with a snippet in today’s Strewth column in TheAustralian:

No show from Seven

AFTER
all of Channel Seven’s chest-beating about wanting to televise Graham Kennedy’s memorial service to pay a
sincere and fitting tribute to the king of comedy, none of its high-profile
executives or stars seemed to be there. No David
Leckie, no Peter Meakin.
Nine, however, was represented by a large contingent, most of whom had known
Kennedy in the good old days, including Sam
Chisholm and his wife Sue,
Vicki Jones, Ken Sutcliffe, Mike Munro, Ray Martin,
John Mangos, Tony Barber, Geoff Harvey and Coast to
Coast producer Rob Hurst.

Almost word for word, thought for thought. Don’t they have
an original thought over at The Oz these days?

But isn’t it a bit hypocritical for the Nine
spinning team to take this line and for Sam Chisholm to be paying tribute?
After all, it was Chisholm who wouldn’t pay for the coverage that
Kennedy’s friends wanted. Seven did and that large TV monitor outside
the theatre in Mittagong that hundreds of people watched was a reminder to
Nine of its parsimony. It cost $12,000 to hire and transport.

It’s no wonder Nine sent so many people. It was
embarrassed by its own miserliness.