When a
contestant is stuck for an answer on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, host Eddie
McGuire allows them to “Phone a Friend”.

So was
it after reading the Monday night ratings – and finding that
Seven had swept past Nine despite all the money and
promotional effort expended on the Games – that frustrated Nine Network CEO
McGuire picked up the phone and dialled mate Neil Mitchell?

McGuire called 3AW to interrupt the station’s TV critic, Ross
Warneke, who was in the middle of defending his bagging of Nine’s
Games closing ceremony coverage in The Age.

A fascinating
interchange followed as Eddie bagged Warneke, saying, “Mate,
you’re the grizzler, pal, becauseI just can’t believe this crap you’ve written in the paper
this morning … it’s misinformed and it’s mischievous … I think it was
self-serving and smug.”

Warneke didn’t hold back either:

WARNEKE: Did
you watch it on TV or were you there on Sunday night?

McGUIRE: I
was there and I’ve watched it.

WARNEKE: You
couldn’t have been happy with that.

…

McGUIRE: … Now, we covered – we got the host
broadcaster feed and the ratings, the people who watched it around the country,
it was enormous ratings.

WARNEKE: That
doesn’t mean it was good.

McGUIRE: It
was a huge success.

WARNEKE: That
doesn’t mean it was good.

It was
a surprise move for McGuire to go public and so volubly. Read the full transcript of the hilarious exchange on the website here.