A former AFL star has spoken of his sadness after Channel 7 opted to cancel a long-standing footy show for the 2025 season.
The Armchair Experts will not continue into next year with co-host Adam Cooney revealing to SEN Breakfast on Tuesday morning that the show would be discontinued.
‘Who would’ve thought that show wouldn’t run forever? It is a sad day. The Armchair Experts are no more,’ the former Western Bulldogs star said to while appearing on the radio station.
It comes amid the huge media shake-up that has taken place across the Australian sports broadcasting landscape in recent months.
With rival networks battling it out to produce the best coverage, Channel 7 have drafted in Kane Cornes and Caroline Wilson, poaching the pair from Channel Nine.
Elsewhere, Mark Robinson recently announced that he’d be stepping down from his role on AFL360, with Garry Lyon set to join Gerard Whateley on the footy talk show.
Footy great Adam Cooney has announced that Channel Seven has axed his and Cam Luke’s show The Armchair Experts
Cooney and Luke (left and right) have been presenting the show for seven years, but it will come to an end in 2025
The Brownlow Medallist, Cooney, joked that he had been a casualty of the huge media shake-up in Australian broadcasting
Craig Hutchison and Nick Riewoldt have also joined up with Seven, while rumours have also been swirling that Dustin Martin is set to set-up into the broadcasting landscape, having met up with Fox Footy powerbrokers for coffee in recent weeks.
However, one programme will be absent from next season, with Cooney reflecting on his journey, alongside co-host Cam Luke on The Armchair Experts.
‘Seven years. We started on digital. We started out on Twitter and eventually we got to broadcast,’ he said.
‘I’m just a victim of some of my colleagues here (at SEN) coming in and taking the cash,’ Cooney joked.
Over the years several panellists have joined the show, including Georgie Parker and Tommy Sheridan.
While Cooney and Luke’s show will be scrapped, Seven have announced several new shows for the 2025 season.
The network is commissioning a new Netflix-style documentary, called Full Sweat, that will take fans behind the scenes during the run-up to the 2025 season.
Cornes and Riewoldt are due to feature on The Agenda Setters to talk all things footy across multiple nights, while Hamish McLachlan will tee up a new interview show called Unfiltered.
Kane Cornes is one of several footy broadcasters who has joined up with Channel Seven for the 2025 season
‘The 2024 AFL season was extraordinary. A year for the ages, but we’re even more excited about what’s to come in 2025,’ Network Director of Sport for Channel 7, Chris Jones, said.
‘We felt it was time to change it up, to prepare for our new and younger audiences, and we’ve welcomed some fresh faces to help us reset the AFL media landscape for good.
‘New recruits including Kane Cornes, Nick Riewoldt and others will be joining our established commentary team. They make us more dynamic and drive our strategy to have a seven-day-a-week football offering.
‘One of the first things we identified was that if we wanted to be the home of footy, we needed to fill out the offering and create the best footy programs in the land.
‘From Monday to Friday every night, there will be AFL content to watch or stream on Seven and 7plus Sport.
‘So, with more nights of footy programming throughout the 2025 AFL premiership season, as well as live match broadcasts streamed on 7plus Sport for the first time, there has never been a more exciting time for AFL fans.’
