The Front Bar

The Front Bar (formerly Friday Front Bar) is an Australian Football League-based talk show that airs on the Seven Network.[1] The show is hosted by journalist Andy Maher and comedians Mick Molloy and Sam Pang, with another comedian in Andy Lee[2] of Hamish and Andy joining them in 2020.

The Front Bar
Presented by
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons6
No. of episodes600+
Production
ProducerFront Bar Entertainment
Production locationsSeven Broadcast Centre Melbourne (2017-present)
All Nations Hotel
Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria (2015-2016)
Running time60 minutes (including advertisements)
Release
Original networkAFL.com.au (2015–16)
Seven Network (2016–present)
7mate (2016–present)
Picture format576i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)
Original releaseMarch 2015 (2015-03) –
present
External links
Website

Hosts

History

The show, which airs from March to September during the AFL season, launched in 2015 as an online-only show on the official AFL website, AFL.com.au, although Molloy and Maher had previously worked together on Before the Game. In 2016, the Seven Network picked up the show, with episodes being split into two versions, with snippets of the show being uploaded to AFL.com.au on Friday afternoon and the full version of the program airing after the Friday night match on the Seven Network in the traditional AFL states and on 7mate in New South Wales and Queensland. Episodes were filmed at the All Nations Hotel in Richmond in the first two seasons of the show.[3]

In 2017, the show was renamed to The Front Bar and extended to a one-hour studio-based format airing on Thursday nights occasionally airing after Thursday night match when played during the season.[4] In April, the show moved timeslots from 9:30pm to 8:30pm to go head-to-head with the Nine Network's long-running The Footy Show.[4] The series is produced by Front Bar Entertainment, a group operated by Molloy, with episodes generally featuring the hosts and special guests drinking Carlton Draught beer as they discuss the week's topics in a light hearted way.[1] To date, the guest pool has included Matthew Richardson, Kevin Bartlett, Brian Taylor and Jason Dunstall. In 2019, they also welcomed Garry Lyon as a guest, which was significant since he had been a longtime co-host of The Footy Show.

In 2018, during the AFL offseason, the show made editions of the show centered on the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Later that same year, they also did specials that included nods to the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and in November that year a Melbourne Cup version of the show ahead of the 2018 Melbourne Cup. In 2019, their Grand Final show was held at the Hotel Esplanade in St Kilda [5] and included AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan as a guest and Picket Palace as the house band. In November also in 2019, two episodes aired ahead of the Australian cricket season, this continued the following year also two episodes. [6]

The show consistently beat The Footy Show in the ratings beginning in the latter half of the 2017 season and continuing until Nine Network axed The Footy Show in 2019.[7]

See also

References
  1. "Join Us at the Friday Front Bar!". Big Footy. 19 August 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  2. The Front Bar "selects" Andy Lee in the TV Show Draft The Front Bar on Twitter
  3. "Footy fever at – All Nations in Richmond". Australian Hotels Association Victoria. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  4. Perry, Kevin (3 April 2017). "Can Mick Molloy's Front Bar bring down Nine's Footy Show?". Decider TV. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  5. Grand Final Show Teaser The Front Bar on Twitter
  6. Mitchell, Tim (6 November 2019). "The Front Bar to host two cricket specials during Australia-Pakistan Test series". Herald Sun. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  7. Garry Lyon comments on The Footy Show's struggles, SEN 1116, May 2018
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