It's time for Eddie McGuire to pull his bloody head in

We'll, since the last post, and since Crikey published Llewellyn's explosive revelations about what really goes on inside the Nine bunker, the shit has definitely hit the fan. There 's no doubt Llewellyn's tantalising affidavit has given Seven the ammunition, and the targets (Jessica Rowe, Eddie McGuire and Jana Went) it's been gunning for since it began to its assault on Nine's ratings dominance just over a year ago, but it's unusual to see such a standard media story run for so long in all the papers and on every radio and tv station.

Llewellyn's leaked affidavit survived well beyond the life-span of a traditional media story - which, in this country, is about a day, unless of course a mogul dies - with the story not just igniting a fiery debate within the Australian media industry and the blogopshere, but knocking off Big Brother to become the watercooler topic of the week. That's right, the public pricked up their ears and listened when they read about how the potty mouthed Eddie McGuire had decided to "bone" his once prized recruit, Jessica Rowe: "What are we going to do about Jessica? When should we bone her?" The day-to-day goings-on inside the Nine bunker - and from all accounts it's pretty standard stuff at Nine's notoriously brash and macho Sydney head offices in Willoughby - were transformed into old fashioned gossip items, usually reserved for b-grade celebrities , and usually found in Womens' Day, New Idea or on Entertainment Tonight . The pulling power and the interest generated by people like McGuire and Rowe, who, along with James Packer, are probably the two most public faces at Channel Nine, cannot be underestimated. Anyone who thought (or hoped) Eddie McGuire would disappear from public view and retreat to a behind-the-scenes, off-camera role when he decided to take up the position as Nine CEO earlier this year could not have been more misguided.

Following Kerry Packer's death in the final days of last year, McGuire took the reigns and wanted to make sure his face would be the public face of a resurgent Channel Nine. But so far Eddie's smug face and his reputation have been a lightning rod for all that's wrong with Channel Nine, and to some extent commercial TV. A few weeks ago, sensing SBS was scoring some easy ratings with its World Cup coverage, Eddie loosened the purse strings and decided to send himself, Sam Newman and a few other mug pundits from the NRL Footy Show to Berlin for a World Cup edition of the Footy Show, where Eddie happily reprised his old role as host, mediator and chief Channel Nine spruiker. Never mind that the members of the assembled panel - which included a pugnacious Sam Newman who managed to get a fist in the face for his nasty comments about soccer after the show - have been largely responsible for keeping the real world game out of sight and out of mind for the last 20 years, this was Eddie's brainwave and it was going to work. Eddie's Berlin sojourn won the night, but no-one believed for a minute Channel Nine had actually turned over a new leaf, dropped AFL and NRL and had become infatuated with the round ball game.

Nine's expensive Berlin experiment reminded us why Eddie has always been such an infuriating character, on and off screen. It's shameless the way McGuire moves between his public and private roles as it suits, without a thought for the consequences. As we've all seen from Llewellyn's affidavit, McGuire is still striving to be everything to everyone, when he should probably be doing what he's paid to do: return Nine to no.1 spot in the ratings, and to do it behind closed doors. At the moment, the intrigue attached to McGuire's very public mug ensures neither job is being done properly.