Channel Seven supremo David Leckie
Talk about the health of Channel Seven’s David Leckie has been in the news lately, but the television executive looked in fine form dining with Aussie Rules boss Andrew Demetriou at Machiavelli today.
Also at the table were Seven’s director, Bruce McWilliam, and another AFL man. Clearly, given they were dining at Sydney’s power trattoria, they wanted the meeting known. Seven and the Ten Network have the free-to-air broadcast rights for the 2009 Australian Football League season.
Leckie was sinking red wine with his luncheon companions. Perhaps they were chatting about Seven’s delayed broadcast of games, or viewer complaints? Demetriou, a former player with North Melbourne, was the first to leave.
Earlier this month, The Australian newspaper’s Amanda Meade wrote about Leckie returning to work after a three week break amid much discussion about his physical condition and “morbid state of mind”.
“Last month the Seven titan was so unsteady on his feet at a Sunrise party at Sydney’s Star City casino that questions were raised about whether he had fully recovered from an illness last April which left him in an induced coma for 11 days,” Meade wrote. “He severed a finger and the complications from that put him in a coma.”
Well, having seen Leckie today, he was steady on his feet and he looked like the three week break had done some good. As he revealed a little more than a week ago, he started seeing a personal trainer and has been trying to get fit.
Meanwhile, Machiavelli shows no signs of losing its appeal. On the next table to Leckie et al was a sartorially resplendent Barry Humphries, and son Oscar, who is currently editing the Australian edition of Britain’s Spectator magazine.
As for me? I was dining with former NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, board member of the kids’ charity, The Humpty Dumpty Foundation, and cricket tragic who recently returned from a holiday in the UK to watch the Test.
