- Channel 7 secured Australia’s sole interview with Adele ahead of the release of her new album, “30.”
- In the interview, Matt Doran said he hadn’t listened to “30.” Sony then withheld the rights to the footage.
- Doran was temporarily taken off air by Channel 7 as a result, local media said.
An Australian TV host landed an exclusive interview with Adele, but had the footage withheld after admitting to her that he hadn’t listened to her new album “30.”
Matthew Doran, the host of Channel 7’s “The Weekend Sunrise” show, flew to London from Sydney — a journey of roughly 10,000 miles — on November 4 to interview Adele in her only album interview with an Australian outlet, the country’s The Daily Telegraph reported.
During the interview, when asked by Adele what he thought of new album “30,” Doran conceded that he hadn’t actually listened to it yet, the Telegraph said, adding that the singer was offended.
The interview did run to completion, the outlet said, but Sony, which owns Adele’s music, later told Channel 7 it was withholding the rights to the interview footage as a result of Doran’s oversight.
Several reports said that Doran was subsequently suspended by Channel 7, but Doran told The Australian on Sunday that he wasn’t “formally” suspended. He was, however, off air for one week.
He returned to his slot on the network on Saturday.
The total package for the rights to the Adele interview footage — which included access to video from Oprah Winfrey’s “One Night Only” with Adele — cost Channel 7 around AUD$1 million ($725,000,) The Telegraph said.
Speak to the Australian, Doran said that he had in fact been sent an early link to listen to “30” over email, but that he totally missed it during the trip to London.
“When I sat down to interview Adele, I was totally unaware that I’d been emailed a preview of her unreleased album,” he said.
“I have since discovered it was sent to me as an ‘e-card’ link, which I somehow missed upon landing in London. It was an oversight but not a deliberate snub. This is the most important email I have ever missed.”
Nonetheless, Doran was heavily criticized on social media by Adele fans and other journalists.
Adele fans flooded the comments section of aNovember 3 Instagram post from Doran in which he said: “This one is going to be pretty special …”
Amid the backlash, Doran posted lyrics from one of Adele’s new songs to Twitter on Sunday, writing: “Go easy on me…”
—Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) November 21, 2021