I’m used to hiding behind a pillow as I’m watching the Chaser – their brand of biting satire often cuts to the bone. Even watching seasoned politicians ‘get it from the Chaser’ is wincemaking – but fun.

However, on Wednesday night, as I watched their “Sick Kid’s” skit, I witnessed the demise of a ‘brand’ that was once special to me. As a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald said – “The purpose of satire is to ridicule the follies of individuals and institutions. It is hoped that laughter will lead to changes in the behaviour and the elimination of those follies….As parents who sat at the bedside as two of our children died of leukaemia, we would like to know what change in our behaviourThe Chaser was trying to bring about.?”

The Chaser is a ‘brand’. They have built that brand to the point where millions of Australians eagerly awaited their return to television. Now, the brand is in sudden decline – and it only remains to be seen if it can recover from this.

Companies go to great lengths to protect their ‘brand’. Lawsuits are common – Cadbury tried to sue Darrell Lea for because they felt the colour purple belonged to them. (They lost.)

Sometimes a situation arises that is out of the control of the ‘brand custodians’. For all of the millions of dollars that a company such as Dominos Pizza spends, two teenagers who worked at a North Carolina Dominos threatened to bring down the entire operation by releasing a video of them in the restaurant kitchen.

A sports team is a brand, too. That’s why the Cronulla Sharks are in so much strife – group sex and ‘accidentally’ punching a female staffer in the face aren’t exactly alluring to the sponsors.

Corporations, retail shops, franchises even individual sporting codes (which is why FINA came down so hard on Michael Phelps) are brands. As they erode away, it’s difficult to stop it from crumbling altogether.

Back to the Chaser. I’m not sure that they’ll recover, (although I believe it was possible up to the point of uttering the words “they’re just going to die anyways.”) Perhaps it’s time for them to go their separate ways.