Lawyers for comedian Mick Molloy and Channel Ten have told an appeal hearing a judge was too 'intellectual' in his approach and took a defamatory comment literally.

Molloy and Ten were ordered last year to pay former ALP candidate Nicole Cornes $85,000 in damages for defaming her on the television program Before the Game in 2008.

They also were ordered to meet her legal costs, plus an additional $8,000 in interest.

Mrs Cornes claimed she was ridiculed and the comment falsely implied she slept with an AFL player.

Ten is appealing against the judgment and its lawyers have told the Full Court of the South Australian Supreme Court the trial judge was wrong to take the comment literally and had divorced himself from the overall humorous context of the show.

The lawyers have argued the judgment gave insufficient weight to the possibility the 120,000 viewers of the program may have taken the comment in jest.

The court will give its decision later.