Seven didn’t really give it much time to settle in. Viewers just don’t like change. Sometimes it’s best too ease these things in slowely.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/aus.tv/jXMuqurEfHY
David and Anne read their last bulletin together on the 17th of November 2000 (only lasted a year and a half).
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For what it’s worth, here’s a quick look back at the history of television news since the turn of this century.
2000
- DJ and Anne Fulwood are dumped as co-presenters of Seven News Melbourne, to be replaced by Peter Mitchell. Jennifer Adams takes over on weekends.
2001
- Frank Warrick retires as co-presenter of Seven News Brisbane.
- All hell breaks loose in New York with the biggest terror attack in modern history. This is the opener to National Nine News Brisbane from September 12, 2001. Bruce Paige and Jillian Whiting are the co-presenters -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPBZnvM7ORU - Ian Ross retires as newsreader of the Today show, replaced by Sharyn Ghidella.
- Today Tonight begins its weeks-long dominance in Adelaide the week of March 26, 2001. This streak is ongoing as of today.
2002
- Whiting and Heather Foord swap places, with Whiting promoted to weeknights while Foord moves to presenting on weekends with Mike London on NNN Brisbane.
- Brian Henderson retires from presenting NNN Sydney after nearly four decades.
- Sunrise is expanded into a three-hour format with Chris Reason and Melissa Doyle the co-anchors. After a cancer diagnosis, Reason is forced to step down, with David Koch permanently replacing him.
- After nine months on her own, Kay McGrath is joined on weeknights by Rod Young on Seven News Brisbane. Over at the ABC, Andrew Lofthouse is appointed to replace Young.
- Seven Melbourne moves from South Melbourne to Docklands, with the first Seven News Melbourne bulletin being broadcast on March 11, 2002. The Sydney and Brisbane sets receive what I like to call the “blue TV wall” set (later introduced in Perth in 2004)
2003
- Mike London quits NNN Brisbane after a complaint about weeknight presenter Bruce Paige is leaked in a newspaper. Speaking of whom - I wonder what he is up to these days? https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/newsreader-quits-after-complaint-scandal-20030604-gdvtg5.html
- Ross Symonds and Ann Sanders are removed as co-anchors of Seven News Sydney, to be replaced by Ian Ross. Symonds retires, while Sanders moves to weekends.
- Jennifer Keyte returns to Seven News Melbourne after seven or eight years at Nine.
- Natalie Barr is appointed newsreader on Sunrise, a role she still holds as of today.
- Here is a video of Andrew Lofthouse presenting ABC News Queensland on the day of the Waterfall rail disaster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttgsWuDf4t4
2004
- Mark Beretta is appointed sports presenter on Sunrise, a role he still holds today. Matt White is poached from Ten to become sports presenter on Seven News Sydney.
- Livinia Nixon replaces Rob Gell as weather presenter on Nine News Melbourne. Gell later moves to Seven News to become its weekend weather presenter.
- Graeme Goodings steps down from weeknights on Seven News Adelaide after it is revealed he is battling cancer.
- Seven News relaunches nation-wide, with Sunrise and Seven News Sydney moving operations from Epping to Martin Place.
- Bill McDonald replaces Geoff Mullins as co-presenter of Ten News Queensland, with Brad McEwan (from Melbourne) being appointed sports presenter. The set is also updated to look like its Melbourne counterpart.
2005
- Jim Waley is dumped as presenter of NNN Sydney, despite two consecutive years of ratings victories. He is replaced by Mark Ferguson.
- Ten News relaunches with a darker theme.
- Karl Stefanovic replaces Steve Liebmann as co-presenter of the Today show.
2006
- Helen Kapalos replaces Jennifer Hansen as co-presenter of Ten News Melbourne.
- Deborah Knight replaces Jessica Rowe as co-presenter of Ten News Sydney, with Rowe moving to the Today show.
- John Schluter abruptly quits NNN Queensland just short of his 25th anniversary with Channel Nine.
- Also on NNN Queensland, Wally Lewis suffers an on-air episode while presenting the sport at the back end of the year.
- Still in Brisbane, Melissa Downes replaces Jillian Whiting as QTQ weekend presenter.
2007
- Sharyn Ghidella quits as newsreader of the Today show to move to Brisbane where she replaces Tracey Challenor as weekend presenter on Seven News. Shane Webcke and John Schluter are appointed sport and weather presenters, respectively. These changes results in Seven News winning the ratings battle against Nine News in south-east Queensland for the first time in two decades.
- Seven News also wins the Melbourne news battle for the first time in three decades, winning 20 weeks to Nine’s 19 weeks, with one week drawn.
- Charmaine Dragun suddenly commits suicide on November 2, 2007. Tim Webster is left to present Ten News Perth on his own for the next six months.
- NNN Adelaide co-anchor Kevin Crease steps down early in the year, and dies two months later due to cancer. Rob Kelvin is left to present on his own for a few months before being joined by former Ten News Adelaide co-anchor Kelly Nestor in November.
- Brad McEwan joins Ten News Sydney as a back-up sports presenter and Friday-Thursday presenter of Sports Tonight.
2008
- Nine ditches the ‘National’ from its name and becomes simply Nine News.
- Heather Foord steps down as co-presenter of Nine News Queensland, which loses all 40 weeks of the Brisbane news battle against Seven.
- Production of Ten News Perth returns to the west with Narelda Jacobs the new presenter.
- Tim Webster retires from Ten News Sydney with Brad McEwan his permanent replacement.
2009
- Peter Overton suddenly replaces Mark Ferguson as presenter of Nine News Sydney. The move backfires in the short term, with Seven News (whose anchor Ian Ross was still to return from holidays) thrashing Nine News on Wednesday 14/1/2009 by 142K (383K to 241K).
- Melissa Downes is promoted to weeknights alongside Bruce Paige on Nine News Queensland. In June, Andrew Lofthouse (who initially presented on weekends with Eva Milic) is promoted to replace the “retiring” Bruce Paige on Mondays-Fridays.
- Ian Ross retires as newsreader of Seven News Sydney.
- Seven News Melbourne enjoys its most successful ratings year ever, winning 34 of 40 weeks.
- Bill Woods and Ron Wilson swap places with Woods co-presenting Ten News Sydney and Wilson the early national bulletin. Deborah Knight goes on maternity leave in the first half of the year.
2010
- Chris Bath is anointed the replacement for Ian Ross on Seven News Sydney with Mark Ferguson reading on weekends in addition to presenting other national bulletins for the network.
- Seven News narrowly wins the news battle in Sydney, with 21 weeks. Nine News with second-year anchor Peter Overton wins 18 weeks, and one week (the first week of the 2010 ratings battle) is tied with average 314K apiece that week.
- Seven News wins the Melbourne news battle by 26-14, and the Brisbane news battle by 39-1.
2011
- Nine News wins the Sydney news battle for the first time since 2004. Their 21st week won is the week of October 17, they would not lose another week for the year.
- Melissa Mallet and Cameron Price are dismissed by Channel Nine after it was revealed their reports from a chopper are faked on the weekend of August 20-21.
- Heather Foord retires from the Nine Network and from television for good. I wonder what she is up to these days?
- Ten’s news revolution which later backfires. George Donikian co-presents Ten News at Five in Melbourne for the early part of the year with Mal Walden presenting the 6:00pm bulletin, which lasts only two months or so.
- 6:00pm with George Negus (later 6:30pm with George Negus) lasts only nine months, and exactly 200 episodes.
2012
- Nine News in Melbourne sweeps the news battle.
- Mass sackings at Ten results in the likes of Ron Wilson, Bill Woods, Bill McDonald and Helen Kapalos being forced to find work elsewhere.
2013
- In a bombshell move, Bill McDonald and Sharyn Ghidella are suddenly announced as the co-presenters of Seven News Brisbane with Kay and Rod being moved to weekends.
- Nine News wins the Brisbane news battle for the first time since 2006, winning 21-19.
- Nine News clean-sweeps Sydney and Melbourne.
- Mal Walden retires.
- Samantha Armytage replaces Melissa Doyle as co-anchor of Sunrise following six (or so) years on Weekend Sunrise with Andrew O’Keefe.
- Ten News relaunches, reviving the Ten Eyewitness News brand for the first time since 1994.
2014
- Mark Ferguson suddenly replaces Chris Bath as weeknight presenter of Seven News Sydney.
- Former Seven News Sydney anchor Ian Ross passes away aged 73. It is a tough year for the bulletin which is clean-swept by Nine News once again. Nine News also clean-sweeps Melbourne and wins Brisbane by 32-8.
- Brenton Ragless joins Kate Collins as co-anchor of Nine News Adelaide. They remain in their roles as of today, though they are yet to even win a week against Seven News.
- Seven News wins every single night of the Adelaide news ratings battle.
- Georgie Gardiner steps down as Today show newsreader, with Sylvia Jeffreys replacing her.
2015
- Seven News gets a boost with a new game show, The Chase Australia, airing in the all-important 5:00pm timeslot. Still, Nine News wins the five-city news battle (except for Adelaide and Perth of course) with a convincing win on the East Coast.
- Seven introduces new local afternoon bulletins in Melbourne and Brisbane. This roll-out is completed by July 2017 with the former national afternoon bulletin reformatted to serve Sydney. Ann Sanders, who formerly presented at 6:00pm in the early noughties, remains as the anchor of the Sydney afternoon bulletin today.
2016
- Seven News relaunches with a new theme for the first time since 2004 (barring the ill-fated 2014 theme which omitted the Mission piece altogether) and new graphics in August.
- Ken Sutcliffe retires as sports presenter on Nine News Sydney. Nine News receives new graphics in October.
- Sunrise relaunches. Nathan Templeton replaces Rebecca Maddern as its Melbourne correspondent.
2017
- Cameron Williams returns to Nine News Sydney to become its sports presenter/editor.
- Nine introduces local afternoon news bulletins around the country.
- Nine News Darwin wraps up production in September 2017, with Jonathan Uptin moving to Brisbane to present the regional Queensland and reformatted Darwin bulletins.
- Nine News clean-sweeps Melbourne for the fifth time in six years.
2018
- Max Futcher replaces Bill McDonald as co-anchor of Seven News Brisbane, after years of poor ratings. Seven News wins the Brisbane news battle for the first time since 2012.
- Jonathan Uptin replaces Darren Curtis and Alison Ariotti as presenter of Nine News Queensland on weekends. The bulletin falls into disarray with the departure of several key staff including Joel Dry who moves up the road to BTQ.
2019
- The Today show gets a major revamp with GG and Deborah Knight as the new co-presenters, Sylvia Jeffreys replaced by Tom Steinfort and Tony Jones presenting the sport from Melbourne.
That’s obviously not everything, though.
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Wow, what a comprehensive list of milestones we’ve got there!
It’d be great if someone could do a write-up about the Australian TV news landscape during the 1990s (and maybe the 1980s) at some point though.
Last I heard (admittedly a few years ago now), Mike London was presenting radio bulletins for the Vision Radio Network.
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I would have thought that Tim Webster still did TEN Early News from 2009 right through to 2011. He left TEN in 2011 and moved to radio.
2011 was an interesting year with George Donikian leaving 10 News Melbourne after 20 years, Sports Tonight airing for the final time as TEN ends AFL telecast.
Also in 2005, David Johnston retired from Seven News. He presented his final bulletin on 23 September 2005. Johnston was replaced by Rebecca Maddern as the next presenter of 7 News at 4:30. Then in 2006, the 7 News at 4:30 was shifted from Melbourne to Sydney with Mike Amor as the presenter.
In late 2006, Jessica Rowe was on maternity leave. In 2007, Rowe was replaced by Lisa Wilkinson.
Plus. Greg Pearce resigned from Nine News Perth in late 2012. He was replaced by Tim McMillan in early 2013. In 2014, Libby Stone joined Tim McMillan on 9 News. A year later, Stone moved to QLD and replaced by Emmy Kubainski.
During the Christmas period of 2017, Tim and Emmy have been dumped from Nine Perth. Michael Thomson became the next presenter of 9 News in 2018.
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I’ve been sitting here in my sick bed all day looking through old newspapers and read some interesting articles about how Seven’s Sydney News with Steve Liebmann came about in 1980.
I gather a real battle was taking place at 6pm with The Young Doctors leading the pack and Ten’s Eyewitness News a strong second. The American sitcoms Seven had been airing at 6pm no longer had the same pull after so many airings and a succession of game shows had also failed so they took the plunge and decided to try local Sydney news.
I had a good laugh at Brian Henderson’s reaction to the competition and expanding news services. The "urbane"and “charming” Henderson mused: “One of these days we’ll have to go to an hour too. I think there will be more and more news.”
When asked if he would present the bulletin on his own: “Yeah, I don’t mind. By myself, two headed, whatever goes.”
The Seven News boss at the time predicted: “The success of our extra half hour is going to force Nine to increase their news programming.”
It wouldn’t be until a few years later, after the Sydney news experiment had ended, that ATN expanded to a full one hour composite bulletin and Nine was forced to make the move to 6pm to compete on an even playing field. It would be decades before they expanded to one hour, however. There were rumours about in the 1990s that a one hour news pilot was produced with Jana Wendt reading with Hendo.
I also found evidence that the Seven bulletin was was branded as Seven Nightly News as early as 1980. I don’t recall it ever being referred to as anything other than Seven National News until the 1988 overhaul. They must’ve rebranded to “National” when the Sydney news was introduced.
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2003 4.30 News is launched with David Johnson. That bulletin pretty much launched the afternoon news bulletins we see today.
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Yep, it was originally launched as Target Iraq. Here is the opener -
In 2004, Nine launched their own afternoon news bulletin and I think Mike Munro or Georgie Gardiner (one or the other) were the presenters in its early days. Then Kellie Connolly took over in 2006, then Michael Usher took over after she went on maternity leave in the first half of 2007.
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It was with Georgie Gardiner. Around august 2004.
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Nine’s afternoon news bulletin would have probably launched on August 30, 2004, the same day as the Seven News relaunch.
From what I can gather, Nine News in Sydney and Brisbane changed their backgrounds to now include live city shots while Melbourne got a static image of [what was then known as] Telstra Dome in the background.
Nine News Melbourne had the best jingle/variation of the news theme back then before briefly ditching it in 2006 for the revamped theme and then returning it on February 27.
Feb/March 2003 - Seven launched Target Iraq. It was only meant to be a temporary bulletin presented out of Sydney.
April 2003 - Seven changed the name to Sevens 4.30 News.
May 2003 - Production moves to Melbourne, with David Brown being introduced for national weather. The bulletin rundown consisted of the following
Top National Stories
Break
Top International Stories
Finance Cross
Break
Weather Segment
5 city rundown (top story in each city)
It rated very well for Seven, leading to Nine launching its own Afternoon News 18 months later. Nine struggled somewhat for a few years. I remember it being axed twice, then reinstated.
It’s also worth noting Today Tonight on the East Coast was dominating ACA. 2001 Sydney TT was dropped for the Melbourne edition, followed by Brisbane in 2003. Naomi Robinson took TT to success in 2005.
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I remember them introducing one for the 2004 Olympics.
Really like that theme, prefer it to the boring one they use now.
From what I can gather, Seven decided to make the 4:30pm news permanent after the strike on Iraq ended, seeing Target Iraq rated well.
The bulletin also gave David Brown some national exposure and some will say that Seven News Melbourne made a massive mistake when he was dumped as their weather presenter at the end of 2012.
His national presence then expanded to Seven’s Morning News who appointed him as their weather presenter in mid-2014.
Personally I’m glad that Seven News Sydney picked him up at the start of 2016; he is just about the only man who is keeping them competitive in the ratings battle against Nine. I have heard some running commentary about the dubious tabloid-style stories that have infiltrated the bulletin in recent years.
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Yes, I think the previous management at Seven Melbourne knew they made a mistake. The idea was to add a female into the line up which made sense. But it didn’t work, until Jane Bunn arrived in 2016.
David Brown kept his National role on the Morning and Afternoon News. He also did weekends in Melbourne.
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Seven News in Melbourne suffered in the ratings this decade with Simon Pristel at the helm.
From what I am hearing, Shaun Menegola has done a terrific job turning its fortunes around, but be aware that he was also at the helm of Nine News Perth, the worst-performing commercial news bulletin in Australia, between 2014-18.
Pristel basically undid all the hard work Steve Carey did between 2003-12.
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Would love to see an opener from the original version of the theme.
Here’s one from 2006, just before the Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne that year.
It’s basically finding gold if someone had the jan/feb 06 opener
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Nine News Melbourne still prevailed in Melbourne in 2006 thanks to The help of the Games, AFL. Seven News Melbourne won a few weeks in 2006 with Peter Mitchell. IIRC
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