They were unbeatable in the ratings in 2006; Brisbane was National Nine News’ strongest performing market that year with only a handful of weeks lost.
But when weatherman John Schluter quit just short of 25 years with the network, sports presenter Wally Lewis had to take sick leave to treat his epilepsy condition, and BTQ poached Sharyn Ghidella (who was then reading the news on Nine’s Today show, following in the footsteps of another Seven defector in Ian Ross) to read its weekend news, QTQ’s news ratings went south of BTQ’s for the first time in two decades.
By 2008 QTQ would crash to not winning a single news ratings week, and Heather Foord decided to step down to spend more time with her family (though was also appointed presenter of Extra), prompting Melissa Downes’ promotion to weeknights alongside Bruce Paige.
Around this time Andrew Lofthouse was poached from the ABC and was appointed weekend co-presenter with Eva Milic. Then when Paige “retired” (I say this in quotes because he didn’t strictly retire, but instead decided to scale back his duties) in mid-2009, Lofthouse stepped up to the weeknight chair with Downes.
Like Peter Overton in Sydney, both Lofthouse and Downes endured a rough start being up against Kay and Rod on Seven (like how Overton was up against Roscoe) but they quietly started to build ratings and by 2013 QTQ would be back on top.