And after This Afternoon was promptly axed, he served out his time at Nine by presenting the revived Afternoon News (which was then national).
I think it was clear he didn’t want to stay beyond his contract at Nine after being bumped off the Sydney weeknight bulletin in favour of Peter Overton in January 2009.
Ferguson himself had bumped Jim Waley off the bulletin after impressing during the 2004-05 summer, which was huge news-wise (the Boxing Day tsunami).