Worth noting she did present solo on weekends in the latter part of the Bruce Paige-Heather Foord era, at which point Nine News was the top rating news service in Brisbane until Seven set out poaching ex-Nine staff including their weatherman John Schluter and then-Today newsreader Sharyn Ghidella (in what I always say is their Ian Ross moment, if that makes sense) towards the end of 2006.
That, and Wally Lewis having to (temporarily) step down from presenting sport after an epilepsy fit around the same time, saw QTQ’s news get overtaken by BTQ’s for the first time in two decades.
I wonder what caused the pendulum to swing Seven’s way at the turn of the millennium. Though IIRC, Nine’s weekend bulletins continued to outrate Seven’s until John Riddell swapped places with Graeme Goodings in the mid-noughties following the latter’s cancer diagnosis.
That Mike Willesee and Mike Munro thing from 1993 is quite unbelievable isn’t it, Cangai killers/shootout. Just watched a doco.
Police and half the public were scathing, even an inquest. But particularly Munro vehemently stood by their actions, including the cameraman and chopper pilot. The charge against the pilot was also later thrown out.
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).
I have a bunch of recordings from WIN with Alive and Cooking from the 90s-2000s. In the 90s Nine seemed to air World News Sunday/World News Tonight from ABC followed by an “in news closer to home…” with someone like Ian Ross. Did Nine air the full bulletins from ABC and just slap on the headlines at the end or was just a portion of it? And when did they switch to a full morning bulletin?
