Bit of an awkward moment at Nine News tonight. One of the news stories (around 12 or 13 minutes into the Sydney bulletin, not sure if other markets carried it) was the arrest of Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer:
In Brisbane news the cricket was the 4th out of 5 sport stories for tonight. Taking precedence were a story on Johnathan Thurston making a surprise visit to fire fighters to thank them for recent activities, today’s activities at Broncos training and a Tiger Woods media conference about the President’s Cup golf, none of which featured any sport being played.
I’d personally be interested to know who’s most likely to become the new Deputy News Director at Nine News Sydney if Fiona moves over to ACA or Today (well, she was classed as a “Strong” candidate to take over from Mark Calvert in the piece on TV Blackbox anyway). Also, whether people expect Nine News Sydney’s current lead director Simon Hobbs to stay in his current position next year or move onto something else after six years?
Either way, I personally think a freshening up of the leadership positions would probably be a really good thing for Sydney’s #1 News and might help fix the 6.30pm half ratings problems the bulletin has been suffering from over the past 6-7 months.
During the announcement of a new EP for Today & Director of Morning TV, some pretty important news about the leadership of Nine News Sydney which may affect the content mix of the service in 2019!
With Steve Burling taking over in the morning, Fiona Dear will be leaving her current spot as deputy director for Nine News Sydney to become the new EP of A Current Affair, with Meredith Marks becoming the new deputy director of Nine News Sydney. Because I couldn’t find much info about Meredith Marks online, I’d be particularly interested to know what those at TCN think of her as an EP (as I understand it) in the newsroom!
Overall I hope these changes will be a good thing for the news service, but personally I would’ve really liked to see Nine News Sydney appoint a new main director. Yes, I’m aware that Nine News has been #1 in Sydney every year under Simon Hobbs (so for that, I respect the guy enough) but after 6-7 years, it’s probably time for a change with there being several signs of complacency creeping in recently. In particular, I personally think the quality of the promos (since the “Chatting Up Peter Overton” series in February, I haven’t really seen anything amazing on-air), the 3rd in-line presenter & weather coverage are issues which need to be addressed in 2019 IMO.
Story on Cyclone Owen’s expected development over the coming day just aired on 9 News QLD featuring the SEWS as a backing track as Ebony Cavallaro spoke about the forecast track map, very big no no!
Probably the best/worst (depending on your point of view) news super fails I’ve ever seen, surely even primary school kids would be able to correctly identify the Prime Minister & Opposition Leader?
