News.com.au understands David Richardson, executive producer of the network’s newsroom in Darwin, was told he was being let go on Monday, just hours after the company received a formal complaint.
The complaint relates to remarks allegedly made at a party on Friday evening, it’s understood.
A source told news.com.au that Richardson was escorted from the Mitchell Street office after the news was delivered.
At this point, the Darwin bulletin has been reduced to a locked-off camera and a single presenter sitting in front of a screen. Are there that many economics behind it?
Only economics would be someone to do make-up, and possibly auto-cue if they wanted to relocate it back to Darwin - they have been able to do updates from the Darwin studios while controlled from Brisbane before, so it isn’t an issue with the technology.
They already have a studio space (pretty much a larger than usual TOSS studio), and they share playout with NBN for half of the year already -
Would only need three-five staff to run the control room during Winter
Rumour from trusted source that Nine News Darwin has been abruptedly axed. Announcement was made to local staff within the past hour over a conference call with Fiona Dear (QLD news director) - will confirm soon
