I reckon Peter Overton is a strong enough presenter to bring an audience to a rival network, but it’s highly unlikely to ever happen.
He’s been quite loyal to Nine over the years and with having the positions as the 60 Minutes “Mailbag” segment presenter, an occasional reporter for the show along with often anchoring major news coverage for Nine on a national basis (with Karl on the nose, surely most expect to see Peter Overton as the main face of Nine’s 2019 NSW & Federal Election coverage?), I honestly couldn’t see Pete defecting. Ten couldn’t offer Pete a position that’s equal to or better than what he’s getting at Nine, while Seven arguably already have a presenter which should be their Peter Overton - his name is Michael Usher.
I was thinking more when former National Nine News presenter Ian Ross joined Seven News Sydney towards the end of 2003.
…and critically, there are (if I’m not mistaken) only two Nine News Queensland reporters who are native to the market out of the five you mentioned: Ebony Cavallaro & Tessa Hardy.
While both Ebony & Tessa are good reporters from the little I’ve seen of their work, at the same time I reckon QTQ needs more reporting talent which lives & breathes South East Queensland if they want to build the future of the news service. Otherwise they’re probably going to be in trouble if/when any (or all) of Rob Morrison, Mia Glover & Shannon Marshall-McCormack decided to move to Sydney at some point in the future!
Again, it probably should be stressed that I’d be quite happy if Rob, Mia & Shannon were to enjoy a long career of reporting for Nine News Queensland. But knowing the amount of QTQ turned TCN talent there’s been in recent years (Davina, Sophie & Zara instantly come to mind), you’d have to imagine that the Willoughby newsroom would eyeing some of the reporters currently in Queensland with ties to Sydney as potential future talent for our market because let’s face facts here: TCN will probably need successors for senior reporters like Mark Burrows and Damian Ryan at some point in the not overly distant future. Of course that’s not to say I definitely think Burrows & Ryan will retire in the next year or two, but I do think the possibility of that happening isn’t as distant as it may have been ten or even five years ago!
Nothing wrong with hiring talented juniors to bolster your news team. They are the future of newsroom if you mentor and nurture them. 9 News Sydney is the perfect example of this.
However, QTQ have done the opposite. Their longest serving reporter is Ebony Cavallaro who’s been there 10 years.
