So was Mal sacked on the Friday then this new format kicked in on the following Monday?
No wonder Seven News became a celler dweller literally overnight. New format with an unknown (to Melbourne audiences) Presenter and Current Affairs host. Too many changes way too quickly.
he was sacked and read his last bulletin late in March. They had a reporter (I think it was Mark Gillies?) as an interim newsreader pending the re-launch with Greg Pearce and the new-look bulletin.
While Mal’s sacking got all the headlines, another departure from Seven that got a lot less attention was Malcolm Gray. He’d been a reporter and newsreader there for years but had gained a following when he became the weather presenter and injected a bit of humour into the role. Think Brian Bury on Today but less annoying!
People used to tune in just to see the weather because he’d give very localised shout-outs, “and right now in Panorama Court, Bundoora, it’s 17 degrees” and so on. Given his popularity it is odd that his exit was very quiet but it sort of got blurred out amid all the Mal Walden ruckus.
All these years on Seven News continues to struggle against the might of Nine News in Melbourne.
If I remember correctly, as recently as 2015 the average margin between the two was roughly around 100K in Nine’s favour.
Seven News has had times at the top in Melbourne IIRC and even though it may come second to Nine nowadays it is a far cry from those late 1980s days when it was being beaten by ABC and, at its extreme low point, SBS
We’re still Number 4!
Even SBS are knocking at the door.
Didn’t Newsworld (local late night bulletin) also receive the axe in favour of the Sydney edition?
correct, they axed the Melbourne-based program which was really just a straight news bulletin and replaced it with the Clive Robertson program of the same name. That was one change that seemed to pay off at least
I’m aware World of Sport was axed, but was there any other content affect by the change in ownership, drama, children’s programming etc?
by the time they took out World Of Sport, Day By Day, Newsworld and had already lost VFL there wasn’t really anything left in local production apart from the 6.00 news, and Ivan Hutchinson survived as movie host and reversed the trend by having his midday movies presentation extended to Sydney.
Pretty much all other network programming was made interstate, usually from Sydney.
It will be interesting to what happens in the coming months with Seven Melbourne presently producing very little local content in 2021. Part from the Local News, AFL and The Front Bar, a lot of shows have been moved to Sydney or axed over the past 12 months.
I also think as recently as 2004 or 2005 it was also trailing Ten News Melbourne in the ratings too.
2009 was Seven News’ best year in Melbourne winning 34 of 40 ratings weeks. In the other four markets Seven News won all 40 weeks.
2012 - Nine launched a new on-air presentation with flying ribbons and a colourful look.
2018 - The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games comes to an end with the Closing Ceremony panned by Basil Zempilas and Joh Griggs live on air and criticised on social media. A disappointing end to what was a great week and a half of sport.
15 April 1960: Today, 1960: The 3DB-Sporting Globe-HSV7 Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal raises a record total of £236,089 5s 7d ($472,178) – beating the previous record set in 1956. The boost helped by the appeal’s first all-day telethon on HSV7. In the few years beforehand HSV7’s contribution to the appeal was limited.
Source: Broadcasting & Television (B&T)
To count for inflation, it is the equivalent to $7.16 Million
Also, Melbourne’s population at the time was around 1.85 million. It’s now over 5 million and regional Victoria over 1.5 million.
16 April 2013 Analogue TV switches off in Western Australia after 54 years. Ironically the last station to swtich off was TVW-7.
Unlike ATN, BTQ, and HSV, TVW would do nothing to honour the occasion.
17 April 1977: The landmark US mini-series Roots makes its Sydney debut on TEN10. The 12-hour mini-series aired in Melbourne a month later.
The mini-series topped the ratings that year, rating 54 in Melbourne and 51 in Sydney.
It was a good miniseries, later tainted by Alex Haley admitting he had plagiarised slabs of another fiction book and allegations that other parts of his family story were made up as they didn’t match the facts in contemporary records.
