Plan A should be doing what they can to poach Peter Overton (and Cameron Williams for Sport) from Nine.
Plan B should be doing what they can to get Chris Bath back to the network.
Plan C should be doing what they can to poach Hugh Riminton who is fairly underutilised at Ten right now.
But realistically those won’t ever happen, so the most adequate presenters to lead Seven News Sydney currently at the network are probably Michael Usher and/or Melissa Doyle.
Although Ann Sanders seems like a lovely person, she’s never been a ratings topper at 6pm and probably prefers presenting the Morning/Sydney 4pm bulletins anyway. Chris Reason is barely better than Fergo, while the less said about Robert Ovadia the better.
As we keep on going around in seasonal circles on this forum I’m giving my 4 cents worth. I too would poach Peter but realistically he is fixated with Nine and they’d do anything to keep him even if it meant sacking reporters to up his pay.
And because of that I would probably then try lure Hugh, or Lachlan for that matter (for long term commitment) from Ten. Is it the key to beat Overton? maybe not straight away, but he isn’t going to be there for ever (definitely not as long as Rick and Sue) so this could be a fresh approach to Sydney News and could bring viewers on. In saying that though if I was at Seven I’d also be doing anything to try earn rights to the NRL next contract, this could possibly bring viewers over to 7
Oh, I agree that Nine would possibly go to those levels to keep Peter Overton at the network.
I also agree that Peter Overton probably won’t have a newsreading career that’s as Rick & Sue at Seven Perth. But at the same time, Pete will be 52 this year - the prospect of him reading Sydney TV news bulletins for another decade or maybe even two isn’t an entirely unrealistic thought IMO.
Unfortunately for Seven, the NRL is tied up with Nine for the next five years. I think they’d possibly also need to establish some sort of rugby league-based discussion program (perhaps an NRL version of The Front Bar?) if they want to be taken seriously come the next broadcast rights contract. But that’s for another topic.
Ferguson signed a five year contract in 2015 with his bosses declaring they’ll be sticking with him “for the long haul”. Former Sydney news boss Chris Willis declared at the time: “We see Mark as the future. Our strategy is one of perseverance".
With the purse strings tightening I can’t see Seven being happy to pay him big bucks to read weekend or afternoon news.
All three, with the exception of C, are never going to happen. C wouldn’t really do much for Seven anyways.
Seven News just don’t have a news service with a point of difference. Nine runs rings around them because they do everything Seven does and do it better.
The difference is McDonald was off contract. I think Seven would’ve been happy to keep him had he accepted a big pay cut like Ferguson did when he negotiated his last contract. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why they let him return to air at the start of the year.
Max Futcher did an in-studio report at the top of the bulletin tonight on the flooding in northern QLD. At the end of the bulletin, he joined Kay at desk and she congratulated him on the promotion. He promoted his feature story for tomorrow’s bulletin.
Also, there was a promo regarding the Commonwealth Games. As I only heard it, I think Max, Sharyn and Shane featured in it.
Seven had the opportunity to intercept that ship though and they chose not to. I am all for long term solutions but not when it impact the present (as has been the case since 2013).
Max is now featured in the Facebook and Twitter photo headers. I assume both Futcher and Sharyn were filming promos today, though I haven’t seen any yet.
I didn’t get to watch all of Seven News tonight, @spw68 or @TV.Cynic did you see promos? Tonight would have been a great night to flog them out as they were number 1.
I also hope they got the V/O guy in to record a new V/O as the one for Max and Katrina is really hypo and fast, compared to the normal ones.
Probably but he wouldn’t be the first newsreader to be demoted while on a hefty pay packet. 7 Sydney can’t afford to continue to be loyal. Unsurprisingly, he just hasn’t resonated with viewers. The same goes for Mel McLaughlin.
Ship him off to weekends and guest reporter on Sunday Night.
Max presented report at the start of the bulletin on flooding. At the end of the bulletin he suddenly appeared at the news desk after the weather to promote a story on Monday’s news about flight controllers. He was introduced by Kay “congratulations on the new appointment”. His mic wasn’t working 100%. This story has been promoted widely across the weekend with no previous reference to Max. There were no promos for Monday. It all looked very last minute - it seemed like - come in on Sunday and we’ll put you in front of a couple of stories.
Futcher is a good reader, but lacks the profile that the best known understudy, Peter Hitchener had. Pete was the perfect replacement for Brian, smooth hand over.
