Peter Mitchell should of returned 2 weeks ago when Peter Hitchener returned.
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He usually comes back this week. But I’m sure he can take his annual leave. He does work through the Easter/Good Friday period when Hitch takes leave.
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Promo airing for Kay McGrath’s final bulletin on Sunday night. They mention 40 years in news. I know she’s been at 7 since 1989 and before that at TV0. Would she be the longest serving Brisbane news reader?
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Thursday (23.01.2020): Monique Wright presented the Early News.
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She started at 7 in 1988 at ATN reading news on TV-AM. She started at TvQ in 1979 I think on casual basis whilst at The Gold Coast Bulletin. She was reading weekend news from about 1982 and filling in weeknights from the same time before taking over from Jacki McDonald full time at the beginning of 1984. Yes, she would be the longest in QLD reading. Bruce Paige is in the realm however, had a break at QTQ from 2009 to 2012 from memory apart from a few fill-ins.
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Thanks.
Yes so many other names have come and gone over the years and Kay is still around.
With Brisbane tv only 61 years old, to have been a newsreader for 40 of them is an amazing achievement.
Queensland legend.
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The promo for Kay’s final bulletin:
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Looks like TVQ have given BTQ some old footage as for once it’s not ripped from You Tube and footage I’ve never seen used before. Should be a good send off of more than the usual 2 minutes.
I haven’t seen Des McWilliam’s face on TV since he was read on WIN and finished up around late 2001/early 2002. He was news editor at TVQ during Kay’s time there plus read with her for a couple of years so wondering if they would ask him to make an appearance?
I suspect Kay will return to fill in over summer and the occasional weekend fill in if she wants to that is.
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Might be from Kay’s personal collection. She might have felt the need to keep some footage in those early days to showcase her previous work in case she found herself a victim of network cost cutting. The late '80s were a turbulent time.
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She has Christopher Skase to thank as it was him who gave her a job at Seven just as he was offloading TVQ to DDQ in late '87 as he has just bought the Seven Network. Her then husband had secured a job in Sydney hence the move to Sydney initially. From memory she didn’t enjoy Sydney very much. She has Simone Semmens to tank for vacating the seat and the end of '88!
Who knows what her career would have taken her staying at TVQ but not as good as that one at BTQ that’s for sure.
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There were rumours towards the end of 1987 that Kay was in line to read the prime time Sydney bulletin with Richard Zachariah. That job ultimately went to TEN 10’s Ann Sanders because she was more familiar to the Sydney audience. It would’ve been interesting to see if she had the same longevity as Ann at ATN had she secured that gig.
There were plenty of flattering comments written in the Sydney press during her year in Sydney. She had expressed a desire to “make it” in the Sydney market but admitted she wondered why that was important to her once she got here and that there were more important things in life.
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That’s a rumour I’ve never heard before and has certainly never been printed in QLD’s media before but interstesting all the same.
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He just filed a report tonight?
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He could be leaving at the end of the week? Admittedly I did wonder about the timing of @primetime_tv’s post since there was a report from Sean Berry on Tuesday night’s bulletin as well.
If it’s true that Sean is leaving to become a media advisor for the Premier, then it’s an extremely concerning development for a news service who has lost no less than 14 presenters/reporters (many of whom like Sean Berry, had been on-screen for more than a decade) in recent years.
And yes I know that Nine and other news services have also seen their fair share of personell changes since 2014, but it’d probably be fair to say that Seven have lost the most talent (at least from a Sydney market perspective) of late!
From the top of my head, here is a list of presenters/reporters who have left Seven News Sydney in recent years (in no particular order):
- Chris Bath (now with 10 News First)
- John Mangos (does anyone know when he left Seven?)
- Melissa Doyle (future now uncertain after the axing of Sunday Night)
- Chloe Bailey (now with Sky News, though did spend some time at Seven News Brisbane)
- Ashlee Mullany (now in the Seven News US bureau)
- Paul Kadak (also now in the US)
- Cath Turner (was a reporter in Sydney before moving to Europe, and then leaving Seven altogether in 2017)
- Hugh Whitfeld (moved to the Europe bureau in April 2014)
- Lia Harris (now with 10 News First)
- Matthew Snelson (joined Seven News from Nine News around 2014)
- Damien Smith (I think he retired)
- Hermione Kitson (now living in Italy with family)
- Patrick Molihan (ex-rugby league reporter)
- Josh Massoud (sacked by Seven in 2018)
- Amanda Abate (spent a year at Seven News Sydney in 2015 before returning to Queensland)
- Liam Cox
- Sarah Cumming (moved to the Gold Coast with her husband, Stuart Dew, who is head coach of the Gold Coast Suns AFL club)
- Sean Berry (to finish up soon)
- Ashlea Hansen (nee Brown; does anyone know if she did leave Seven News?)
- Sophie Hull
- Jessica Tancred (was a Weekend Sunrise reporter based out of Melbourne before moving to Sydney in 2017)
That’s all I can think of, though I probably know there are more.
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Names that didn’t make it onto this rather extensive list of yours:
*Adam Walters
*Adene Cassidy
*Dr Andrew Rochford (Remember those “The Healthy Truth” segments?)
*Talitha Cummins
*Lee Jeloscek
*Mike Duffy
*Freya Cole (was a Prime7 newsreader before moving to Seven, now a journalist for BBC World in London)
28 presenters/reporters…that number who’ve left Seven News Sydney in recent years (the turnover rate is probably even higher in more behind the scenes roles) is probably a larger one that the total number of staff in many regional newsrooms! 
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While its intriguing, is it concerning though? I mean most of the reporters leaving had been there for quite a long time some even dating back to Roger Climpsons final years. Pretty much the ones who were there for a shorter time progressed in there career or wanted to pursue something else.
If you were to watch 7 News Perth in 2000, the only reporters you probably would have seen that are still working at 7 is Geoff Parry and maybe Chantelle Toohey.
These things come and go in cycles.
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I’d say so, especially when you compare that to how Nine News have handled the big retirements with on-air celebrations for the careers of Ken Sutcliffe, Laurie Oakes and Robert Penfold. Knowing the TCN newsroom, I actually wouldn’t be overly surprised if they were even to do something similar for Mark Burrows and Damian Ryan when they retire.
I don’t think Seven News Sydney has had a reporter who’s been there since the final days of Roger Climpson for more than a decade - Paul Marshall (Who I think moved to Adelaide and briefly did some work for Seven News over there after leaving here?) was probably the last one and he left back in 2008!
Some of names mentioned were on-air at Seven as far back as the era of Ross & Ann presenting the Sydney 6pm bulletin, but at least half were from the Ian Ross era and later and probably more than half were nowhere near retirement age!
I guess so, but it’s the loss of all this experienced talent (and with most - but not all - replacement talent being relatively lacklustre) which is one of the reasons I rarely watch Seven News Sydney anymore.
Again, maybe it’s just me but it feels like Nine News have been handling their presenter/reporter reshuffles considerably better than Seven News have in recent years because when old talent has left Nine, their replacements have at least been almost as good. Eg, Ken Sutcliffe > Cameron Williams, Peter Harvey > Mike Dalton, Laurie Oakes > Chris Uhlmann (even though IMO, the other Chris should be Nine’s chief political reporter), what will likely be Ross Greenwood > Chris Kohler…
But all the people you named are either presenters or reporters that file reports for a national audience not Sydney exclusive (apart from Mike Dalton)
Those don’t report on the field on local issues like the people who we are comparing to like Lee Jeloscek once at 7 or Alice Monfries currently at 9.
Of course they are going to find replacements that are somewhat known if its in the Canberra Bureau or a national finance editor.
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