Well, Bill still needs time to prepare doesn’t he?
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Michael Usher joins Seven News Investigates Team
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/another-blow-for-60-minutes-as-michael-usher-jumps-ship-to-seven-network/news-story/c9216285ccf18ef1420c40fb24597e51?nk=ddd7d441588f9de5384509e9373be31d-1470716802
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Surely I’m not the only one who immediately thought “Potential future replacement for Mark Ferguson as Seven Sydney’s Sunday-Thursday 6pm newsreader” while reading this headline?!
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Clever thinking 99 (oh gosh have I just showed my age)
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Media release from Seven
The Seven Network today announced the appointment of senior journalist Michael Usher.
An award-winning reporter with a career spanning more than two decades, Michael joins Seven’s News and Public Affairs division.
Seven Network Director of News and Public Affairs Craig McPherson said: “We couldn’t be more pleased to have Michael joining Australia’s number one news team. Widely regarded as one of the country’s foremost investigative journalists, his passion and experience will further strengthen our dedicated team. Michael will be instrumental in future news programming including presenting the Seven News Investigates series currently in production.
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Good get for the network by Craig no doubt, it does seem a bit like a downgrade coming from 60 mins to some ‘7 News Investigates’ crap they put out. One would hope that they might have other projects in mind for him.
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Either that or “potential anchor of new national current affairs programme airing weeknights”.
I could also see the whole “7 News Investigates” thing being turned into a regular weekly show with Sunday Night continuing its descent into trashy tabloid garbage (which appears to be far more popular with the MKR crowd).
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I don’t think it’s a question of whether Michael could potentially replace Mark but when it happens. He’s shown that he can be a solid anchor when he’s filled-in in the past whilst being an exceptional on-the-ground reporter during major events/breaking news stories. He’s someone Seven could build their news division around not just in Sydney but nationally through the ‘Investigates’ series.
Mind you we’re talking about Seven News here where obvious decisions aren’t made and weird ones (eg; doing a re-launch by elements) are so anything could happen…
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If you ask me, Mark Ferguson would probably be a great presenter of a daytime bulletin or even a rolling news channel. But I don’t think he works particularly well on a main evening news bulletin, especially in a quite large and competitive news market like Sydney. I also seem to get the impression that unlike Peter Overton, Fergo isn’t quite comfortable with having such a prestigious role as the main 6pm newsreader on a major network in Australia’s largest city.
History shows that the Sydney market has a preference to the type of TV newsreader that can be serious when they need to be but can also have a bit of fun and actually banter with the presenters where appropriate. To be the main 6pm newsreader in Sydney, I think you really need to be able to handle that very delicate balance between serious breaking news and the more light-hearted content if you want a long career and consistent ratings wins for the news service and often even the network in the city as a whole.
If Seven were to use Michael Usher as a future main Sydney news presenter (which I’d personally like to see happen, not the least because a Michael Usher vs Peter Overton ratings battle in Sydney news would be very interesting!), I think they might need to give him a decent amount of time on weekends to get him used to a typical news studio environment (which is very different to constantly travelling for 60 Minutes, that’s for sure) before finally giving him the position as Seven’s main Sydney newsreader.
More importantly, could Michael Usher ultimately pass what I’d call the Hendo/Climpson/Roscoe/Overton test of being able to handle more light-hearted news and presenter bantering as well as the serious news of the day?
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Mark must be shaking in his boots!
Michael is a potential replacement in the future.
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Did not see that coming! Very big win for Seven and a massive loss for Nine.
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Maybe Michael knows something about 60 Minutes that we don’t? 
His name has been mentioned here more than once as a replacement for Ferguson. I don’t think it is a matter of ‘if’ he will anchor the main bulletin but ‘when’.
I’m not a big fan of Usher but he does have an air of authority about him which the Sydney bulletin is in dire need of.
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He is not the best 6pm News anchor but he is now the best option for Seven News now.
Usher wouldn’t defect unless it was something big… 7 News Sydney… or TT.
I personally think 7 News need consistency in Sydney. So going though another presenter is not in their best interests.
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Great coup by Seven, hopefully Usher’s signing will add to the credibility of Seven News Investigates (is it similar to Dateline NBC in the US?).
Wow. Looks like it’s going to be an interesting 6 months ahead!
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It’s for this year’s Kennedy Awards (the top awards for journalism in NSW). There will be more on this in Journalism Awards thread.
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Yeah, the Kennedy Awards are for NSW-specific journalism. I presume that each state has it’s own awards for journalism in the local media.
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