I was thinking that Katrina should be there for the official handover too, though I think she will still be on holidays. The other two don’t need to be there, in my opinion.
I’m expecting a few pre-recorded messages of well wishes, maybe from Rod Young, the Premier, news bosses and the Morcombes. I know the weekly Flashback segment is already dedicated to her career.
I do, because reporters like Hugh Whitfeld & Paul Kadak who’ve moved to the overseas bureaus are reporters who are obviously no longer covering Sydney local news.
Similar deal with Nine’s Amelia Adams & Sophie Walsh along with other network reporters who’ve moved overseas.
Very long time ago but I remember when Frank Warrick left Seven today tonight was pulled and they did an entire half hour.
For 40 years you’d expect at least the final 10-15 minutes dedicated to a farewell. It is Sunday against the tennis in non ratings and farewelling a Queensland icon. They can afford to make a bit of a fuss.
I remember catching it once or twice just to see what the format was like. I grew up on Cartoon Connection but was in my late teens by that stage so wasn’t too gutted that the cartoons had been pulled. I was really excited by all the changes that were happening with Seven’s news programming as Skase set about remodelling Seven into an “infotainment” channel.
Skase’s vanity project was billed as the Australian Financial Review of television. Clive Robertson even dared to ask him if TVAM was an “ego trip” during an interview on Newsworld. It was dry, upmarket and aimed at a very niche audience. Seven was winning breakfast ratings by airing cartoons at the time yet they chose to go head to head with Business Today/Today and GMA knowing they’d take a ratings hit.
TVAM was in trouble before it even started airing. The launch was delayed because execs were unhappy with the pilots. There were rumours Kay was unhappy about being relegated to the news reading role after initially being told she would co-present with John Barton. By September, four months after launch, the EP had been replaced, morale at Seven was said to be low, ratings were dire and the sharks were circling.
Kay was a bit cheeky tonight as she threw to Paul Burt saying, “now someone who looks good in a thong”. It was after the story about thongs being good for your feet.
Kay always does a pun after the lighter story before the weather. She is actually quite funny, something she probably is not really known for. Still really sad that she is leaving tomorrow.