Well 7 News Adelaide did suddenly sack much loved weekend reader Jessica Adamson, even though she did nothing wrong on air, and she had been reading for over 20 years at that point.
That’s money/budget related. She was probably on a fairly expensive contract but isn’t exactly as loved as Jane is. Jane is still bringing the nightly wins so they’re obviously going to keep her.
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and the idea that one of the longest serving anchors in the country would get the flick and nobody would no!
Jane Doyle is ofcourse returning. Her face is on the endboard of every news update in Adelaide (throughout Summer also). She’ll likely be back on Feb 1
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Kendall Gilding presenting Morning News.
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What can we say about Seven News Sydney’s ratings under Ferguson over the past seven years? I think it’s been moderate to say the least. He is simply not able to replicate the success of his ex-Nine colleague Ian Ross.
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This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think putting ratings to one side, Mark Ferguson is still the best person for the job.
He may not have the best banter or come across as relaxed as Peter Overton or Sandra Sully, but I find him to be very smooth and very rarely makes mistakes when reading. Certainly a lot smoother than Chris Bath.
As long as Seven News are the Number 1 news service in the five city totals as they are most days, I don’t expect to see any changes happening.
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You beat me to it, can’t wait…
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I don’t expect anything to change until the current news management is moved on. They’d have to admit they were wrong to install Fergo and that won’t happen. They persevered with Ross Symonds and Ann Sanders, together, separately and paired with others, when it was clear they were never going to be popular with viewers and they’re repeating the same mistake with the current team. They’ll never have the leading news service in Sydney with them.
It’ll take a major shakeup at the top and the appointment of a wunderkind like Boland or Meakin to make the changes that should be made. They only have to look at tapes from their winning years to realise what is missing- personality and chemistry. The current team is dry, pedestrian and not at all engaging.
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That Fergo has lost more weeks in the ratings to Nine than he’s won? If my calculations are correct Mark Ferguson has won 13 weeks, Michael Usher picked up 1 in July 2019 while the competition has been on top during the other 266 ratings weeks since 2014.
Situation has been so bad that there have been several occasions when Georgie Gardner, Deborah Knight and possibly even Mark Burrows have outrated Seven’s main reader! 
LOL!
I personally think a new lead presenter for Seven News Sydney should’ve been “Ushered in” for 2017 but that’s far from the only problem the news service has. On the occasions I’ve tuned in during recent years, the content has been dreadful with stories which should be shown towards the end of the bulletin or not at all making it into the Opening Headlines!
While I can’t say for absolute certainty, some recent developments also seem to suggest there may be a toxic culture within the Martin Place newsroom.
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One question that has been popping in and out of my mind regarding this topic is what has Seven got to lose by dumping Ferguson for Usher?
Usher rates about the same, sometimes even better than Ferguson against Nine and has won and lost nights by similar margins Ferguson did so technically speaking the worst case scenario would be Seven News Sydney maintaining about the same ratings, the only difference would be getting rid of a massive pay cheque associated with Mark considering they’ll be able to get more out of Michael Usher for a fraction of the cost that Ferguson is costing the network.
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If Usher goes to 6pm, he won’t be presenting The Latest: Seven News anymore. The Latest needs him.
If Seven wanted to get rid of Mark, is Michael the right person to replace him? I’m not convinced he is.
Nine has proven that a 6pm news presenter can also read the late bulletin?
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Yes but that’s Perth, and with the time difference, Michael Thomson doesn’t have to stay back as late as a Sydney presenter would if the bulletin was produced in Sydney every night.
And Peter Overton only has to stay back late on Sunday nights, whereas Michael Usher would have to stay back late at work 4-5 nights a week for The Latest if he was to juggle both roles.
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Still not impossible to achieve for Michael Usher. Whether he wants to is another story.
Also Seven doesn’t really bother with The Latest these days so they might as well get Usher to focus on the bigger beast that is Seven News Sydney which on many occasions would outrate The Latest across the country.
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No it doesn’t, but it does need a permanent replacement who they can mould the bulletin around like they have with Usher. Plenty of options out there.
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Wednesday 27th January & Thursday 28th January -
Blake Johnson is presenting Melbourne’s Afternoon News.
Angie Asimus is presenting Sydney’s Afternoon News.
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Strange that Seven News bosses are sticking by Ferguson despite these results. If the trend continues, something has to give.
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It’s possible Seven is more concerned with the short term decrease in the ratings that would come if a new presenter is appointed to the Sydney market. Also on most nights the difference between Seven and Nine is not significant in the whole scheme of things. A difference of 10-20k is within the margin of error. I am sure Seven would prefer if it was winning the eastern states but they are winning overall Australia wide maybe that’s all they care about at the moment. If however the different significantly increase then Mark’s days will be limited.
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