Attention turns to Mark Ferguson as Seven News trails Nine
With Chris Bath departing, questions are now turning to Mark Ferguson's losses to Peter Overton.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
With the impending exit of Chris Bath from Seven next month, attention now turns to Seven’s weeknight anchor Mark Ferguson.
Seven has been trailing Nine News for too long in the Sydney market, losing 134 straight weeks to its rival. In 2013 & 2014 Nine won 40 weeks to Seven’s 0. So far it has every ratings week this year.
Such dramatic numbers has prompted media to turn the spotlight from Bath to Ferguson, who hosts Sunday – Thursday against Peter Overton.
Today the Daily Telegraph asks, “When will the network finally call time on the failed experiment of their number one Sydney newsreader, Mark Ferguson?”
“From the top down at Seven, the Sydney newsroom has been largely run by people not from Sydney, making decisions like the bridesmaid, never the bride,” it notes.
A separate articles suggests Bath tired of “a toxic environment in which there are too many bosses making poor decisions yet denying culpability.”
Yet Seven’s woes don’t end there, with Melbourne another headache.
Nine News Melbourne has been winning since 2012. Peter Hitchener has defeated Peter Mitchell in the 6pm news battle every ratings week this year, last year and in 2013.
While Seven has years of wins in Adelaide and Perth, the rise in Nine’s stocks has tipped it into national wins.
Seven is rumoured to be readying a local version of The Chase, potentially for its 5:30pm timeslot, in an attempt to knock off Nine’s Hot Seat.
If the speculation is true that Bath was unhappy with a pay cut it begs the question: would paying her the extra $200k have been a better option than the pressure that will now come with the public perception and further scrutiny on trailing numbers?
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- Tagged with Hot Seat, Nine News, Seven News, The Chase
13 Responses
Nine News in Melbourne won every week in 2012 as well.
Seven moved Bath of to the end of the week and the intermittent Sunday Night as they chase younger viewers for their 6pm to try and catch Nine. She’s decide to try something else; people change jobs and remaining in one job for 20 years is pretty rare these days.
As with Seven replacing Doyle with Armitage at breakfast, that doesn’t mean they didn’t appreciate Doyle’s skills. Commercial TV is a ruthless game where maximising ad revenue is the name of the game.
Ferguson failed at 9 and now 7 are paying him a motza to fail there. Defies logic.
what would be a hit for ten news would be to have Sandra Sully and Chris Bath do the news together. i like them both and it’ll good to see
100% agree with that, their chemistry together would be far superior over that with Hugh Rimminton and the program would seem soo much more polished and would flow better. It’s exactly what Ten need to lift their ratings.
I think they need to look at a total relaunch from Sunrise right through to prime time. Sunrise is looking tired with its set and graphics and 7 news Sydney needs a massive overhaul including the host. Mark Ferguson is too robotic and does not have an impressive enough background to lead 7’s news department. Ray Martin or Deborah Knight would be a better option.
Deborah Knight is with Channel 9 and i think also Ray Martin is as well but on a part-time basis maybe David Knox can help clarify that. but deborah knight is with channel 0
Ray is not signed to Nine.
okay thanks for clarification
Hey David about Queensland News- who has got the lead at this stage.
I like Chris Bath and wish your luck in future endeavors, i’d like to see her on Channel 9 as fill in for Tracy Grimshaw, a 60minutes reporter etc… or Channel 10.
Tracey is on ACA not 60 Minutes.
Nine are leading in Brisbane very convincingly, from last check (as of last Sunday), 15 weeks to Seven’s 1 on Mon-Fri figures, Nine’s 13 weeks to Seven’s 3 weeks on 7 day figures.
Agree that Seven needs to seriously look at content. It’s obvious following Nine to 1hr on the east coast hasn’t worked. The attention has to be focused not on the face of the bulletin, but the backroom. Seven needs someone who can reinvigorate their news service out of a major slump, with all options (inc. return of 1/2hr news/current affairs to east coast) being considered.
Shooting the messenger again. Surely Seven should look at the content of their news bulletins. For example on Facebook this morning they posted that they will be doing a feature about Refugee Week on tonight’s bulletin. During summer they did two weeks of feature stories about the tenth anniversary of the Asian tsunami. That sort of thing might be OK on the ABC or SBS but it is a turnoff for commercial TV viewers.