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Change comes to Nine News

60 Minutes' Peter Overton becomes anchor of Nine's Sydney News after Mark Ferguson has struggled to topple ratings over Seven News.

Peter Overton will read Nine News Sydney from Monday.

Earlier today The Daily Telegraph reported that Overton would take over the role for three weeks.

Mark Ferguson, who has had the role since 2004, has worked in the non-ratings period while Seven’s Ian Ross has been off-air in a bid to win back lost audiences. Although Nine did have a weekly win over Seven in Sydney, it was doubtless aided by a lead in from the cricket.

60 Minutes‘ Overton, who has also been a fill-in presenter, was to have been “tested” in the main job from Monday. But according to MediaSpy, on air promotions on TCN today indicate he will now replace Ferguson permanently.

Nine’s boss David Gyngell has previously publicly backed Ferguson, but made no secret of the need for better performances from the news team if the station is to have any chance of catching Seven this year. Last year news boss John Westacott was believed to be a big fan of Overton taking over the presenter role.

Seven News has been dominating Nine for too long nationally, in most cities except for a closer tussle in Melbourne.

Nine is also believed to be making changes to its 5:30pm lead-in. From Monday January 19 it airs New Zealand factual show The Zoo but is expected to launch a new “magazine style show” with local hosts in Melbourne and Sydney. In Brisbane Extra remains strong for Nine.

Nine has recently been pushing a line for viewers to “change back” to the network. It would appear change has already begun.

Source: Daily Telegraph, MediaSpy

21 Responses

  1. Could they please build hot new set in Sydney now.

    TCN does 3.5 hours a week of local news and Nine 7.5 hours of news a week that as more than enough to justify a god set

  2. Sorry just not a fan of ABC or SBS news. That’s not to say im not into knowing what’s happening around the world, but ABC and SBS just have this boring vibe to them. No im not saying news needs to be entertaining, but it should be a bit viewer friendly.

    My favourite news would be channel 10 with their first at 5 and the 11am edition.

    Also, i do hate those “If it happens, it’s on 7” and the channel 9 equivilant news ads. There is nothing worse than turning it into a pure entertainment show, which is what those ads project.

  3. I’m with Dan – I’ll be turning off nine news and I most certainly won’t be moving to seven! I like Mark Ferguson – he was a huge improvement on Jim Waley and most people forget he was Jim’s summer replacement who got the gig permanently because he and the team at nine did such a great job reporting on the Boxing Day Tsunami. Shame it’s been all downhill since then. They have succeeded in sacking every decent, experience jouro they had and I knew when nine news in Melbourne hired Quizmania hostess Amy Parks to do serious reporting that things were not getting better. RIP Nine News!

  4. I’m not a fan of Peter Overton at all, but I really liked Mark Ferguson, oh well, what do I know. Wish Channel nine could see my channel being switched over!

  5. Overton is a horrible reader. He will not save Nine. I rate Usher as the best, most natural reader to come along since Chris Bath. Both have a warmth and natural style to their presentation that few others can claim to have. Ron Wilson and Ian Ross have “it”, also. The likes of Ferguson, Overton, Bill Woods and Jim Waley all have a forced, overly rehearsed, sing-song tone to their delivery.

  6. I think Peter Overton will do a good job. As long as Mark Fergusson stays on Weekend news i will be happy. And i agree with everyone that is saying that Micheal Usher needs a bigger profile, hes one of the best talents on TV.

  7. I remember seeing a cover article in The Guide about a decade ago (quite literally) about Overton, saying that he was being groomed for the Nine News Sydney role. With the post-Hendo era giving us Waley and then Ferguson, but no Overton, I thought that it had just been the speculation-dressed-up-as-fact that the SMH is known for, but as it turns out they just published the story several years too early.

    Incidentally, ‘change back to Nine’ seems to have gone already, replaced with the less desperate-sounding ‘change to Nine’.

  8. o, i agree zambora, grant hackett is horrible, so painful to watch with his rehearsed head movements etc. its so sad how australian swimmers with no talent outside the pool can bump people that have worked hard to be where they are that are actually are good at what they do.

    this could be dangerous, the first thing i thought of when i read this was the jennifer keyte incident. 9 could start losing what little audience they have. the situation here is; people only chose a low-rate news station if they have a connection to a particular setting. once parts are removed the connection is lost and people see not reason not to go to the higher rate news.

    i’d say its going to be another tough year for 9 in the newsroom. DOND is only getting stronger and in the 80 different versions around the world not one is underperfoming, i doubt australia will be the first.

  9. Could be worse for Nine in Sydney, they could have Grant Hackett doing sport up there.Embarassingly in Melbourne he got gig ahead of established talent like Christine Ahern.
    Nine’s normal weekend news is a big turnoff.They tend to forget we are Melbourne and Melbourne loves all sport.

  10. I would have preferred Musher to take the helm as well but as the story implies, Overton is backed by Westacott so there you go; you always need somebody to watch your back and push you up the ladder.

  11. I think they should move Michael Usher to the 6pm position. He’s a great newsreader. Either that or shove Karl from Today and put him there. In short, Musher needs to be given a higher profile!

  12. the “change back” is a step in the right direction, but it comes at the cost of displaying the fact that no one watched their news in the past. completely unconventional for 9, they would usually give a bizarre spin that makes it look like they won. 7’s “make the switch” obviously worked a few years back.

    whats worse for them, after one day without the cricket the ratings are back down to their usual numbers. the cricket hasn’t given any momentum at all. it will probably made worse after the tennis.

    i’ve said this many times; although it may seem that the lead in is all important, remember there were 27 years that 7 won the 5:30 for with wheel and early DOND but never won the news, not even with a footy lead in. so over the past few years something has happened to 7 news that grabbed viewers, not just laziness to change channel.

  13. doesnt matter who is face of news in sydney,if viewers dont like channel nine they not going too watch,hope nine keeps mark and finds new role for him.he would be good co-host of sunday today instead of that no talent cameron williams

  14. this brings back memories of 10 years ago when seven news melbourne was getting really bad, so they dropped jennifer keyte and then the ratings dropped to an all time low, and then they needed to embarrassingly ask her back.

    i doubt a new presenter will make a difference but if the new 5:30 show works out they might be on a winner. i also think that the accepting defeat image with “change back” might work too.

    i have absolutely no sympathy for 9 news losing badly this year, they have had ages to come up with a new lead in and they didn’t do anything. when wheel failed they should have gone to a G-rated comedy or something, and if that didn’t work go to temptation. antiques has been tested for over a year and it hasn’t worked and nothing is changing.

  15. What does “better performances from the news team” mean? Surely what matters is the fundamentals behind the content, not the presenting. They’re just reading an autocue, for pete’s sake.

    Who writes the copy? Who chooses which reporter does what? Who decides what kind of news items are covered, and what order they are shown each day? That’s the stuff that makes the difference.

    Oh, and a weather presenter who speaks in comprehensible sentences at a realistic rate of speed.

  16. I don’t think Mark Ferguson deserved this – I doubt he was the problem with Nine News. I hope they move Mark to weekends and Michael Usher to 60 Minutes.

  17. Seven News in Sydney is tediously local. Nine is marginally better, but if you really want to know what’s going on in the world you really have to watch SBS and/or ABC news. I wish ABC had a 6pm bulletin. They should do one on ABC2: that’d give both Seven and Nine a run for their money.

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