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ABC dumps Perth weatherman

ABC TV weatherman Russell Woolf will no longer present his segment in Perth, with the weather now to be read by a news presenter.

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ABC TV weatherman Russell Woolf presented his last weather report in Perth last night, having been in the role since 2006.

Woolf was told yesterday that the weather would now be read by the nightly news presenter, Karina Carvalho, due to cost cuts.

“Obviously I am disappointed,” he told The West Australian. “The thing is the decision was approached honestly and up front, but I will miss the job.”

Director of News Kim Jordan said, “We’re doing some belt-tightening across the news divisions of the ABC and there are some targets that have to be met.

“There will be no less weather in the bulletin, but it will be presented from the news desk.”

Woolf will continue with his afternoon radio program on 720 Perth.

16 Responses

  1. @Phoenix727 – sorry if my comments were ambiguous. I wasn’t necessarily proposing that they get rid of News24 as I don’t have a firm opinion either way. I agree that it’s great when there is some major event occurring like those you mentioned, but otherwise it’s often just recycling the same headlines interspersed with repeats of current affairs programs and some unique content. However, I do think that it’s a waste of HD bandwidth.

    @Stan – I don’t think you’ll find comments from me blaming News24 for everything that ails the ABC. I still maintain that, while any channel or program will always have its supporters, it’s hard to justify something that consistently rates 0.6 – 0.7%. I prefer my taxes to be spent on things that benefit the community more widely. You are entitled to hold a differing opinion

  2. Shame for RW. I listen to him on the wireless in most afternoons and he presents a witty, informative and enteraining program. I always though he looked very nervous on the TV, it was worth watching just to see how he would do. The first broadcast was a classic withe the ‘Peachy’ comment!

  4. The weather presenters, honestly don’t add any value when watching the news. All they are doing is reading off an autocue, you don’t necessarily have to have any knowledge on the weather. It is the same with the commercial networks in Perth with the weather girls.I remember when Jeff Newman retired and the big song and dance about his possible replacement on 7. You have to ask yourself, what do they actually do for their pay packet apart from reading the weather autocue and visiting schools once a week for junior weather watchers? The best way to present the weather is the weekend version by the main newsreader with a 5 day forecast. It is still in depth enough with weather stuff for the viewer!

    If the ABC was fair dinkum about their money than screaming out about having never enough funds, they should get rid of 2 ABC kid channels. That was a pretty dumb decision with taxpayers funds!

  5. I will stick up for Russell, I don’t think he was dull and lifeless at all, to the contrary. Anyway, these things do happen, but as others have said, either he was being paid an inordinate amount for an hour or so (it’s more than just the 5 minutes on air) of reading on air, or there’s something seriously wrong that the ABC needs to save a few hundred dollars a week. A sad sign of the times, I think.

  6. Given that the ABC is taxpayer funded, I am glad they are looking to eliminate unnecessary expenditure whilst providing world class services.
    News24 is doing many people who can’t or choose not to pay for television (and an enormous amount of ads) a great service.
    I think of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, rolling coverage of events in Libya as the UN voted on the no fly zone or comprehensive and intelligent analysis of the recent east coast floods and cyclone Yasi.
    The ABC news is providing a uniquely Australian service to everyone who can afford a television and electricity and it is good for us as a country to have alternative to sky news or the shallow analysis provided by most of news and current affairs programs on the FTA’s.

  9. People like Secret Squïrrel keep blaming News24 for everything that happens at ABC from program cancellations (which occurs at every network) to sexaul harassment cases. Yet, that’s only because News24 is the most obvious shiny new thing that people can point at. The fact is almost none of us know how money is spent at ABC so we should stop pretending that we know what we’re bleating about & let them get on with running a (still) fantastic organisation. Posters on TV Tonight having a go at News24 is getting really old!

    Out of other comparable public broadcasters around the world, like BBC, CBC, RTÉ, NHK & TVNZ, why should ABC be the only one without a television news channel? If anything, ABC was ten years too late to the news channel scene.

    As for this story, it seems clear that every state-based ABC News will get rid of their local weather presenters in the future, so why not do what they do with Alan Kohler’s finance segment & just present every weather report from Melbourne or Sydney. It seems to work for that ‘waste of taxpayer’s money,’ ABC News24!

  10. Well, if he is already doing an afternoon 3pm to 6pm radio program in the same building, how is this a cost cutting exercise? You can’t tell me the total amount of work in the building exceeded an 8 hour shift? Surely he was not double dipping was he?

  11. @Secret Squirrell: I disagree about News 24, I think the 24 hour FTA News Channel has proven its worth multiple times recently, particularly with the Japan Earthquake, coverage of the Debt Crisis and Libya not to mention all of the political coverage.

    I won’t argue about three channels broadcasting kids programming. Enough ABC, put something else on at that time of day on ABC2 at least. I also think ABC 3 is missing a beat with its kids programming into the evening, why not broadcast some Anime from 8 to 10pm make use of that time for teenagers.

    I’m sorry this guy lost his job but I think this is more a problem of how money is being handled within the ABC. If the National Broadcaster is leaking money so badly that it needs to let go of a guy who works 5 minutes a night. Someone needs to hire an outside accountancy firm to go over the books.

  12. Seriously, how much money is this actually going to save? I know that that ABC has a charter to broadcast certain types of programming (supposedly) irrespective of ratings but ABC3 and ABC24 are consistently the two lowest rating channels.

    I’m aware that ABC24 was funded from savings but those savings could have been spent elsewhere to greater effect. Having a 24 hour news channel broadcasting studio shots in glorious HD with actual news footage in SD or worse is a waste of bandwidth.

    And do we really need kids’ shows at the same time in the mid-afternoon on ABC1, 2, and 3?

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