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Siddown you’re rockin’ the box…

David Leckie reportedly wants news presenters seated not standing. Is he right?

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2014-06-05_1139Following on from recent revelations that David Leckie had been brought in to overhaul Seven News, comes further insights into the moves.

An email from CEO Tim Worner to staff was leaked to Confidential which plays with a straight bat.

“David Leckie has a consultancy agreement with us. He has consulted for us for the past couple of years and we’re pleased that he’ll be continuing this consultancy,” Worner noted.

“He is working across our company and I welcome and endorse his role reporting to me on ideas to ­contribute to the ongoing growth of our business.”

But the article also suggests Leckie insisted Sydney’s Mark Ferguson remain seated at the newsdesk after presentations standing up resulted in his moving arms being a ‘potential distraction’ to viewers.

The notion of stand-up news presenters was much-discussed some years ago.

Here’s a bit of banter from rival news directors in 2008: after Jo Hall stood during a live link following an earlier trial:

“Because of the overwhelmingly positive feedback, we decided to take it one step further,” Nine’s Director of News in Melbourne Michael Venus said.

“We had a significant ratings win, with more than 500,000 viewers watching us on Sunday night,” he said. “Having also won on the Saturday night, everyone seemed happy with the result and we certainly were. We hope our audience enjoyed what we offered them.”

But his rival, Seven Network News Director Steve Carey, unsurprisingly was quick to dismiss the idea, saying Seven had no plans to follow suit. “It looks uncomfortable and contrived,” he said. “It’s hardly novel or new, despite what Michael Venus might say. It’s old news as far as I am concerned.

“We don’t worry about set-led recoveries. We worry about giving people the best news service,” he said.

29 Responses

  1. If all they told was the real news the program would only run for three minutes. I’m in Sydney, why do I have to watch whats happening in Broome? I’m assuming the function of the newsreader is to fill in the bits where they dont have video. They could have them as voiceover and just run the promo vision of the block, house rules etc.

  2. The News used to be the flagship of every network. It’s a shame these days that people fresh out of university who are cheap labour put to air most news bulletins.
    Gone are the days when experienced crews were the norm on the nightly news. A time when the crew assigned to put it to air actually took pride in how it looked and felt on air.
    Now it’s a case of shove it to air and hope for the best.
    In this current environment news readers should definitely stay anchored at the desk. It looks ridiculous and uncomfortable when they stand up. Viewers just want the news, not what the newsreader had for breakfast…

  3. I prefer behind a desk and no showing the legs. It can be distracting and as others have said awkward looking. One of the exceptions is weather presenters. They can be standing.

  4. Hear, hear. Newsreaders sitting, don’t show us their legs (I like to think that they’re wearing Bermuda shorts), and no pointless live crosses to dull places where something occurred two hours ago or might happen in another two.

    I just want the news – no fluff, no filler, no cross-promos. Thank the TV gods for SBS World News.

  5. I prefer my newsreader seated too. If Leckie was serious though he would pull Mark Ferguson asap. Nothing against the guy from what i can tell he is a great person but he isn’t the newsreader Sydney needs and viewers are telling them that. We need change and good change. It won’t happen overnight and i don’t want them to rush it as we will end up with something like that horrible music we got earlier in the year but they need to have an action plan and try and make it good again.

    What Seven News in Sydney and Melbourne in particular is a complete refresh, presenter, set, graphics and all. Melbourne isn’t working neither is Sydney and they need to make the news credible again. They also need to make the newsroom the same country wide. Right now we have 4 sets in 5 states.

  8. Whole we’re at it can they all stop saying “did not resonate with viewers” or “failed to find an audience”.

    Just admit it was a turkey and nobody liked it.

  9. In the Sydney market Leckie has a presenter who doesn’t resonate with the audience, plummeting ratings, terrible content and an hour bulletin filled with 20 mins of Today Tonight style stories. Whether the presenter is sitting or standing is the least of his problems.

  12. I don’t care, sit, stand, just read the news. I am not interested in everyones name!…. a live cross is stupid, especially in winter its dark…….they could be reporting from outside the studio?

  14. I agree…sitting….I also dislike what they are doing in recent times at the ABC….midday news…long shots of the newsreaders legs…why?….I just want the news….all that moving around and weird camera shots…distracting in the extreme…..
    I enjoy the way Ros Childs does the news….but please…just at a desk….my preference for all news readers…

  15. Agree with standing up, it looks so stilted, and agree re silly live crosses about nothing. Note the reporter (invariably female) is always impeccably groomed, not a hair out of place and wearing mountains of make-up.

    I’m also annoyed that all female reporters/newsreaders have to look this way, yet (in Melbourne) we’re nightly confronted with a stack of unattractive, ageing men, who’ve been there forever, and who supposedly give the news gravitas. What happens to all these young women? Maybe if they’re lucky, they’ll graduate to ‘weather girl’ or even reading daytime news.

    Pfft

  16. It looks good and works well when the set and bulletin are designed for it. It doesn’t work when you just get the presenter to stand up and leave everything else the same.

    It also takes some skill on the part of the newsreader. Melissa Doyle does it fairly well (probably thanks to years of doing Sunrise), but others are just awkward because they don’t know how to adapt to the change. Mark Ferguson especially does very strange things with his hands, which are then accentuated by the big bits of paper they always seem to be holding.

  17. @Mr Rampage
    Absolutely agree. The government announced a light rail service through Surry Hills, we cross live now to our reporter who standing in a Surry Hills street. Why? Just run the bloody story. Why do we have to have a live cross at that time? The tram won’t be arriving for about a decade. You’ve got a long wait. 😛

  19. Unless they want body language to be part of the presentation, it shouldn’t be brought into shot.

    And while we’re reforming silly news trends, can we get rid of the desire to have people reporting live from places where there is absolutely no value to having a live report?

  20. I haven’t seen 7 News and Mark’s arms, but i have noticed the ABC in at least Brisbane and Sydney trialing different introductions to their main bulletins. They can’t seem to set a style, with Jeremy and Juanita in Sydney inconsistently standing, sitting, taking a couple of steps, opening to meaningless wide shots….Wish they would settle. Stand, sit, i don’t care just make a decision!

  21. News should be about ‘the news’.
    Personally l don’t like presenters standing and holding clipboards or notes. Just looks tacky.
    Never saw Brian Henderson reading news standing up.

  23. David Leckie is so right, have a look at how uncomfortable Barrie Cassidy looks on Insiders and you will see what I mean.

    Thank goodness for some “Old School” commonsense now if it could just stretch to no more tilted camera shots…..it would be a great win.

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