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Tim Watson coy on Seven News future

“I haven’t been told I can talk about that,” says Seven News Melbourne sports presenter Tim Watson.

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Chatter has been rife that Seven News Melbourne sports presenter Tim Watson (pictured left) is soon to be departing.

“I haven’t been told I can talk about that,” said Tim Watson this morning on SEN 1116.

Mediaweek reports Watson was responding to a comment from his SEN breakfast co-host Garry Lyon.

It follows The Australian recently reporting Watson is ready to call it a day and hand over his gig to someone else, after 13 years at the desk.

Rebecca Maddern is one name tipped to succeed him, but with dual hosts the current flavour of the month, who knows what is in store from Sydney bosses….

On SEN Watson indicated he would report on his future when given the OK by his Seven bosses. Good to know.

6 Responses

  1. ABC Melbourne had no news presenter
    C9 weekend goes for an hour only one newsreader there has always been a sports and weather presenters when 7 & 9 were half hour
    Seems it’s just a case of keeping them on the network , give them a co news reading gig
    But I will never understand a seperate sports and weather presenter
    But must admit since Covid began our consumption of nightly or any news has dropped off dramatically,

  2. Watto has been at HSV for 3 decades, commencing while still a champion player in the AFL for Essendon in a famous era, left and came back… Long time weekends with Jennifer Keyte and Rob Gell in the 2000s in an eventual top raring team, then replaced the great Sandy Roberts from 2014 on weeknights. It’ll be an end of an era if he leaves, let alone the network (Seven Sport 7AFL – where he has also been for decades including that sweet sweet Saturday prime time Footy Replay gaffe in late 90s which is on YouTube and replayed on Talking Footy – also his heritage program – a lot where he threw to an ad break and forgot the coaches name who was sitting right next to him LOL!) Hope he gets a nice farewell package and all-in round of applause on his final bulletin. He spoke kindly of his sports desk newsroom mate the late Nathan Templeton on-air earlier this year too, a tough 2024.

  3. The ABC have one newsreader who does the news, sports and weather, why 9 & 7 have two newsreaders , sports presenter and weather person 🤷‍♀️🤷🏻‍♂️
    The weather presenters in particular with so many accurate Apps around are an enigma
    Tim has reduced his work load over the years no longer doing the footy so assume he wants to cut back mon-fri sports presenting
    As he stops working at SEN after the GF and returns In February he clearly is winding down enjoying his days at his beach property

    2. Well for a start the commercial bulletins go for an hour whereas ABC is 30 mins. I believe ABC Melbourne still has a weather presenter – but when they go on leave the main reader does it.

      1. Don’t know about other states and territories, but ABC News NSW even went as far as acquiring a new meteorologist to present the weather when their previous one left a few years ago. While commercial TV does have some qualified meteorologists in their ranks, in many cases they’re happy enough to merely use promoted news reporters as weather presenters.

        As for Sport, well its coverage on the various ABC News’ at 7pm is fairly brief even for a 30 minute bulletin. In addition to the fact ABC Television isn’t exactly renowned for being a major sport platform these days, it’s probably not worth the trouble of having separate presenters for the sake of 2-3 minutes of content (especially as ABC News bulletins don’t do presenter banter, etc.) when their limited money/resources can be better spent elsewhere.

        By contrast there’s a decades-long history of the sports presenters on commercial network news bulletins (particularly in Sydney & Melbourne) also being used for general sports coverage.

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