Eddie McGuire and Livinia Nixon will co-host the new 5:30pm “magazine-style show” for Nine in Melbourne.
Nine is preparing new lead-ins to its 6pm News in Sydney and Melbourne to again tackle Seven’s Deal or No Deal.
McGuire, who is regularly reported as being on a multi-million dollar salary with Nine, is without a regular show, while Nixon, who presents the weather in the 6pm News, saw her other regular show, Temptation, air its final show yesterday.
Nine’s director of news and current affairs, John Westacott said, “I’m a great subscriber to the American experience that the best lead-in to news is news.”
Sydney hosts are yet to be announced, although Leila McKinnon’s name is expected to be attached for its local version. Brisbane will keep its Extra programme.
The Sydney 5:30 show will be crucial to address the dwindling 6pm News where the change from Mark Ferguson to Peter Overton has backfired.
Although complicated by tennis and cricket programming, ratings for Nine News in Sydney have disappointed.
A story today suggests the latest Q Scores survey – used by network executives to tell what shows and personalities are hot or not – shows Ferguson was twice as popular than Overton with Sydney audiences before his demotion from the prime news spot.
But John Westacott, who has backed the switch to Overton said, “When we give them a reason to be there, like after the cricket or a professional job all day with the Obama inauguration, we’re not being dumped or rejected, which says to me the lead-in is even more critical.”
Nine News‘ strongest market is in Melbourne where newsreader Peter Hitchener either beats Seven’s Peter Mitchell or remains locked in a city often divided. On nights when big news breaks, Nine regularly wins.
Seven’s news chief Peter Meakin is sceptical of the importance of lead-in programs to 6pm News saying, “I’m not going to understate the importance of a lead-in but when you’re producing a news service you can’t go believing it will deliver you the audience regardless of what you do on your news,” he said.
“It has something to do with the product and much as you’d like to blame the guy reading the autocue, some of the people behind the camera have to cop some of the blame.”
Source: The Australian, Daily Telegraph
It will die in the arse just like the Jim Waley/Gina Boon Sydney Extra did years ago. Perhaps I could be convinced to sample it if a promotional bingo card turned up in my mail box. Just an idea… another recycled idea from 17 years ago Nine might like to re-try. Can you smell the stench of desperation, too?
I really think a sports orientated show would do well somewhere in the 5-7pm slot.
Especially in Melbourne. Why doesn’t Eddie host a 30 minute sports show that talks about sport issues (not a sports tonight style) that are going around at the time. If could be an AFL show even.
It would be something that would suit Eddie down to the ground and it would provide a complete difference to whats in the time slots at the moment.
i know someone that has seen the pilot for this. they said it was similar in appearance to postcards, coxy’s big break, type shows. they have always been sucessful in late afternoon shifts on weekends. it will be ineresting to see how eddie scrubs in it.
whether or not the shoe works i am sure eddie is just a plain wrong decision.
I’d rather watch reruns of The Price is Right.
Thats right seven will win again over 9 this year thank god kerrys not here i bet he’s rollin in his grave
They tried Melbourne Extra years ago at 5.30 and it did squat…. can’t see this beating Deal. Besides the biggest talking point is the trouncing Nine is going to get with Seven, the tennis and Dokic!
hmmm watch a show that gives away thousands of $$$$ with a goofy host…scrubber talent and hot suitcase walking girl…Versus a show with two talking heads and some ¨newsy¨ colour stories….. 7 to WIN by 4 lengths….geez can it be that hard to look at how the opposition do it…then copy it….
Its what 7 did to win the ratings in the first place….and now they are as arrogant as 9 was…funny thing is …the winning team at 9…all work for 7 now…case closed….another ratings year win to 7 and its only Jan 26…check this post at the end of the year david !!!!
^Gerry that’s a terrible idea!! Please god please don’t let anymore of these networks cheap their way with programming by bringing back finished shows from over 10 years ago. Lazy channel 10 are getting what they deserve I must say.
Bring back Supermarket Sweep!
Looks like Eddie needs a new ivory back-scratcher. I refuse to watch this show after Temptation. I don’t like Leila McKinnon anyway (Nine’s answer to the “Sandra Sully” or “Anna Coren” voice)
Lucky it’s just in Melbourne. I’ve had enough of Eddie’s face for a lifetime. I wonder what’ll happen with Adelaide? What’s wrong with a nice entertainment show? I have a feeling this’ll turn out like Today/Sunrise for the afternoon.
@ Jerome – he’s getting $5 million per year anyway, but no-one could argue that the show would cost less than repeats of Antiques Roadshow.
I hope this show turns out to be everything ACA isn’t: intelligent, factual, interesting, newsworthy, hard-hitting, investigative, relevant, intuitive, non-cross promotional, unique… (the list is endless BTW)…
I like Eddie as a host, I hope they give this show a good 6 months to make it’s mark.
Here’s an idea for Channel nine at 7:00pm – The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. So many past viewers of the show will watch it, while people that watch Two and a Half Men, or How I met your mother, will watch it as well. Teens can relate to Will (the whole thing about being an individual, and people trying to change you), and everyone loves Will Smith anyway. It’s about time Fresh Prince was back on our screens – one of the best shows ever made, and definitely my favourite show ever.
I think that this show could be quite successful, but I don’t see the point of it being only half an hour. Usually these shows are like at least an hour. Channel Nine should start this show at 5:00. That way people that watch m.a.s.h. may switch the channel watch channel 9. This way, Deal or No Deal might lose viewers because people weren’t watching Deal Or No Deal’s lead in.
Im glad Livinia here, after her final episode of temptation.
Doubt if this will work here in Melbourne – magazine style programme Yuck !!.
Eddie is either loved or hated – no middle ground and his name of Eddie Everywhere even turned off his followers 2 years ago
As someone has said Livinia is likable (that’s it though) There is no substance in here – consigned to fluff pieces
What a surprise about Qscores – Overton does not rate, Cam Williams get lower than low scores,Richard Wilkins gets low scores, yet all get high profile gig at Nine.
How to appease viewers, put the people that the public cannnot tolerate in important slots – silly…
@benno, true but for $5million a year (without any production value or 2nd host wage) you’d hope no one would go in with that attitude
i doubt the repeats of antiques roadshow would cost that much to air. so unless this is a gross improvement on it’s ratings (highly doubted) they might be economically better off with antiques.
Deal will kick its butt!!
As a “magazine-style show,” what sort of stories will it be covering? I assume it will be more lifestyle-orientated and chatty rather than hard news or investigation. If they cover the actual news then who’d watch the news at 6:00?
It can’t do much worse than Antiques Roadshow.
every year the Q Scores are touted by newspapers as Secret and the figures that network heads didnt want ‘us’ to see, yet every year they are released!
pairing someone as likeable as lavina with arrogant eddie is sure to cause some rift in the time/space continuum
when this is axed Nine should try reinvigorate some classic gameshow with a bit more care (unlike million dollar wheel). I miss burgos catch phrase and the price is right
Nine’s still got to be annoyed at paying Eddie millions of dollars when he’ll only be anchoring a late afternoon, one-market show. When is his contract up for renewal?
Please, no more Eddie.
Perhaps they could have tried Ed Phillips in the role, no doubt he’ll be looking for work now, and he and Livinia have great on screen chemistry.
Since the news is meant to lead people to watch other entertainment later in the evening, why don’t 9 start worry about what comes after the news, ACA, because for me as soon as that comes on the channel is off. Maybe one long news hour would be better. It would be hard to do worse.
well i love my DOND so it’s good to know that this show has its death certificate signed with awful eddie.
didn’t they promise to audition new roles. that was a very respectable move on 9′s behalf, i wonder why they changed their minds. the industry needs new faces.
I think that this show sounds promissing, and apparantly there have been lots of people trying out for the Sydney show incl. Ed Phillips, Andrew Daddo and one of the guys off ACA, but i think that Mark Furgusson would be a great choice.
Nooooo!! not eddie, he is horrible. but livinia is lovely. good to see they kept their promise of auditioning newbies lol. i was looking foreward to seeing what the auditions would produce
everyone is always saying eddie is only good in a “good vehichle” of which i don’t think this will be. he needs places to wave is arms around and shout “look at me”.
my predictions: it will beat DOND for about 2 weeks out of peoples curiosity. then will never see a sucess again. the show will last about the length that temptation did but eddie will not make the first year.
DOND is pretty unstoppable there are different versions in about 80 countries and not one of them is underperforming. i doubt austrlia will be the first
“if the best lead-in to news is news, then what’s the best lead-in to the lead-in?”
That would be the 4:30 news.
if the best lead-in to news is news, then what’s the best lead-in to the lead-in?
Oh thank god I don’t live in Melbourne. Won’t be inundated with Eddie no where to every where.
I think i’ll give this the same life time as Million Dollar Wheel.
This does not really sound very appealing. Who needs an hour and a half of news/current affairs? I give it 3 days of good ratings because of the curiousity factor then a slow and steady decline a la Wheel of Fortune.
I like it! Good idea to target each state with specific hosts. I guess that’s what worked with Extra all that time ago.
It’ll be good to see Eddie back on the screen also. As much as people seem to give him a bad wrap he can host a show for sure.
I vote for Mark Ferguson to join Leila for the Sydney version! – Give viewers their daily dose of Mark, even though he mightn’t be reading the news!
is it going to air in Adelaide
Eddie failed once before and i believe he will fail again. As for Leila in Sydney i wouldnt watch it if they were giving me free stuff. Dont like her and wont tune in.
So, when does these programs start…
“On nights when big news breaks, Nine regularly wins.”
I’ve noticed that too – which suggests that casual viewers (or people with long commutes) still would watch Nine news, but Seven has more of the crowd that still watch every night – the older crowd!
Glad too hear Livina Nixon got the job she is a great talent.Nine should get Mark Ferguson for sydney edition.I think Mark and Leila would be good team.
I actually thought Mark Ferguson was the best newscaster since Brian Henderson. I cant help thinking that they let the best one go, and then addressed that seven quite simply has the better lead up programmes. If Ferguson was on seven, he would have done extremely well. I have always been a huge Nine supporter, as i know how cut throat its become at seven…. but im afraid they are making stupid decisions, rather than actually addressing the major problems. Put bigger, brighter shows on, and we will watch. I think Extra is a great alternative, but if you have talent like Ed Phillips, Bert Newton etc. on your books, get a great variety style program out there, and it would be a great alternative to watching the camp drone of Andrew O’Keefe…
Yay we get to keep Extra so not Edie here, I couldn’t be happier
OT – I missed most of the Temptation final but caught the last few minutes. The guy left with just 15k of prizes, IMO they shot 2 endings depending on events because who leaves with just a small amount?
Said it last year with 90210, and was right. I shall declare it again here and now.
Doomed.
I hope it’s more of a local news format, and less of a local lifestyle format (Brisbane’s “Extra”, which has stories on arts and crafts etc)
Any ideas what the shows will be called?
I’m guessing WIN, NBN, STW and NWS won’t take or do local versions of the show?