Former Olympian Grant Hackett has been dropped as weekend sports presenter on Nine News Melbourne.
TV Tonight understands the swimming champ was given the bad news on Friday by GTV9 boss Jeffrey Browne. Hackett has been with the network since signing in September 2008, after being pursued by Channel Seven.
He has been in the role on weekends, occasionally alternating with Darwin-bred Lisa Andrews, as well as taking over in weeknights in summer in place of Tony Jones.
Hackett was also recently announced as part of Nine’s Winter Olympics presentation team, to present “colour pieces” on the Games and Vancouver. This week he appears as a presenter in What’s Good For You This Summer and has also appeared intermittently in 20 to 1.
Melbourne’s Nine News presenting team will soon switch to its summer team headed up by Jo Hall.
Update: The Herald Sun now reports Hackett will remain with the network on other programmes.
Iwould like to know where Vossie has gone from the Today Show. Surely 9 hasn’t dumped him too.
About time, now i am not forced to change channel for the sports report
l totally agree with your comments Craig well said,when Grant was hired sports reporter Christine Ahern was over looked for the job,she was not happy according too gossip she ended up leaving the newsroom after a few months.She is now Today shows melbourne reporter.
Why use a Queenslander for Melbourne sport anyway?
I don’t know why Ten use that dreadful Brad bloke who is a Victorian for their Sydney sport.
did some say overton?…..send overton with hacket to read the news in mt isa then we wouldnt have to see either of them…(im from sydney so never have seen hackett)…but surely he can be a creepy as ovelteen?????
He is possibly the worst newsreader I have ever seen. How did he last almost a year? (I know the answer is percieved celebrity) Seriously, networks, it’s not the ’80s anymore. If athletes don’t have any presenting talent, please don’t sign them.
I hope Nine also dumps Slater from Weekend Today.
Good… he was a terrible presenter.
i wonder if overton is worried? i don’t live in sydney, but he sure does get a lot of negative comments on this site i don’t think i’ve heard any positive about him.
i know that melb and syd are run by a total different bunch, but surely if melb dumps someone because no one liked him there, and looks like this decision has public support, sydney would have the decision in their cards.
Nine, I hope you’re paying attention, and also checking the ratio of comments for and against Hackett.
Shouldn’t haven taken you anywhere near this long to get rid of him.
now let’s talk about Richard Wilkins….
Maybe he should have just done Dancing with the Stars…
Good decision, he just looked goofy as a newsreader.
I like Grant Hackett but my lord, hes a bloody awful presenter, glad to see that common sense has prevailed. I always think its a shame when high profile sports people get these roles just for being high profile sports people, theres a number of sports journos that would have worked their guts out for years who have the credentials and would love the opportunity but got overlooked for Grant.
Good! Sack him, he was absolutely pathetic at his job. I immediately changed the channel when his creeppy, unwelcome presence in my lounge at dinner time would occur. I can’t stand swimmers who go into the media. Can’t stand ‘em. I also cringe when I see my state government, Victoria, has paid this guy taxpayer’s money to front a pro exercise and eating healthy ad…. ‘go for your life’ it is called. Who does he think he is telling me how to live? If I wanted to be a boring, vanilla, no personality ‘fit guy swimmer’… I would have done the unimaginative thing at let my parents decide the course and outcome of my life since I was five years old by putting me in the pool…. I think he’s got to be the lamest mistake channel nine has made in some time. Let’s hope to a higher power he doesn’t end up on channel seven in a more prominent role. Sorry Grant, you’re a Hack.
Great comment Kyall.
Shame though as Mr Wobbly Head never improved and many TV watchers saw all his faults early on.
Hackett was more well known in Melbourne for getting his photo in the paper at”events” than anything else.
It will still take a lot for me to watch Nine on weekends though – they need the right professional people.
I agree with one of the comments below about Tim Watson at Seven, he needs to go as well. He ruins the news and sevens football shows. Maybe he is the reason seven cannot make a high budget prime-time afl football show to challenge nine.
Hooray! The only time he should be on the TV is if he is in the pool. I am sick of swimmers switching to media careers. Thank goodness Nine had the brains to get rid of him (from the news).
Good! Couldn’t stand him, big mistake giving him the job in the first place- never watched the nine weekend news because of him,
Haha! Kyall’s comment below.
Oh my, can’t believe he was giving the job in the first place, when i’ve seen him on telly he’s been terrible. Nine need lessons in picking their sports presenters, we have Troy Gray here in Adelaide (he owns men’s hair salons) and he is woeful.
Terrible move in the first place – did they not even test him out beforehand?
Might as well have had Scott Cam reading the news, or worse, Carrie Bickmore oO
It looks like he will be back to selling the ‘Grant Hacket Juicemaster 400′.
Thank goodness,it was like watching a rabbit in the headlights.As bad as he is he’s still better than Tim Watson on Seven.
Ah, sports people.
not surprising – no idea why he got the job in the 1st place! any word who his replacement is?
every time we saw him on the news someone in the room made a comment on his autocue reading inabilites. great guy and i hope they can find a new use for him, but 9 news is better off without him.
I bet he wishes he’d taken 7′s offer now. He should have known that Nine loves the word ‘axed’
About time… This guy is terrible on the news!
He was given a fair go but didn’t improve. Very very boring presenter. I almost nodded off thinking about it.
fair enough, they tried him, but he was creepy and hard to watch
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