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Rumours return on Today Tonight

Updated: If Craig McPherson revives Today Tonight, will Seven News return to 30 minute bulletins?

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Rumours that Seven could revive Today Tonight have returned amid speculation Seven News boss Craig McPherson is planning further changes.

Last week Sunday Night producer Steve Taylor was replaced by Hamish Thomson, with News Corp now suggesting the former Foreign Correspondent producer rejected a Taylor Swift interview.

The newspaper again sparks rumours that McPherson could revive his former program Today Tonight, and trim Seven News to 30 minute bulletins, giving it a half hour jump on A Current Affair.

Seven has previously denied the rumours.

In state news battles, Seven News Sydney has recently introduced Mel McLaughlin for Sport and renowned weather presenter David Brown.

Today Tonight still operates in Adelaide and Perth.

UPDATE: Sources tell TV Tonight there are no plans to return Today Tonight to the East Coast. Claims regarding Taylor Swift story are also unknown.

15 Responses

  1. McPherson needs to forget Today Tonight and focus on Seven News Sydney which is an absolute shambles. Focus on the content for starters as for the past 4 years the bulletin has looked like a tabloid magazine. Secondly address the elephant in the room which is Mark Ferguson. McPherson is apparently buddies with Chris Bath so get on the phone and throw the cheque book at her to get her back.

  2. They could do a 40 min news bulletin then 20 mins of TT. That way the news isn’t rushed, and there is less need for filler stories on TT. Seven need to do something with that hour on the east coast, because the ratings show them getting hammered by Nine most nights

  3. Home & Away is consistently in the top 5 non-news/caf programs with 750,000+. Won’t move.
    With 7 News 6-7 and TT at 7pm who would get the nightly “supermarket wars” and Aldi “advertorials”? If not both then guess more film/tour/dvd “star” exclusive first on seven interview fillers.

  4. I don’t know Steve Taylor and I’m sure he’s a great guy but any commercial TV producer who knocks back a Taylor Swift interview should not be working in commercial TV.
    To me his initial picking for Sunday Night seemed a strange choice, coming from the ABC where things are very different to the dog eat dog world of commercial current affairs.
    The dearies on the ABC can angst and debate stories and gender issues and whatever safe from the blowtorch of ratings and it doesn’t really matter…in commercial TV decisions are made instantly and backed up with commercial nous of what will appeal to the widest possible number of viewers.
    If you don’t get that , get out.
    The calibre of people in senior ABC and SBS positions is a joke, by the way….justifying their positions by doing nothing and sucking of the public teat.

    1. Why would Seven do that? It was the highest rated drama in last week’s OzTAM survey.
      Plus it offers something different at 7pm, other than wall to wall news programs.

      1. All the multi channels have an alternative at 7pm to news.
        Plus neighbours has been on 11 for serveral years, so that’s why 7 might follow them.

        7 really like to promote their multi channels with a lot of first run series and even several Australian first run shows. It helps to justify the existence of more channels instead of a couple less channels, all MPEG4 and all HD.

        However that will never happen. 7 moved 7flix to older mp2 in much worse quality and it went well for them.

        While tech savvy and videophiles who prefer HD above all else switch to 9 for news and both 9/10 for entertainment (both run Dolby Digital 5.1 sound which is great for movies), what’s become obvious is the wider community doesn’t care about that stuff and the 7 continues to be the highest rating FTA.

        Anyway I went off on a bit of a rant there, sorry about that.

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