As many of you would already be aware, WIN News’ Canberra newsreader Peter Leonard is retiring at the end of tonight’s news following 16 years with the station. WIN television are putting on a special news bulletin to farewell Peter, the basic format will be the same except the news after the first ad break will be replaced by the sport, and the usual sport slot will be replaced by the weather, and the normal weather slot will be replaced by a tribute to Peter.
Jessica Good will be taking over as the primary newsreader next week, however no weather presenter has been appointed. It is expected that Jessica will read the weather from the news desk.
That reminds me, I need to pass on a message to Peter from his former 2CA colleague, John Kerr.
ABC Canberra’s television weather presenter John Ringwood is also having his last bulletin tonight. Rumour has it that 2CN’s (666 ABC Canberra for those of you not familiar with the callsign) garden expert will take over as the weather presenter. That might sound odd, but considering that last night they presented a five minute editorial from federal political editor Jim Middleton as news, no change in that place would surprise me.
I met John Ringwood once outside the ABC studios in Dickson and we had a rather lengthy chat. He seems like a gentleman, and I wish him all the best for the future. (Apparently that will involve some parliamentary reporting…maybe he could replace Jim Middleton).
Incidentally, I’ve been informed that prior to moving to WIN Television, Peter Leonard was the weather presenter for the ABC…which makes tonight’s events even more interesting.
Also of interest, it’s 2GB news director Ian Ferguson’s last day with 2GB. He is moving to a senior role with Sky News. 2GB current affairs director Jason Morrison will take over as news director until a replacement for Mr. Ferguson is found.
Later today I will publish the letter I have written to Peter Leonard…I intend on delivering it to WIN’s studios in Griffith Kingston (why do I always get those two suburbs confused?) this afternoon.
Samuel
Comments Disabled To "Farewell to Peter Leonard and John Ringwood"
#1 Comment By Tony On July 20, 2007 @ 10:38 am
I know if Seven up here in Brisbane ever give Kay McGrath the flick I’ll never be watching tv news again.
Seven news only rates high because people grew up and trust Kay to give them their daily news.
She is a well respected and trusted news reader.
#2 Comment By Samuel On July 20, 2007 @ 11:15 am
It’s rather interesting that you mention the trust factor Tony. Seven in Sydney hired former Nine newsreader Ian Ross for that reason…he was well respected at Nine, and brought that with him to Seven. I’m not going to credit Mr. Ross for all of Seven’s recent success in Sydney, but there is no doubt that he has contributed to it largely.
Jessica Good has filling in for Peter Leonard quite extensively this year, which has helped to build her trustworthiness, and was probably a planned move. Changing from one trusted newsreader to anyone else is always a risk, but in this case I think the transition has been quite clever…the fact that Ms. Good is also a journalist and not just the “weather girl” is another thing in her favour.
In many ways I am glad that Tony Lynas is no longer with WIN, if he was still with the station he would be Peter’s replacement, and I would have to say that he never struck me as a trustworthy newsreader. Very good at reading it, but just didn’t seem to fit the role in my view.
#3 Comment By Samuel On July 20, 2007 @ 6:40 pm
WIN must have had a bit too much news to squeeze in to the bulletin, as the bulletin took the format of:
News
Ad break
News
Ad break
Sport
Weather
Ad break (which included a “this weather report brought to you by” promo at the end of it)
Tribute to Peter Leonard.
It was mildly amusing seeing the camera zoom out and the background stay the same (due to the green screen). Unfortunately the last few words of WIN Television’s message to Peter got cut off by the start of Nine News at 6:30, however it didn’t detract from a wonderful tribute.
#4 Comment By tuggers On July 20, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
When I was a kid Peter Leonard was an announcer on ABC 2CN (now 666) and I think sometimes he read the 5 minute Canberra news before the National news at 7:00. In 1987 when Win TV& Prime came to Canberra, there were serious news wars between the networks. A Peter Russell had moved from Capital Television to Win to read their local news but he didn’t last long. Peter Leonard took over from him.
#5 Comment By davky On July 23, 2007 @ 6:17 am
I thought it was a lovely tribute to Pete. It made me very emotional when I saw it. I think I was more emotional than the great man himself!!