By Annette Sharp

Copyright news

Carmichael was dropped from the network’s TV roster last week after 23 years at the network.

Early reports suggested the presenter, who held the dual role as Seven’s Sydney sports editor, had been unfairly made redundant.

Insiders refuted those claims this week revealing network bosses instead simply made the decision not to renew the sports reporter’s contract and axed him without a financial payout.

Carmichael, who survived Seven’s extraordinary and messy 2024 newsroom bloodletting, is yet to comment on his departure.

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He did not respond to this column’s attempts to reach him on Thursday.

A Seven spokeswoman also refused to comment on claims Carmichael had encountered issues – over a period of years – managing staff at Seven.

Sources claim Carmichael’s juniors had difficulties on occasion with his management style.

A number are said to have pulled the pin on careers at Seven prematurely and moved on as a result.

Seven news director Ray Kuka announced Carmichael’s departure in a staff statement which said: “Matt will now be taking a well-deserved extended break. Matt leaves as a script craftsman. Matt has worked at Seven for two decades but, sadly, that will come to an end next month, fittingly after Bathurst 1000.

“We wish Matt all the best and look forward to celebrating his final weeks.”

Carmichael was once close to a number of high profile colleagues in the Seven newsroom.

Sydney sports reader Mel McLaughlin was at one time a good friend, of late however the relationship between Seven’s star sports presenter and outgoing sports editor is under a cloud.

This may be due in part to Seven news boss Kuka outlining plans to hire a cast of new reporters with a greater focus on breaking sports stories, something Seven hasn’t done for a while.

It was lost on no one in the room at a Seven “Presenter’s Dinner” at industry hotspot Verde in Sydney earlier this month that McLaughlin and Carmichael sat apart.

Among those spied tucking into Antonio Ruggerino’s traditional southern Italian fare were Sydney newsreaders Mark Ferguson, Angela Cox, Michael Usher, Angie Asimus and Sally Bowrey.

Producers and reporters apparently weren’t invited.

Just what was being celebrated is hard to determine given rival Nine claimed the 2025 Sydney prime time news ratings back in July.

Perhaps it was the retro afternoon game show line-up Seven kicked off last week to revive the flagging ratings of its once unbeatable news lead-in, The Chase, hosted by Larry Emdur.

Seven has hopefully dubbed the line-up Winning Arvo – though Larry’s Parachute might have worked just as well.

Seven has previously knocked on the head claims, reported here, that it is in the hunt for a new game show to replace The Chase.

Weekend Today candidates outed 

Clint Stanaway’s hosting gig on Weekend Today is up for grabs and three Nine veterans have emerged as the top candidates for the job.

Today weather presenter Tim Davies is well-liked to succeed Stanaway who walks away from the role, and Nine, at the end of the year to focus on his Melbourne-based Nova radio show.

Though bright, winning and handsome, Davies isn’t seen by network executives as a future replacement for Nine’s Monday-to-Friday breakfast mainstay Karl Stefanovic.

Someone who news execs think might be is Nine’s chief political editor Charles Croucher.

Croucher has been impressing his bosses for some time and they are said to be eager to explore his range in longer and looser programming formats.

Also well liked is the impeccable Reece D’Alessandro.

The Brisbane political reporter is said to have a bright future at the network.

Whoever wins the role will be paired with co-anchor Alison Piotrowski who joined the program at the start of 2025 after returning from an overseas posting.

Nine boss’s tenure drew critics

The drums were beating for Nine Entertainment Chair Catherine West within hours of West replacing former Nine chair Peter Costello in June 2024.

From inside the Nine camp came early claims West, who resigned her post on Thursday and will step down in November, struggled with the distinction between her role as Chair with that of the hands-on operational role of Nine CEO, a position held by Mike Sneesby and Matt Stanton during her 18-month tenure.

West’s relationship with both CEOs is said to have been complicated by her eagerness, after a decade on the board, to roll up her sleeves and get involved in the business – a criticism also levelled at ABC chair Kim Williams during the past year.

West’s relationship with former Nine Chair Costello meanwhile, once said to have been good, would be tested.

His parting statement was interpreted by many as evidence West didn’t have the ex-Chair’s support for the top job long term.

“ … Going forward I think they will need a new Chair to unite (the board) around a fresh vision and someone with the energy to lead to that vision for the next decade,” Costello said the day West was handed his job, albeit initially in an acting capacity.

A number of West’s former colleagues yesterday described the former lawyer as a chronic “meddler”.

After joining the Nine board in 2016, West was appointed to Nine’s People and Culture Committee and later became Chair of Nine’s People and Remuneration Committee.

In these roles she would not only have oversight of the company’s human resources department – and therefore any serious complaints concerning workplace culture that might be tabled internally- she would also have oversight of the remuneration packages given to executives.

Notably this included the $2 million bonus allocated to outgoing CEO Hugh Marks two days before he resigned in 2020 following his scandalous love affair with a subordinate.

As a consequence some believed West should have been in the crosshairs when Nine launched its sensational and ultimately damning culture review in May 2025.

Instead, after being appointed acting Chair two weeks later, West would ride the wave of trepidation concerning the expensive Intersection review all the way to Chair permanency.

Only afterwards would she weather the criticism that followed when the review found Nine guilty of systemic bullying, harassment, discrimination and abuse of power.

She would say the company was riddled with a “lack of leadership accountability; power imbalances; gender inequality … a lack of diversity, and; a significant lack of trust in the organisation and leadership at all levels of the business.”

Talk about an own goal.

West’s critics maintain that despite the findings, a year on Nine is yet to come up with a measurable or executable plan to address the findings.

They also point to the stark fact almost all of the incumbent department executives have kept their jobs.

Along with the challenges she faced in her role, West also enjoyed the some perks.

When half of Nine’s on-air stars headed to the Paris Olympics last year, so too did West (at her own expense we’re assured).

She was also frequently front and centre at the Australian Open Tennis where she memorably once flexed by requesting ice-cream be delivered to her courtside seat.

How sweet it was.

Silence from PT on ABC gig

It’s been a terrific week for Nine’s new Chair Peter “PT” Tonagh.

Five years after this columnist touted Tonagh as the most qualified candidate to replace Hugh Marks as Nine’s CEO, Tonagh, an ex CEO of News Corp Australia and Foxtel, has leapfrogged the tedious CEO role and landed Nine’s chairman gig.

Tonagh wasn’t idle in the intervening years.

He kept himself busy on a series of corporate boards and advisories including Quantium, GTN Limited, Bus Stop Films, Optima Technology, the AFTRS, Village Roadshow, Honey Insurance and at the ABC where he had a three-year stint as deputy Chair.

Reports vary on why Tonagh stepped down from the ABC last December 18-months before the end of his contracted term.

Some claim it was because he expected to be appointed Chair in 2024 and was blindsided at being passed over with the appointment of his former Foxtel boss Kim Williams.

Another story doing the rounds though has it that it had less to do with Williams’ appointment and more to do with the installation of the ABCs managing director, Hugh Marks who, we hear, Tonagh may not have backed to run the ABC.

The timing of Tonagh’s resignation from the ABC does make for an intriguing footnote.

Marks’ ABC appointment was announced on December 17, days after which Tonagh resigned his directship to Governor-General Sam Mostyn.

In a statement issued by the ABC at the time, it was claimed Tonagh had “supported” Marks’ appointment.

Yet interestingly, Tonagh was not directly quoted in the ABC’s PR statement.

Jackie O backs rehab

Radio personality Jackie O has opened her purse – and heart – to alcohol and drug treatment centre Odyssey House.

The KIISFM breakfast star has been recognised for her “generous support” of the redevelopment of Odyssey College at the centre’s Eagle Vale Residential Centre outside Campbelltown.

“Thanks to generous support from Jackie O and loyal philanthropists, the first stage of this vision is now within reach,’’ the recovery centre acknowledged in a social media post this week.

The burgeoning philanthropist’s donation will go towards the creation of a flexible indoor-outdoor learning environment in Sydney southwest, stated the post.

“Future plans include upgrading accommodation from dormitory-style to dual-occupancy rooms, offering greater privacy and dignity and creating therapy spaces designed to feel warm and homely,” the recovery centre.

In a frank admission Jackie O Henderson last year revealed she’d checked herself into a rehab centre in 2022 for drug and alcohol addictions.

Henderson opted not for a Sydney’s based treatment centre but instead chose the isolation of the prestigious Betty Ford clinic outside Los Angeles.

Odyssey House was founded in 1977 by Sydney father Walter McGrath following the death of his son to a heroin overdose.