12 months on since Channel 7 $100million change
OPINION
Media executives from across the board were astonished when a little known newspaper editor from Fremantle became the most senior news executive at Kerry Stokes' Seven West Media empire in 2024.
Anthony De Ceglie's appointment was hailed by Seven's one-week-in-the-chair CEO Jeff Howard as evidence the company was going to 'think differently' about news.
The appointment followed months of turmoil at Seven after the network's Spotlight unit was exposed for offering cocaine and sex worker inducements to Bruce Lehrmann for his exclusive interview. The scandal felled some of the company's most senior journalists.
Seven veterans were sceptical that a slick talker in his thirties who had never worked a day in TV could do the job.
Twelve months on news.com.au casts an eye over De Ceglie's first year in the role and the accomplishments to date of Seven's big-talking 'change agent'.
MANAGEMENT STYLE
'I am big on how I lead a team …' De Ceglie, May 2024.
Under pressure from Seven's bean-counters to cut costs, the 38-year-old TV rookie's first weeks were spent dispassionately wielding the axe.
Seven had to strip $100 million in costs out of the business and De Ceglie seemingly didn't baulk at the task, quickly slashing his share of 150 jobs.
In his first three months in the role, the newly dubbed Director of News and Current Affairs and Editor-in-Chief of Seven West Media presided over the loss of more than 300-years of industry experience from Seven's newsrooms.
Gone were some of the best content creators in the business including Sydney news director Neil Warren, Melbourne news director Shaun Menegola, Brisbane news director Michael Coombes, senior producer Richard Cunningham, Sydney crime reporter Robert Ovadia (in controversial circumstances), Melbourne crime reporter Cameron Baud, Queensland weatherman Paul Burt and much-loved Queensland newsreader Sharyn Ghidella, a veteran of 38 years.
Ghidella would refer to her shock sacking as 'a miserable affair'.
In De Ceglie's shell-shocked newsrooms some staff quickly took the view that the news chief had set his sights on anyone older than himself.
Having disassembled the senior news management team, De Ceglie set about promoting a team of young producers, many of them incredibly green, to replace news producers with decades of experience some of whom wrote the handbook on news production.
While his predecessor Craig McPherson was renowned for being a 'tough but fair' boss, as morale has sunk some staff working for De Ceglie have reported not knowing where they stand their new boss.
GRADE: B-
'I'd like to see us probably be a bit bolder and a bit braver to capture new audiences,' De Ceglie, May 2024.
To create content for TikTok, social media and YouTube, De Ceglie, who regards himself to be a 'non stop innovator', set his sights on Seven's most prestigious property, its 6pm evening news bulletin.
Targeting a younger audience, in July 2024 the innovator introduced a satirical segment hosted by comedian Mark Humphries to Seven's Friday night news bulletin.
Dubbed The 6.57pm News, the segment, De Ceglie said, would be 'taking the piss' out of news events and political spin.
The news boss's hope was the spot would attract younger viewers to Seven's news hour and steal some away from rival Nine, however from day one the segment faced tough criticism both inside and outside the network.
From within Seven came the fear the segment would dumb down Seven's top-rating news and compromise the bulletin's integrity. There was also concern the segment ate into the Friday night sports report on the eve of weekend of AFL and cricket matches which Seven had long promoted within its news bulletin.
Outside Seven there was fury Humphries could be retained when dozens of Seven reporters had been brutally sacked.
The segment was axed over the '24/'25 summer break, not long after De Ceglie pointed to its success on TikTok where, on one occasion anyway, Humphries celebrated three million views with a spot about Donald Trump.
Also dispatched a few months after its premiere was an astrology segment with Natasha 'Astrotash' Weber.
Despite the fails, De Ceglie vowed to continue trying new things.
Sadly for viewers, he made good on this promise during Seven's federal election debate this week.
The debate featured a musical sting employed to notify speakers – in this case PM Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton – they needed to wind up their arguments or be drowned out by music.
Such a device, famously used in Academy Awards coverages, needs to be used sparingly, if at all, or it can swamp a political argument, lead to confusion on the studio floor between the nation's two top politicians (and the moderator Mark Riley) and disrespect Seven's ageing at-home audience many of whom would be confounded by the noise.
It also managed to make Seven chairman Kerry Stokes's political ally, Peter Dutton, look completely stressed out of his mind.
Is it any wonder we hear an unimpressed Stokes has subsequently relayed his dissatisfaction to those in charge.
GRADE: D
'(Seven's) been number one nationally since 2015,' De Ceglie, May 2024.
Despite the loss of senior news producers and his broadcasting inexperience, De Ceglie seems to have never been in doubt that Seven would hold onto its hard-won ratings lead over Nine.
Turns out it couldn't and two months into his tenure, Seven had lost its lead over rival Nine in the critical 6pm to 7pm (five cities metro, total people) timeslot.
Seven hadn't experienced a five week losing streak since 2015. It had then contributed to the sacking of Seven's then news boss.
By December Nine had claimed the 6pm news hour for the first time in nine long years.
In the year to date, January 1 to April 29, Seven is winning by the slimmest of margins.
Seven's stats put it ahead of Nine by just 300 viewers, 827,100 to 826,800.
In the same period last year Seven was outstripping Nine by almost 40,000 viewers, 781,200 to 741,600.
While both Seven and Nine's audiences have increased overall, Nine has made serious gains in the 6pm news hour.
Traditionally Nine wins Sydney and Melbourne markets, Seven wins Adelaide and Perth and the battle for the nation rests in Brisbane.
However, since axing newsreader Ghidella in Queensland and Brisbane sports reader Shane Webcke in August – and then, in November, shutting down its Gold Coast bulletin – Nine has extended its lead in Brisbane and now wins there convincingly.
A similar shift has also been observed in Melbourne.
On the bright side (now there's a catchy name for a news segment that is really just an old-segment, rebranded), Seven's breakfast show Sunrise maintains its years long lead over Nine's Today show, an achievement that De Ceglie himself attributes to Seven's director of morning television Sarah Stinson.
Current affairs flagship Spotlight meanwhile continues to be beaten in the ratings by Nine's 60 Minutes and concedes its timeslot to Nine's MAFS.
GRADE – D-
'Stop worrying about the ratings, instead worry about the journalism' De Ceglie, October, 2024.
news.com.au has struggled to think of any big yarns Seven has broken since De Ceglie took over.
We're happy to upgrade the mark if any are brought to our attention.
GRADE – E
PRESENTATION/SELF-PROMOTION:
'(My) track record hopefully speaks for itself..' De Ceglie, May 2024
Since taking the chair a year ago, De Ceglie has proved himself, given more interviews than some news bosses grant in a decade.
He accepted an invitation to address the Melbourne Press Club, strutted the boards at a Packer Foundation event and generally made himself accessible to mainstream and trade media.
De Ceglie, or 'ADC' as the millennial has styled himself, is presentable and confident and keen to rub shoulders with industry powerbrokers.
He's also said to be on daily speaking terms with Seven chairman Stokes, irritating fellow senior Seven executives.
GRADE – B
His trip to Vegas in late February, as a guest of the NRL, was cause for surprise however Seven has in recent years seen itself as a future partner of the NRL and De Ceglie has no plans to miss a networking opportunity.
Attendance is solid, though his absence over Easter in the lead-up to the Federal Election and following the Pope's death raised eyebrows (he was working from home in Perth).
De Ceglie is a father to two youngsters and often heads off early to collect his children from school, perhaps a first for an Australian network news boss who has oversight of the 6pm evening news bulletin.
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