Popular television presenter switches channels

A popular presenter will return to Queensland television screens tonight with Channel 9 after recently ending a 30-year relationship with Channel 7.

Sofie Formica will present the weather on Channel 9. Picture: AAP/Josh Woning

POPULAR presenter Sofie Formica will return to Queensland television screens tonight with Channel 9 after recently ending a 30-year relationship with Channel 7.

Formica, who hosted Seven’s Sunday afternoon lifestyle and travel program The Great Day Out for 12 years during her most recent stint with the network before her shock resignation in September, will fill in for Nine News Queensland’s weeknight weather presenter Garry Youngberry for three weeks while he is on holiday.

Sofie Formica. Picture: AAP/Josh Woning

“It was just really flattering to get a phone call to say ‘if you’re free, how about you do this?’,” she said. “I said ‘yes’ straight away

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“I have never done the weather before and to be honest that was a motivating factor for stepping away from Great Day Out in the first place, to try something else – just because I am 47 doesn’t mean I am not looking for new challenges.”

Formica, whose last episode of Great Day Out aired on November 25, said quitting the show was difficult but necessary for her career.

“I really loved the people I worked with from the producers to the cameramen,” she said.

“But it’s very easy to stay in one spot and I wanted to move on while the show was still so well-loved to be in charge of my own destiny.

“The hardest part was to say ‘I think I’ve done all I can do, it’s time to try something else’.”

She said she hopes her stint with Nine will lead to further opportunities, particularly in the eco-tourism space, where she hopes to use her storytelling skills to make a positive impact.

“I have gone to great lengths to tell everybody (since leaving Seven) that this was not a retirement it was a resignation – it’s a very different concept,” she said.