Annette Sharp: Cameron Williams’ clash with news boss Simon Hobbs ended career at Nine
A heated exchange with his boss brought down the curtain on veteran sport anchor Cameron Williams’ broadcasting career at Nine, writes Annette Sharp.
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In the end it wasn’t an indecent assault allegation involving a make-up artist or the alleged verbal abuse of a woman that brought down the curtain on veteran sports anchor Cameron Williams’ broadcasting career at Nine this month.
It was, this column has been informed, a heated and angry exchange between Williams and a Nine News executive, with Sydney news director Simon Hobbs the man who ultimately made the call that triggered the latest shock U-bend in Williams’ controversial career.
Sources claim Williams, described by colleagues as a “troubled and dark” character, let fly to his news boss Hobbs, either over a meal or via email, about his frustrations at working for Sydney’s No. 1 TV newsroom three to four weeks ago.
A Nine spokeswoman dismissed that claim on Friday, directing us to a network statement issued earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Nine’s director of news Darren Wick abruptly notified staff that 59-year-old Williams had left the company.
“Cameron Williams has resigned from his role with Nine as on-air sports presenter,” he wrote.
“Cam is leaving us to focus on his health and then to pursue other opportunities that we look forward to hearing more about.
“I want to thank Cam for his significant contribution to Nine over the past six years. Cam’s last day was 21 March 2022. Please join us in wishing him all the very best.”
Inside the Nine bunker staff have told this writer that Williams had been falling foul of colleagues — notably women — since joining the newsroom in 2016.
His appointment to the chair once occupied by the eternally “warm and sunny” Ken Sutcliffe had, said one, “been a challenge for some time”.
“Warm and sunny aren’t terms generally used in relation to Williams,” they offered.
The appointment of Williams to Sutcliffe’s seat — alongside newsreader Peter Overton who, it’s said, never warmed to Sutcliffe’s replacement — polarised staff at Nine from day one, with female staff wary of the presenter sacked from Fox Sports in 2001 after a makeup artist brought indecent assault allegations against him.
Those charges were later dropped, but not before Williams admitted to a court that he had sometimes asked the make-up artist to expose her bra to him as part of what he called “a secret handshake”.
Williams spent four years in the regional radio wilderness before being handed the plum job as sports presenter of the network’s national breakfast show in January 2006.
The decision may have been influenced by then new Today anchor Karl Stefanovic, a personal friend of Williams, with whom he shares a manager, although sources on Friday said he was much admired by Nine news and sports bosses.
Stefanovic and Williams have other joint interests. In 2016 the two became joint directors of Camwill Enterprises, a business registered to the address of Stefanovic’s former accountant, Griffith-based Roy Luciano Spagnolo.
Spagnolo is said to be the cousin of the similarly named Roy Spagnolo, also from Griffith, who made headlines in 2013 after being ousted controversially from his seat as chairman of the Parramatta Eels Leagues Club.
Williams’ manager Sharon Finnigan directed us to her client’s statement when we made inquiries on Friday.
On Wednesday, Williams said: “It’s with a heavy heart I have decided to resign from Nine … but I have struggled for years with increasingly poor health.”
Finnigan clarified that Williams was dealing with a mental health issue, and denied Williams had an alcohol-related issue.
Regarded as an archetypal “man’s man” — thanks in part to his love of boxing and horse racing — Williams found himself the subject of unbecoming headlines again in December 2007 after a security guard at Double Bay’s Golden Sheaf Hotel asked him to leave the pub after an under-the-weather Williams allegedly became abusive towards a female staff member.
A Nine spokeswoman later confirmed Williams had been at the pub on the night in question, but said Williams had simply been asked to leave the pub because the table he was seated at had been booked by another party.
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