Another blow for 60 Minutes as Michael Usher jumps ship to Seven Network
The hits keep coming for 60 Minutes with news today the Seven Network has poached well-regarded reporter Michael Usher from the current affairs program.
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THE hits keep coming for 60 Minutes with news today the Seven Network has poached well-regarded reporter Michael Usher from the current affairs program.
Seven’s Director of News and Public Affairs Craig McPherson announced Usher’s appointment in an internal email to Seven staff this morning.
Usher, who has been one of Nine’s most recognisable faces for 23 years, will join Seven’s upcoming news specials series, Seven News Investigates, overseen by veteran news producer Mark Llewellyn. He will also contribute to the news team.
“An award-winning reporter with a career spanning more than two decades, Michael is joining our leading News and Public Affairs team,” McPherson said in his email.
“His passion and experience will further strengthen our extraordinarily talented and dedicated team.”
A Nine Network spokeswoman said the network wished Usher well and denied his departure coincides with Nine’s accountants running an eye over the 60 Minutes’ budget and trying to cut costs following the Sally Faulkner child recovery story which to date has cost the network in excess of a million dollars.
Usher has, for some years, been keen to read news but news anchors Mark Ferguson and Peter Overton both, one after the other, knocked him out of contention at Nine.
Usher started at Nine in 1993 after moving from West Australia to Sydney to report for National Nine News.
He covered the Twin Towers tragedy in 2001 and was later dispatched to LA to man Nine’s US bureau before heading to London to do same.
In 2006 he returned to Sydney to present Nightline, an experience which gave him an appetite for presenting. He later enjoyed a stint anchoring A Current Affair and presenting weekend news bulletins for the network until 60 Minutes came calling in 2009.
In the email McPherson celebrated Seven “having one of our most successful years in recent times.”
“The 6pm network news scoreboard reads of the 24 ratings weeks to date — 7 News has won 24. The other mob 0,” he said acknowledging Seven’s winning run nationally in the ratings.
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