Stephen Quartermain feels love from Melbourne TV, sports professionals after being blindsided
STEPHEN Quartermain may have been the last to know he was being boned as Ten Eyewitness News anchor for Jennifer Keyte, with a TV insider saying that, by late Wednesday arvo, everyone was aware of the news except Quarters.
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STEPHEN Quartermain is at least feeling the love from Melbourne’s television and sports professionals after being blindsided and boned this week as the Ten Eyewitness News anchor.
Fellow Hawthorn tragic, 3AW’s Ross Stevenson, was perhaps the most incredulous, slagging off Channel 10 news director Ross Dagan on air, saying the bloke from Sydney had only just started and was not on top of what happens here.
Another top-level TV insider told Page 13, Ten had not read the Melbourne playbook.
SEVEN NEWS STAR JENNIFER KEYTE DEFECTS TO TEN
“In Sydney, you can shoot someone at 2pm and somebody else will be in the chair by 6pm. But that doesn’t fly (here), it’s a different market.”
The dignified and popular presenter, ever the professional, went on to read Wednesday’s 5pm news moments after he was delivered his death warrant by Ten executives.
The condemned man might have been the last to know in the cutthroat world of news TV where nothing stays quiet. One TV insider told Page 13 that by late Wednesday arvo, everyone was aware of the news except Quarters.
“Absolutely ridiculous,” — Ross Stevenson
Another exclaimed, “the golden rule is never deliver bad news just before a bulletin”.
Quartermain was kicked, but is far from down and out, as Channel 7, who are losing their weekend news anchor Jennifer Keyte to Ten, start looking for a replacement. Keyte read her final bulletin for Seven last week, with Blake Johnson filling in on Friday and Saturday night as Seven looks to secure a new weekend anchor.
No date has been set for Keyte’s return to Network Ten, where she worked from 1982 to 1987.
“There has been no man in the media more loyal to an organisation than Quarters’ has been with Channel 10. It was shattering to read how the organisation treated him,” — Gerard Whateley
Channel 10 has cash to splash after being taken over by the American CBS late last year, with highly placed sources saying the network lured Keyte away from Seven with a pay cheque around the $400k+ mark.
Keyte, 58, who has presented Seven Network’s weekend news in Melbourne since 2003, was out of contract at the start of this year.
Quartermain is keeping it classy and professional, with six months still to go on his contract. It’s understood Ten have offered him his old role as sports anchor, but can he cope with reading alongside his replacement?
“I’m very sad for Quarters, I think the way it was done was disappointing, to tell him just before a news bulletin … there will be a few undercurrents,” — Jennifer Hanson
Friends say Quarters could have his pick of jobs at other stations and had been putting feelers out from as early as last year. Poaching Keyte is said to be just the first of many changes in the Ten newsroom.
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