Sharp Shooting: Rumoured new role for Sunrise star

After 11 years, the Sunrise star might be able to kiss goodbye to her 4am starts ... on one condition.

Might there be a new role in the wind for Sunrise news presenter Edwina Bartholomew at Seven next year?

That will depend, this column hears, on whether veteran newsreader Ann Sanders decides its time to retire.

After 11 years, the Sunrise entertainment reporter will be able to kiss goodbye to her 4am starts if bosses successfully push ahead with a plan to transfer Bartholomew from Sunrise to Seven’s news department.

The move to shift Bartholomew has been proposed, this column hears, in a bid to cut costs.

Such a transfer may suit Bartholomew who in September revealed she has been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia.

Edwina Bartholomew. Picture: Seven

Describing the condition as “a really good kind” of leukaemia, while holding back tears she reassured fans the condition could be treated with a daily pill.

“If I can take care of myself I will be completely fine,” she told Sunrise viewers.

Some might feel not having to rise at 4am weekdays for a TV breakfast show could be a positive step towards taking care of one’s health.

There was a time when this columnist championed the exuberant “Eddy” as a potential replacement for then embattled Sunrise anchor Sam Armytage, who soon after departed the program.

Sadly for Bartholomew, network bosses weren’t of the same view with executives choosing newsreader Natalie Barr who had a stronger rapport with co-anchor David Koch who has since departed.

Ann Sanders.

As Seven execs liberally took the axe to its news department earlier this year, Sanders’ tenure began to look less certain.

A favourite of Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, Sanders has been presenting the news on Seven since 1988 and is believed to therefore still be on a 1980s-style generous contract.

Of course we’d suggest Seven news director Anthony De Ceglie discussed Sanders’ mooted retirement with Stokes first for, as tipped here last week, DeCeglie is not Stokes’s favourite news director.

In fact, we conducted a quick survey and suspect he’s not even in Stokes’s Top Five.

Those ranks, we feel confident, are firmly occupied by ex news bosses Craig McPherson, Peter Meakin, Neil Mooney, John Rudd and Terry Plane.

Best not follow the Sharyn Ghidella precedent, Anthony.

That didn’t do anyone’s career any good at all.

In a league of his own

Former rugby league player Beau Ryan is tipped to succeed Mark “MG” Geyer on Triple M’s Sydney breakfast program in 2025.

A jump to Triple M would see Ryan, a first-time breakfast radio host, tested in the nation’s toughest market and against seasoned performers such as WSFM’s Jonesy & Amanda, KIIS’s Kyle & Jackie O and 2GB’s Ben Fordham.

The ex Cronulla-Sutherland and Wests Tigers winger has built up a strong fanbase during the past decade while honing his talents on television as co-presenter of shows including Ten’s The Amazing Race, Gladiator Australia and Top Gear Australia.

The Amazing Race Australia host and former NRL player Beau Ryan tipped to be named new Triple M breakfast host.

Ryan is tipped to take over from another former NRL player Mark Geyer who has been dumped by Triple M.

No word yet on who Triple M bosses may partner the one-time Footy Show larrikin with. This column understands he will be paired with two co-hosts, a male and a female.

Sources close to Fox Sports star and former The Grill Team member Matty Johns last week scotched rumours Johns will return to the Triple M breakfast slot.

Geyer reportedly learnt on Tuesday evening his services were no longer required at the Southern Cross Austereo station.

He was missing from air the following day as reports of his axing emerged.

Word of Ryan’s radio post comes two weeks after Triple M’s parent company Southern Cross Austereo confirmed Geyer’s on-air partner 2024 Mick Molloy was returning to Melbourne in 2025 and be partnered with long time collaborator Titus O’Reily, Nick Riewoldt and Rosie Walter on a revamped breakfast show in that state.

All in the family

The arrest of broadcaster Alan Jones on Monday has resonated throughout the nation’s tightly held media landscape but nowhere more so than at the company that has of late driven the campaign to expose Jones’s alleged obscene behaviour, Nine.

On Nine’s books sits at least one of the men who turned whistleblower on the veteran broadcaster.

Alan Jones leaving Day Street Police Station

How hard must it have been for that man to open up, albeit anonymously, to reporters about historic alleged sexual harassment, while continuing to hold his head up as an executive elsewhere in he company?

On Nine’s conscience too must also sit the inescapable fact that for the last two decades of Jones’ career – the very period during which the initial eight victims allege they were indecently assaulted – Jones was employed by John Singleton’s Macquarie Media, the company Nine acquired in 2019, five years after Fairfax Media merged with Macquarie in 2014.

Any way you cut it, both Fairfax and Nine benefited handsomely from Jones’ broadcast career and sought to profit from his influence regardless of the persistent whispers.

Alan Jones at his Southern Highlands home with Ben Fordham in 2020 after Fordham was named as Jones’ successor. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Jones’ multimillion-dollar farewell package was brokered by Ben Fordham’s brother Nick Fordham.

Presiding over the 2019 Nine-Macquarie merger was then chief executive Hugh Marks.

He’s also the man who signed off, in 2020, on a farewell package to Jones that some would claim was worth as much as $5 million.

A big beautiful kiss-off brokered by manager Nick Fordham, brother to incoming Nine radio star Ben, Jones’ successor, and son of Jones’ former manager John.