Roz Kelly quits two months after losing plum role to Danika Mason

Just two months after being overlooked for a plum national TV role, a popular Channel 9 sports presenter has quit the network.

Nine’s weekend sports presenter Roz Kelly has resigned from the network.

Kelly’s resignation comes two months after she was overlooked for the role as sports presenter on the Today show.

That job, which became vacant after Nine sacked Alex Cullen in January for accepting $50,000 from Adrian “Lambo Guy” Portelli, went instead to Nine rugby league sideline reporter Danika Mason.

Kelly, this column hears, is without a job to go to.

Mason is understood to have won the job after receiving a glowing endorsement from Mr Rugby League, Peter V’landys, who played host to a large media contingent in Las Vegas in February/March.

Channel 9’s weekend sports presenter Roz Kelly has resigned from the network.

Kelly lost out on the role of sports presenter on the Today show to fellow sports journalist Danika Mason. Picture: Ch9/Supplied

Mason, who is in a relationship with ex-Bulldogs player Liam Knight, worked on NRL broadcast partner Nine’s coverage out of Vegas presenting the reporter with an opportunity to network with NRL and media bigwigs abroad.

It’s not the first time the versatile Kelly, who also hosted Sports Sunday on the Nine, has reported on two Olympic Games and presented Wide World of Sports, has been overlooked by Nine management for a more prominent role.

She and ex Nine presenters Erin Molan were once considered rivals for a plum sportscasting gig and panel spot on The NRL Footy Show.

Molan would be handed the role in 2012 and Kelly would jump ship to Ten two years later.

She returned to Nine in 2021, the year Molan left following the cancellation of The NRL Footy and a much publicised and long-running feud with the broadcaster’s rugby league analyst Andrew Johns.

Sources close to Kelly say she is considering relocating to South Africa with husband Morne Morkel, a cricket player from that country, and their two children.

Plug pulled at seven

Departed Seven news boss Anthony De Ceglie was barely out the door of the media company’s Eveleigh newsroom when the decision was made to pull a national news branding campaign that had been his brainchild during his brief tenure at Seven.

When the campaign launched in August, Seven pronounced that the “Unstoppable” campaign would underscore the network’s dedication to keeping pace with the relentless news cycle.

A 90-second Seven promo touted “The news cycle never stops and nor do our hardworking newsrooms.”

Former Seven news boss Anthony De Ceglie was barely out the door when execs at the network pulled a national branding campaign said to be his brainchild. Picture: Emily Kulich/Melbourne Press Club.

The problem for Seven execs and audiences alike though was that the “Unstoppable” tagline rarely made sense when overlayed on vision about random daily news events.

If the Seven news promo depicted firefighters battling a fire-front, did the “unstoppable” tagline suggest the fire was unstoppable?

Similarly if a news promo showcased the decades long search for missing British citizen Madeleine McCann – did the promo convey the view that the search was “unstoppable”?

Sources have told this column De Ceglie’s successor Ray Kuka couldn’t get the campaign, deemed “tone-deaf” and “too generic” within Seven, off air fast enough after touching down in Sydney to settle the troops this week.

Channel 7’s “Unstoppable” news brand stopped hours after former news boss Anthony De Ceglie departed Seven.

Also relegated to a storage facility has been De Ceglie’s infamous whiteboard on which he scribbled motivational phrases and instructions for his staff such as “don’t sit still” and “risk is for the taking”.

Sharpshooting is informed De Ceglie’s whiteboard also doubled as a privacy screen during his tenure to shield the outgoing news boss from prying eyes while he was ensconced in his glass-walled office.

This meant that while the former newspaper editor was dreaming up news segments, he could at least be partially concealed by his cherished whiteboard, the flip side of which, viewed from outside his office, invoked his staff to “turn it up to 1000”.

For all his urgent talk of innovation and transformation during his year running Seven’s TV division, by early this week De Ceglie’s office had been stripped of all evidence the new Perth Bears’ CEO had ever been there at all.

Power play

Newly appointed Seven news chief Ray Kuka will have a battle on his hands to persuade producer Sean Power to stay on in the role in Sydney.

The former executive producer of Sunrise,  who was promoted to his current role as Seven’s Sydney news director on De Ceglie’s watch, wants to return to Melbourne, his hometown.

The return is for personal reasons this column hears.

Newly appointed Seven news chief Ray Kuka. Picture: Supplied

Channel 7’s Sydney news director Sean Power. Picture: Supplied

Kuka will want to keep the talented Power so must find him a commensurate position in Seven’s Victorian newsroom while not falling foul of Seven’s accountants.

Ex foreign correspondent Hugh Whitfeld, who was appointed national newsdesk director last year, is favoured to replace Power.

ABC producers jumps ship

ABC-Sydney mornings’ presenter Hamish Macdonald has lost his senior producer with Alice Workman pulling the plug to join News Corp.

Workman is a former senior producer of the ABC’s Q&A who, at one time, worked as a political reporter and columnist for The Australian as well as, in a former life, having a run-in with former federal Labor MP Emma Husar while working at BuzzFeed resulting in an aborted defamation case and out-of-court settlement to Husar.

Since February 2024 Workman has held the position of executive producer of morning radio at ABC-Sydney (formerly 702) overseeing Craig Reucassel’s breakfast show and Sarah Macdonald’s morning program.

While our sources tell us Workman has quit the national broadcaster after becoming disillusioned by the ABC’s axing of Sarah Macdonald last year, on paper Workman and Macdonald’s replacement, Hamish Macdonald, look a good professional partnership.

They both evidently have a passion for politics.

Former ABC radio producer Alice Workman.

So much so, in fact, that the community radio station has been sounding increasingly like the station’s more serious counterpart, Radio National, for the past month.

Of course it has been a historic and riveting few weeks in national politics and radio commentators can be forgiven for wanting to dedicate hours and hours to the subject, but it has only served to emphasise the loss of the warm, engaging and personable female voice of Sarah Macdonald, who was more focused on more local community news and issues and brought a welcome lighter touch to morning radio.

Hamish Macdonald’s ratings slipped in the latest radio ratings, which might explain why rumours raised their head this week that he could be looking to reduce his four-day radio commitment to three days, something he has denied.