Seven West news boss Anthony De Ceglie urges staff to ignore the TV ratings

Seven’s newly-appointed TV news boss Anthony De Ceglie has urged staff to stop focusing on winning the ratings war against rival network Nine in his first address to all staff.

Seven West Media news boss Anthony De Ceglie has surprised staff just one month into his new job by telling the company’s journalists to stop worrying about the traditional ratings war with rival Nine, and instead focus on taking risks.

Speaking to staff last week at Seven’s first national town hall meeting since he was appointed to the new executive role as the director of news and current affairs, he urged them to move away from the “status quo”.

“I think one of the big things I’ve noticed already is an almost paranoia about trying something different because it’s too risky or we might lose the ratings war with Nine,” he said in leaked details from the staff meeting, obtained by The Australian.

“If we’re too focused on the daily ratings we’ll never take that giant game-changing risk that up-ends everything and leads to major success.”

It’s understood he also urged staff to “try a week without even looking at the ratings” and instead focus on journalism.

Channel 7 has won the TV ratings for the past three years.

De Ceglie encouraged staff to “take a big risk and fail fast than take no risk at all and keep the status quo”, and urged journalists to “think digital”, noting that the network was “lagging on this front”.

De Ceglie, who was the editor-in-chief of The West Australian newspaper before he took up his new role on April 30, oversees 7NEWS, Sunrise, The Morning Show and 7NEWS Spotlight.

The 38-year-old replaced former news boss Craig McPherson who departed the company last month after eight years in the top job. McPherson came under intense pressure amid the fallout from allegations of credit card misuse by former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach.

Claims that Auerbach used a company credit card to pay for cocaine and prostitutes emerged in the failed defamation court action by Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.

McPherson was also the boss when star Sunrise host Matt Shirvington named the wrong man as responsible for the Bondi Junction killings which resulted in a six-figure payout to Sydney university student Benjamin Cohen.

There have been significant changes within Seven’s news division in the past month — Melbourne’s news director Shaun Menegola — who announced he was leaving the network days after McPherson departed — has been replaced by Adelaide news director Chris Salter.

Salter will soon relocate to Victoria to take up the position; the favourite to take over from him is Seven Adelaide’s deputy news director Mark Mooney.

Neil Warren remains the news boss in Sydney. The Brisbane newsroom is run by news director Michael Coombes, whom Diary reported in April had quite a few staff leaving in recent months including Kendall Gilding, Sally Gyte and Jordan Fabris.

Ray Kuka remains Perth’s news director.

De Ceglie also appointed rival network Nine’s A Current Affair Sydney bureau chief Gemma Williams, 25, to the position of Spotlight executive producer, replacing Mark Llewellyn who left last month.