Veteran broadcaster Tim Webster hits out at Ten over news cuts

Veteran television host Tim Webster has hit out at Network 10’s decision to cut news operations during one of the biggest news events this century.

Tim Webster: ‘At a time when we really need news, it’s a very strange place to be cutting.’ Picture: Adam Yip

Veteran television host Tim Webster, who worked at Network Ten for 30 years, has hit out at the broadcaster’s decision to cut its news operations during one of the biggest news events this century.

While acknowledging the media industry is under increasing financial pressure during the coronavirus crisis, the longtime newsreader is perplexed by Ten’s decision to dump its weekday Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth news bulletins and instead broadcast from Sydney and Melbourne.

“At a time when we really need news, it’s a very strange place to be cutting,” Webster told The Australian.

“We all understand we’re in the middle of COVID-19 and things are difficult for everybody, particularly business, but I would have thought they might find some cost cutting somewhere else other than news and people like Tim Bailey, Natarsha Belling and Kerri-Anne Kennerley..”

Ten’s owner US media giant ViacomCBS has been ramping up the integration of its operations in Australia and New Zealand since the merger between Viacom and CBS last December. Under ViacomCBS’s local content boss Beverley McGarvey, Ten shuttered its news website 10 Daily about three months ago with a raft of journalists laid-off.