Jim Waley
Born (1948-10-05) 5 October 1948 (age 75)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation(s)Retired news presenter and journalist
Years active1971−2010

Jim Waley (born 5 October 1948) is an Australian former television presenter, best known for his work as a news anchor. on the Nine Network and Sky News.

Career

In 1981, Waley was appointed founding host of Sunday. In 1986 he was invited to be founding presenter of the network's business and finance program Business Sunday.

He hosted Sydney Extra, a news-based program for Sydneysiders, in 1992 and later that year was appointed presenter/reporter for Nightline, the nightly 30-minute late-night news program seen nationally.

Widely regarded as the newsreader with the most credibility and gravitas, Waley worked largely in the studio until 1994 when it was suggested he should report from the field for the Sunday program. For example, in March 1998, he went on the trail of Saddam Hussein's hidden fortune, a journey that took him to Switzerland and a confrontation at the home of Saddam's private banker. The report won the gold medal for Best Special Report at the New York Festivals.

On several occasions every year, Waley would host the Sunday program from major world events, including elections in the United States and Russia, conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East, and the British Hong Kong handover to China in 1997. He also reported Princess Diana's funeral service in August 1997.

Other foreign assignments included Waley's coverage from Sarajevo in 1998 and reporting breaking news in Washington of the growing political storm engulfing US President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Waley also went on assignment to Nepal and the United States to profile the inspirational Tom Whittaker who, despite having an artificial leg, climbed to the top of Mount Everest.

On 2 December 2002, Waley replaced the retiring Brian Henderson as the anchor of National Nine News in Sydney.[1] Although the bulletin continued to retain its long-standing ratings lead over rivals 10 News First and Seven News in Sydney during his tenure (including maintaining a winning margin of over 100,000 viewers in 2003),[2][3][4][5][6] he was replaced partway through a five-year contract by Mark Ferguson in early 2005.[7][8] Under Ferguson's tenure, Nine News Sydney ratings started to deteriorate;[9] it was not until when Peter Overton took over in January 2009 that it would experience such high ratings once again.[10]

After the axing of the Clive Robertson late night news program in 1992, Waley moved into the timeslot and hosted The World Tonight. This first version of what was later rebranded as Nightline focused exclusively on international news. At the 20th anniversary lunch in October 2007, Waley said he had plans to return to the media in the near future.

On 9 May 2009 Sky News announced that Waley had joined the 24-hour news channel to present a new nightly news bulletin called Sky National News with Jim Waley.[11] The new bulletin premiered on 29 June 2009 at 6:00pm (AEST).

In May 2010, Sky News announced that Waley had been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer in his left ear, and he would be taking a few months' leave.[12] Waley never returned to Sky News and ultimately chose to retire.

References

  1. ^ Peatling, Stephanie (3 December 2002). "The Waley it is ..." The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 May 2007.
  2. ^ Meade, Amanda (23 November 2009). "Final bulletin: Roscoe to go on a high note". The Australian.
  3. ^ Barry, Paul. Who Wants to be a Billionaire? The James Packer story, Volume 2. Read How You Want: Your Customised Book Service. p. 61. Henderson had handed over to the veteran Sunday presenter Jim Waley, who had done a fine job in holding the ratings until 2003, when David Leckie (now running Seven) decided to lure Nine's second-string newsreader, Ian Ross, out of semi-retirement to read Seven's revamped Sydney bulletin. Before long Ross was closing the gap, and by the end of 2004 he was pulling level.
  4. ^ Meade, Amanda (1 November 2007). "Boland gets cracking". The Australian. Retrieved 23 August 2017. Nine's Sydney bulletin continued to beat Seven's in the ratings but Ian Ross was beginning to make dents in Nine's supremacy by winning the occasional night.
  5. ^ Idato, Michael (14 February 2005). "Anchor management". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 February 2018. Uechtritz does not concede Nine took its eyes off the ball. "I'll let others be the judge of that," he says. "All I can say is that at any given time, in any given competitive environment, be it news or business, you need to refocus. Frankly, for journalism and news, I think the best thing that happened was that the numbers got a bit closer last year. We won the year. We won it comfortably in the end, but no disrespect to Seven, they are being very industrious. We can see how they are trying and that just pushes people further."
  6. ^ "Life after Jim Waley at Nine". Crikey. 23 January 2005. Retrieved 9 August 2018. Nine won the ratings in Sydney for 2003 and 2004, although Seven closed the gap last year, putting pressure on Nine and Waley's performance.
  7. ^ Mascarenhas, Alan (21 January 2005). "Nine dumps Jim Waley". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 May 2007.
  8. ^ Byrnes, Holly (8 May 2009). "News veteran Jim Waley savages Channel Nine". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  9. ^ "Ferguson fails to please at Nine". Crikey. 11 February 2005. Retrieved 30 November 2018.
  10. ^ Nine News Sydney takes ratings crown from Seven, Media Spy, 22 October 2011
  11. ^ Australian-Media.com.au (9 May 2009). "Jim Waley joins Sky News". australian-media.com.au/. Archived from the original on 13 May 2009. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  12. ^ Knox, David (9 May 2010). "Jim Waley battles cancer". TV Tonight. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
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