Safe ... Nine stalwart Ken Sutcliffe / Pic: Channel 9 Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE belt tightening at the Nine Network's once-great Wide World Of Sports continued this week with the departure of senior production staff - lost to redundancies - in a move that shrinks the unit to its smallest level in 40 years.
With Nine's commitment to retaining the cricket broadcast rights still up in the air, on Friday one of Nine's most senior cricket producers, Graham Koos, left the building after almost 35 years.
Koos walked the same day as the network's highest ranking sports executive, Lesley Tapsall, who resigned her post as executive producer of WWS after 19 years at Nine.
Sources say more bloodletting will follow, with another senior on-air personality recently given the tap.
Replacing Tapsall as the new boss of sport is Jacqui Lumb, a producer who has worked on Nine's Sunday sports show under Tapsall's wing. She is said to be in charge of a department of about 10, well down on the unit of 35 employed to produce Nine's premiere sports product 15 years ago - a unit that would swell seasonally.
It's far cry from the glory days at Nine when the sports department was under the legendary David Hill, who had carte blanche to buy the best sport on offer for a proprietor obsessed with cricket, golf, rugby league, horse racing, motor racing and the Olympics.
With Nine walking away from their immense slate of sports programming in recent years due to rising rights costs, the network is now home to one sport, rugby league.
"There remains a feeling that Nine will retain the cricket but split the package," said one survivor this week, adding Nine is no longer run by "TV people" but by accountants.
Longtime sports presenter Ken Sutcliffe is employed by Nine's news department, keeping him safe.
