According to reports in The Age, Today Tonight will go ahead in a new overhauled version of the program to be first aired in Sydney and Melbourne on Monday 11 February with Helen Kapalos as host.
According to Fairfax, the current affairs program will be less sensationalist in tone, will have a new set, and a segment called “You be the judge”, hosted by veteran radio journalist Derryn Hinch.
Following the contracting of Kapalos last month, Seven has been experimenting with a one-hour news service during its coverage of the Australian Open tennis. With floods and bushfires of biblical proportions as major stories in January, the expansion of Seven’s bulletins saw their audience swell, but the channel’s executives have decided against combining Seven News with Today Tonight.
Audience ratings showed that on Thursday January 24 the second half of its extended Seven News program beat A Current Affair in Sydney (272,000 to 255,000) and almost drew level in Melbourne (298,000 to 300,000). In 2012, both Seven News and Today Tonight suffered a ratings drop in both cities.
As Kapalos told Neos Kosmos in an exclusive interview last week, a tighter focus on stories requiring greater levels of journalistic depth was part of Seven’s vision for the crucial prime-time slot, fitting neatly into Kapalos’ personal ambitions.
“It will be more content-rich, more broad-based public affairs. It’s much more expansive than what I have been doing previously as a newsreader – I’ll have a much more direct hand in the stories. I’ll be doing my own stories, and there will be more live interviewing,” she told Neos Kosmos.
“For me it’s a dream gig.”
Seven confirmed with Neos Kosmos yesterday that Helen will definitely host Today Tonight when it surfaces later in the month. Promotions for the new show involving Kapalos were being shot on-location last week.