Plenty of movement at the station that is the Seven Network, with the announcement yesterday that Southern Cross Austereo had snapped up Nikki Rooke, the former head of Sydney sales for Kerry Stokes' TV company.
A top-notch get for SCA, according to all who know her, a bit of a homecoming (she worked at SCA for 11 years before trying her hand at telly) and a consequent loss for the Seven sales department. Not to mention another female executive at the network hot-tailing it out of there.
Her departure comes as TV types are left to wonder why Seven's head of programming, Brad Lyons, has relocated from the network's Pyrmont headquarters (home to the C suite) to its production hub at Redfern.
Lyons, a long time friend and colleague of the network's embattled CEO, Tim Worner (both Perth boys who were TV journos together) was on leave for the better part of this year, under a health cloud. Since returning, he's moved offices. Seven reckon it is so he can be closer to the "record number of" shows they currently have under production (which begs the question: why was he ever in Pyrmont?)
As if being under pressure to come up with an answer to Nine's Ninja Warrior juggernaut isn't bad enough – he's now no longer within crawling distance of the Blue Eye Dragon or The Century – forced instead to chow down with the plebs at Fratelli Fresh in Alexandria. Oh the ignominy.
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