Dateline boss: After George Negus we want to reach a younger audience
Hakim & Davis shoot their own reports
SBS’s Dateline is looking to reach a younger audience after replacing host George Negus with working video journalists Yalda Hakim and Mark Davis who shoot their own stories.
Speaking to Mumbrella editor Tim Burrowes, Dateline’s executive producer Peter Charley said of Negus: “It has given us an opportunity to move in a different direction. I’m very excited about the way we are going now.
“George was a fabulous presenter, no question about it, but he wasn’t a video journalist.”
Charley added that moving on from 69-year-old Negus, the program hopes to reach a younger audience. He said: “Yalda is going to, I hope, appeal to a younger demographic and be more appealing to a younger female audience.”
Negus quit the show at the end of last year to front Ten’s 6PM With George Negus.
Charley said that he was hoping to up the show’s audience from last year’s average of 282,000 closer to the 400,000 mark.
The 27-year-old show returns for its new season this Sunday on SBS1 at 8.30pm with a focus on young bloggers in Cairo and Wikileaks.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I’m sure Yalda will also appeal to the male audience as well.
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Boring comment from MattP. We all know women have to be photogenic to front and present on television, but let’s temper that with a concentration on content and perspective.
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So are they saying younger people dont listen to older people.
We know the answer to that cherry.
I dont always agree with George Negus, he presents his case well,he has gravitas, something younger people seldom have.
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I’m young and I have alot of respect for George Negus. He is a journalist of the old era…when journos were actually trained in the school of hard knocks to question the story not simply cut and paste from a press release. Having said that, I’m pretty disapointed with his new venture on Channel 10. They’ve gone by the way of fluff stories…sigh…I guess the good old days are well and truely over.
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