This is my life: Munro joins the exodus at Nine
THE NINE network has lost another of its stars, with bovver boy current affairs reporter and This is your Life host Mike Munro announcing his retirement.
THE NINE network has lost another of its stars, with bovver boy current affairs reporter and This is your Life host Mike Munro announcing his retirement.The announcement comes after last Friday's axing of the respected long-running current affairs program Sunday and the evening news bulletin, Nightline, and the steady departure of Nine's stable of stars, including Jana Wendt, Ray Martin, Jim Waley and Hugh Riminton.Overall ratings for Nine have improved markedly this year but the network's debt levels mean it is preoccupied with costs. In the half year just finished, its advertising revenue was nearly $100 million less than that of free-to-air leader Seven.In a statement released by Nine last night, Munro said: "It's the perfect time for me to go because the network is in such great shape, and I've been thinking about doing this for a while and wanted to go at my choosing while I still felt useful."Nine's chief executive, David Gyngell, said he had "begrudgingly" accepted Munro's early retirement and hoped to see him return to the network some day.Munro hosted a special edition of This is Your Life last week for another network stalwart, Bert Newton.He began his career as a copy boy at News Ltd in 1971 before joining Nine in 1984 and working on flagship shows such as 60 Minutes and A Current Affair, which he hosted between 1999 and 2003 before being dumped in favour of Ray Martin amid an ugly internal network brawl.He will finish at the end of October.
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