Channel 10 Adelaide loses its local weekday news bulletin in 2020 to Melbourne under network restructure

Rebecca Morse, Will Goodings and Kate Freebairn were the last team to front the SAS Channel 10 news from its studio in Hutt Street, Adelaide.

SAS Channel 10 lost the last of its local output from the new studios in Hutt Street, Adelaide, in 2020 when Network Ten announced its weekday news bulletins would be presented from Melbourne. Reporters and camera staff would remain in Adelaide.

The Adelaide edition of 10 News First, had been read by Rebecca Morse, with sports presenter Will Goodings and weather presenter Kate Freebairn. This was mixed in the 60-minutes edition with national news output from Network Ten's Sydney studios in Pyrmont.

Channel 10 Adelaide news over the years had featured personalities such a George Donikian, Nikki Dwyer, Kelly Nestor, Belinda Heggen and Mark Aiston – with Jane Reilly as a long-time presenter of weather and feature stories.

Channel 10 didn’t share the early commitment to news of channels 9 and 7. In the 1970s, it was producing a half-hour service but only on Monday to Friday. 

Graeme Goodings became sports editor of what eventually was the Eyewitness News Hour. In 1983, the Ten Network won the rights to host the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and Goodings was asked to be one of the studio anchors in Los Angeles. Goodings has to give up that dream job when he chose an alternate offer to replace SAS Channel 10 newsreader Tony Dickinson. He began news reading on SChannel 10  the day his first son William (Will) was born.

Goodings first teamed with Denise Marcos from the ABC but ratings improved when Channel 10 poached Guy Blackmore host of then-Channel 7’s State Affair as newsreader. When Blackmore left, Sean Flannery had a short stint as news reader, cut short by propositioning the wife of Seven Network owner Christopher Skase at a Gold Coast function.

Broadcaster Jeremy Cordeaux then partnered Goodings for two years but an Australia-wide search for his replacement found the answer at home in the Collinswood studios of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) where Jane Doyle had become main newsreader in 1988. Her shift to Channel 7 (changed from  Channel 10 in 1987) in 1989 formed a combination that topped the ratings over the tough competition from Kevin Crease and Rob Kelvin on Channel 9.

After leaving in 2004 on sick leave for cancer treatment, Goodings wasn’t reinstated to the weekday news service when he returned. Goodings swapped with John Riddell to present Seven News on weekends, consistently beaten by many years National Nine News, hosted by Georgina McGuiness, and restored it to No.1.

In 2014, Goodings’ contract was not renewed after 34 years with the station during its change from Channel 10 to Channel 7.