With Ten launching its new 2.5 hour evening news lineup soon, speculation is mounting as to who will take the anchor role in their 6-6:30pm national news bulletin.

During this weeks Mediaweek podcast, there had been some speculation from Sunday Telegraph media journo Richard Clune regarding the host role. During the brief chat on the subject, Clune says that he hasn’t ruled out the rumour of Jennifer Byrne taking the host role. The Byrne rumour has been floating around for several months now, however previous talk had centered on Byrne hosting a possible national current affairs program to air at 6:30pm in direct competition with Today Tonight & ACA.

The idea of Byrne hosting the 6pm bulletin doesn’t quite ‘feel’ right. The Force simply isn’t strong in this one. One can certainly appreciate that Ten will want a big name to take over their national bulletin. After all, this will be their Premier news program. The jewel in the Ten crown.

Would Byrne work as the host of the 6pm News? While nobody can dispute that Byrne is a talent that could handle the role, it perhaps isn’t a role that would be best served by her taking it on. Byrne is a very strong Presenter and Reporter, but as an anchor of a news bulletin she would be taking on a role that would limit her from exhibiting the breadth of talent that she posesses. Further to that, is there a need to bus in a News Presenter from outside the network when Ten already have a number of talented on-air presenters who are already strongly associated with the Ten brand?

Surely the obvious answer to the 6pm national news bulletin would be to finally give Sandra Sully the chance to take on such a role.

Sully has been Ten’s biggest name in news for the past decade and does a great job hosting their late night bulletin. It makes sense for her to graduate to the networks highest profile news role. One would also assume that the 6pm Ten bulletin would be a solo anchor, providing a further point of difference to the competing bulletins. While it would be a shame to see an end to the dynamic on-air relationship with sports presenter Brad McEwan (the 6pm Bulletin is reportedly sports-free), Sully is the obvious candidate to take on this new role.

As great as Byrne is on-screen, Sully simply feels like the right choice. She feels more Ten.