David Knox over at TV Tonight gave a very good fair and balanced review of the first week of The 7pm Report and you can read it in full here. Below is the part that stood out most to me.

The casting of the five personalities is yet to prove diverse enough to warrant a nightly conversation with the audience. Unlike the robust debates on Q & A, there is little black and white here. Dave Hughes is a funny guy, Charlie Pickering is a likable guy, but so far there isn’t enough to justify why their opinions, or those of the other cast, warrant a nightly visit.

Bickmore’s sing-song voice-overs accompanying video packages are too light and too identified with Rove, undermining her television shift as a serious newsreader. There is a reason female newsreaders have an Alto vocal range -to add gravitas.

It is hard not to compare the show with TEN’s former Panel, which similarly borrowed many elements from radio. That show benefitted not just from a later, weekly and longer slot but also a thoughtful discussion that took time to smell the roses. 7PM could do a lot worse than read all the news headlines at the top of the show then work out which ones it was going to dissect for the remainder of its airtime with some insight. Radio does it all the time.

That said, TEN should stick with the show, even with some lowly figures. It’s still a good idea if it is allowed some fine-tuning and addresses its news make-up with more conviction.