ABC News Bids Farewell To Popular Presenter Leigh Sales After 12 Years Hosting Flagship Show ‘7.30’

Caroline Frost

Australia’s ABC network has bid farewell to one of its most popular presenters with Leigh Sales signing off after 12 years at the helm of its flagship news programme 7.30.

A former Washington correspondent and host of Lateline, Sales has been working 12-hour days in that time and told Guardian Australia she was looking forward to having a six-month break while she considered her next move.

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7.30 broadcasts nightly on ABC and ABC News at 7:30 p.m. from Monday to Thursday. While happy to step off the spinning news wheel after so long, Sales is understood to be looking at other options within the BBC with no wish to move to a commercial rival.

Her job on 7.30 has seen her interview everyone from the late cricketing great Shane Warne to Paul McCartney the Dalai Lama.

ABC executives turned out to wish her farewell on an evening that coincided with celebrations for the ABC’s 90th birthday. Current ABC managing director, David Anderson, paid tribute to the presenter’s “unflappable” temperament, and for being “scrupulously fair” on all politicians.

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