That old rumour about Tracy Grimshaw replacing Ray Martin as host of the Nine Network’s A Current Affair in 2006 is back in circulation.

Grimshaw has done stalwart work holding Nine’s stumbling Today show
together this year. She’s also a successful summer edition host of ACA,
and is lined up to do that again in the coming summer season.

Ellen Fanning has been widely suggested as Martin’s replacement, especially after being given the Nightline program to host a month ago. But whether she takes over from Ray is not certain at this stage.

Nine, ACA management and Ray have some serious thinking
to do. Will he want to continue battling away, or do something else?
One idea is to put Ray on the road as a reporter. It’s his strength, as
he showed in Aceh in the Tsunami reporting in January and on several
other occasions this year.

Nine could easily afford to turn him into the style of Charles Kuralt, a reporter who did a program for years for CBS called On The Road, travelling throughout the US filing reports for CBS News and other programs.

Ray
has the ability and maturity to do that, and can probably be better
used in ways that reward him, viewers and Nine, while also keeping him
on screen. For all his faults, he’s still head and shoulders above
anyone else on the Nine Network.