Christine Bath (born 13 May 1967) is an Australian journalist, radio and television presenter and news anchor.
Bath was host of Evenings on ABC Radio Sydney from 2017 to 2019, and has previously been a weekend presenter of Seven News in Sydney and host of the Seven Network's current affairs program Sunday Night, until she left the network on 27 July 2015.
In December 2018, it was announced that Bath would join Network 10 to present 10 News First Weekend, replacing Natarsha Belling.
Personal life
Bath was born in Auburn in Sydney's western suburbs and raised in South Wentworthville. She attended Holroyd High School. Later, she enrolled at Sydney University where, in 1985, she studied English, psychology, German and legal institutions for two months before leaving. She started working at a restaurant in Surry Hills and became a trainee manager at Kmart, Merrylands – a position which she reportedly left because they would not let her make jokes while announcing red light specials.
In 1997, Bath married composer Denis Carnahan and in late 2000 Bath gave birth to a son. In 2008, after 10 years of marriage Bath and Carnahan separated.
In January 2012, Bath married Seven News sport presenter and reporter Jim Wilson, only weeks after Wilson asked Bath to marry, but some four years into their relationship. The couple was featured in New Idea magazine in late August 2013.
Career
On the advice of the Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter Bowers, Bath applied to study communications at Mitchell College (now Charles Sturt University) in Bathurst. Not only was she accepted into the course, she also won a scholarship, and majored in politics. During her studies she was a broadcaster with the on-campus community radio station 2MCE-FM. In 1988, halfway through the last year of her three-year course, she was offered a job at Sydney AM radio station 2UE as a cadet reporter and newsreader.
Her second job came a year later, after a friend encouraged her to apply for a job with a regional television station in Albury. She moved to Albury, where she spent the next 20 months working at Prime Television station AMV-4 and spending her weekends in Melbourne. At AMV-4, she started reporting, was the weather presenter for a while, then finished off as the full-time newsreader.
In 1991, at 23, she joined Newcastle's NBN Television, where she stayed for the next five years as a reporter and host to the evening local news broadcast. Originally she thought she was going there as just a reporter, but the newsreader resigned and they offered the vacant position to her. She resigned from NBN Newcastle in late 1995 after being offered a job by Seven in Sydney. NBN took Bath to the Supreme Court to delay her appearance on Seven. The court granted an injunction against her appearing on Seven before 1 February 1996.
Seven Network
Before becoming presenter for Seven's Morning News, Bath has previously had numerous presenting roles with the network over the years.
In 1996 until early 1997, she co-hosted the 6am news bulletin with Peter Ford (which later became Sunrise). In 1997, she became host of the network's Sunday morning political interview show, Face to Face, and presenter of Seven's Late News. (The Late News was subsequently axed in August 2003.)
For three weeks in mid-1997, Bath was working 18-hour days, filling in as host of 11AM, presenting the afternoon news updates, recording the news bulletin shown on Ansett flights and presenting the 11pm Late News bulletin.
In 1998, Bath was a reporter for Witness, the network's flagship current affairs program, until it was axed later that year. Seven then asked Bath to co-host its new current affairs show, Dateline, with Stan Grant. She declined and was given the role of presenting the Sydney 6pm news over summer.
In 1999, she returned to the Seven Late News, as well as reading afternoon news bulletins on Sydney radio station 2WS from May. In July, she did a now infamous interview with Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph which did not sit well with management. Among other things, she said she'd "refused to work on" Today Tonight and was the "only presenter" at Seven writing her own updates. Outside the news, she appeared as a guest panellist on Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals in October, and on 31 December she hosted the network's New Year's Eve coverage.