Paul McIntyre: Who Wants to be a Millionaire host hits the top of the management pile

"Even by my standards it's been a complete circus."

So said Eddie "Everywhere" McGuire, the risky new chief executive of Network Nine, Australia's top-rating TV broadcaster, controlled by the Packer family.

Ever since Nine's former boss and close Packer family friend David Gyngell got the huff and resigned suddenly from Nine in May last year, speculation has been relentless over who would run the $900 million TV network.

It came to a head this week as the broadcaster gushed leaks that its very own on-air supremo was about to land the top job. On Thursday afternoon it was official.

McGuire is an intriguing and risky choice. Intriguing because he comes from a Scottish immigrant family who left the coal mines in the 1950s for a better life in Melbourne.

The family settled in the working class suburb of Broadmeadow from where McGuire weaved his way up to the top of the TV business.

But the risk with McGuire's appointment - which did get the late Kerry Packer's blessing - is intriguing because he's taking the top job at Nine at perhaps the most vulnerable phase the network has been in for 30 years.

McGuire, 41, has no background in the management of a big business and it has some analysts concerned because last year saw the one-time TV basket case of Channel Seven bounce back with a vengeance in the ratings.

Nine has been stunned - it's still No 1, but its outright ratings and revenue dominance has gone. On Monday night, for example, just 8000 viewers separated Nine and Seven.

McGuire on Thursday night fronted his own network's current affairs show, A Current Affair, and acknowledged the competitive threats but, typically, talked his way out of it.

"A lot's been said about whether or not I've got the management skills," he said. "I've been hired because of what I bring, not what I don't bring.

"There's been a lot of stuff in the media about how Seven's going against Nine. Let's not forget instead of absolutely belting them last year, we just belted them.

"This year they've got a fantastic slate of shows so let's not kid ourselves we are in a fight up against a real foe. And probably for the first time in years Channel 9 has been challenged, but not only by Channel Seven but the world of new media.

"We have to think smarter, be quick on our feet and be relevant."

All of that, plus.

McGuire starts on Monday and his on air role is now over. He is hugely ambitious and driven to win.

McGuire, until now, anchored the top rating Who Wants to be a Millionaire. But that came after he'd put his name on the map anchoring The Footy Show for 13 years - Aussie Rules' first theatrical TV production that turned players into celebrities. He also took over the presidency of the legendary but almost broke working class Aussie Rules team, Collingwood, turning around its fortunes with a massive injection of sponsorship dollars and a couple of spots in the AFL Grand Final in recent years. Through his own company, Maguire Media, he also has ventures in gaming, publishing and the internet, and earns about $3.5 million a year.

His biggest job now is swinging Nine's momentum around and repairing a fractured internal culture, resulting from interim boss Sam Chisholm offloading more than 90 people and slashing costs, acts which dented the usual sense of invincibility. Many believe that has frozen the flow of ideas from the station.

Indeed, the extent of the dislike for Chisholm - who took on the job as a favour for Kerry Packer after David Gyngell's departure - is so intense at the top that senior producers and programmers at Nine hammered out an agreement last year at the ritzy Bondi Beach restaurant, Icebergs, that they would stick together to ensure they would outlast Chisholm.

Chisholm will remain a non-executive director of Nine's parent PBL, but McGuire has to now ensure he can get morale cracking.

"I want Nine to be the epicentre of creativity," he said on Thursday. That was for the staff. He's also got to ensure big fat profits for his bosses at PBL and its shareholders. Otherwise Eddie will be out of the big black chair and back on the screen. Pronto.