Career
Commonly known as "Roscoe", Ross began his career in 1957 at Sydney radio station 2GB. He returned to Sydney as a National Nine News reporter in 1965. Ross stayed at Nine for 38 years, where he was most known for his position as a Today news presenter. There, he also presented National Nine News on many occasions, filling in for presenters who were either on leave or sick.
In 1997, Ross appeared as himself in the acclaimed Australian film The Castle.
Moving out of retirement in Queensland, Ross joined the Seven Network in 2003, "lured back by the challenge of becoming Sydney"s Number 1 reader" to head the station"s struggling flagship 6.00 pm bulletin. After making some steadily progress in 2004 with a strong finish to that year"s ratings, finishing with 13 weekly wins out of a possible 40, Seven News overtook Nine News in 2005 to become Sydney"s number one news bulletin.
Before his final retirement, Ross was only hosting Sydney"s edition of Seven News from Sunday to Wednesday, with Chris Bath hosting the news on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Ross previously presented the news Monday to Thursday until Chris Bath began hosting Sunday Night.
On 27 November 2009, Ian Ross presented his final bulletin of Sydney"s Seven News and officially retired from newsreading.
He was visibly moved as he made his final farewells to his viewers and colleagues. He was a guest on the first episode of Seven Network"s The Daily Edition. In January 2014, at age 73, Ross publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and that it had spread to his liver.
His doctors estimated that he had five months to live.
