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Axed: Breakfast, TEN Morning News.

TEN Morning News and Breakfast to end on November 30.

Breaking News: TEN has axed both Breakfast and TEN Morning News, to end on November 30th.

A Network TEN spokesperson told TV Tonight, “TEN Morning News and Breakfast staff were told this morning that it is planned to stop production of both programs on November 30.

“The Breakfast program has not resonated with viewers. But breakfast television still represents an opportunity for TEN and we will return to the breakfast TV market at some point next year.”

The news follows dire ratings, at best averaging 50,000, and a commitment that the network was in “for the long haul.” It also belies confirmation at TEN’s 2013 programming launch last month that the show would return.

Since Breakfast launched in February much has been made of Paul Henry’s million dollar contract contrasting with the low numbers, while the network continues to cut costs elsewhere.

Last week TEN News staff were given their marching orders after the network reportedly failed to receive enough voluntary redundancies. The most profile of these so far has been Melbourne news presenter Helen Kapalos.

Breakfast had also lost Andrew Rochford earlier in the year and seen the resignation of its producer Majella Wiemers.

The news first broke on Twitter via Peter Ford, but was also tipped by an insider “francismckonkey” here on Saturday.

Paul Henry and Kathryn Robinson are confirmed to leave TEN but Magdalena Roze will remain.

87 Responses

  1. There is room for something new & innovative in the breakfast market (see The Project for innovative, fresh & new). What will not work is another attempt by Murdoch, Packer & Rinehart to install a right-wing shock-jock into the time-slot. Henry has failed not because he is inappropriate at times (he is often quite funny at times, in fact), not because he is from NZ, not because he is incompetent but because he expresses a consistently biased political view in the belief that there are thousands of people out there who want to hear it. Well they don’t! Let’s hope TEN don’t have to fit him in somewhere else to see out his contract. If they do, please put him on the Bolt Report – that way viewers only have to avoid watching TEN twice on Sunday instead of daily at breakfast time.

  2. ,Breakfast was a Murdoch idea as was Henry the host.
    Wealth does not equal television or business knowledge or competence. It smells very much like OneTel.
    I am sorry for all those dedicated and hard working production staff who will lose their jobs due to the current management and board’s very evident incompetence.
    They need to play in another sandpit

  3. Those Morning Cartoons were what made 10 stand out from the rest.It was not going to work putting on another Breakfast Show.Try Telling The Kids before school instead of cartoons they have to watch a boring News Show!!!

  4. Regardless of whether you loved, hated or were indifferent to the show, I want to say to the people working on it, who might read this, I know the hours you work, the long hard slog week after week it is to put that many hours of live TV together, not to mention the worrying uncertainty of where the next job will come from. It’s hard when you put your absolute heart and soul into something and give up so much of your life to put a lot of TV to air each week, for it to then get the chop. I wish all the team the very best and hope you all get work very soon.

  5. @smit0847 Certainly a jumbled mix in there, but thnx anyway and with no disrespect intended, but really 16 hours of C. Swan and S. Murdoch? isn’t once a week surely enough of Chrissie?

    As for Hammish, he is nearly as biased as the best of them and often suffers badly from selective interuptus syndrome.

    If this is a combined post written by or for Andrew, Gina, Lachlan,Chrissie and Sarah? if so thanx for at least responding to us minons.

  6. Another mistake in the life of Ten….

    Let’s not forget – Y.T.T, Everybody Dance Now (with the Chairman’s wife), Lara Bingle, The Shire, Breakfast……….axing Video hits, axing Sports Tonight, axing sport on ONE only to buy it back, loosing the AFL, not good enough for the NRL.etc, etc.

    Result- ordinary ratings, less revenue, breach financial covenants, axe programs, redundancies and axe some more heads.

    I wonder if they know they still have a long way to go ?

  7. The fact they announced this as part of their 2013 line up and said they were committed to it only to yank it off a few weeks later is just plain embarrassing. You would never see such incompetence at an American upfront and just shows how pathetic the Australian industry is. If they truly had a plan in place they would have announced it and stuck with it.

    Either way, sad for the numerous people out of job because Ten decided to not listen to their audience who loudly said they didn’t want Henry. I agree with others who have suggested a morning version of The Project. Do the news, make it fun, informal, engaging and most importantly, conversational. To really differentiate it from the other channels bring in some young blood who can talk about something like technology or entertainment without looking like a fumbling old person. Make it a panel and keep it consistent.

  8. Re: ‘Breakfast’ – Absolutely terrible concept from the word go. It probably does make sense to properly compete with Channels 7 and 9 for a proper slice of advertising dollars at breakfast time; also makes sense to have a point of ‘difference’ with the two established big beasts at that time of day. What doesn’t make sense is for ‘twist’ to be a pseudo ‘shock jock’ type character… it’s just not what most viewers want as they are trying to ease themselves into a new day…

  9. @kimbeth: This is part of Ten’s problem. Three hours of kids shows/cartoons in the morning is no longer a ‘point of difference’. With almost 90% of homes converted to digital (and 100% by 2014) and with kids shows in the early mornings on 7Two, 7mate, GO, ABC2/3, Eleven plus whatever channels on Foxtel then that makes it hard(er) for Ten to find a point of difference or at least makes it very crowded for them to compete.

    I don’t think the Breakfast idea was necessarily wrong it was just executed really poorly.

  10. @Chris 11.08 am…Mr Andrew Bolt, a man who is never known to distort the facts, categorally denied on his Bolt Report Rant, that he receives no monetary support from Gina Rinehart whatsoever!

    I regretfully omitted to add the following to my previous comment.

    I have many times expressed my sad feelings for those who are wrongly affected, unfortunately sometimes by association alone, and mainly because of many ‘shoot from the hip’ bad decissions made by Network Ten management and those with much influence upon them.

    To all who have endured and suffered at hands of the obnoxious Paul Henry, I can only wish you the best in the future, and wish the worst on those who laughingly encouraged him and those responsible for inflicing both Henry and Bolt upon all of us.

  11. Might be an opportunity to re-tool in 2013 and style it more like The Project to bookend the day. Obviously the Project panel as it stands wouldn’t work in breakfast but there are elements you could use. There were many elements of Breakfast that were great – and should have worked, but I think the execution was poor and it was very scattered for a long time.

    As someone previously mentioned, there’s definetly a gap for people between the straightness of ABC News Breakfast and the fluff of Sunrise and Today. hopefully someone at Ten sits down and finds the happy medium in 2013. And I think it’s clear The Circle needs to return…

  12. If ch10 actually want to offer point of difference then two options for 6-9 am:
    1. 3 hours of cartoons for the kids
    or
    2. A project-esque show with quality news and weather with likeable hosts. Natarsha Belling, Kath Robinson, Magdalena Rose, Matt Doran, Andrew Rochford et al.

  13. While I agree that this was certainly not a good program and it needed more than a few changes to lift it’s numbers, this is still a sad day for the production staff who will presumably lose their jobs. Therefore this is also a sad day for the small Australian TV industry.

  14. The Breakfast program doesn’t resonate with viewers according to channel 10..But I guess Andrew Bolt does resonate with one important viewer, namely Gina Rinehart..that’s why this terrible show will always be on air,

  15. Long overdue. Amazed this show was given so long to rate so badly. In primetime it would have lasted 3 weeks.

    I would like to see a 10 breakfast show more serious and news-ier than Sunrise and Today but less serious and dull than ABC24 Breakfast because I think there is a gap in that market.
    I find the cross-promotion and the pointless filler stories of 7 and 9 very annoying as well as the opinions of ‘shock jocks’ who have an opinion on everything. I also dont want them to waste 5-7 minutes getting their weather presenter to do something stupid or interview school children in a country town. Watching middle age presenters pretend to understand and be interested in youth culture (like Gangnam Style and facebook) is just embarrassing.

    On the other hand I find a 5-7 minute abc24 interview with a university professor in international relations far too heavy that early in the morning. I dont like how abc spent ages on one story and gloss over the others.
    I think a Circle type set-up on 10 from 6 – 9am with Hamish McDonald and Sandra Sully to give news cred, and then maybe someone like Chrissie Swan and Sarah Murdoch for the lighter stuff with 20 minutes of news each half hour and 10 minutes of human interest and lighter stuff. Explain the heavy stories like Syria and the US college presidential electorate system to us in more basic language but give it the time it deserves.

    I think people would watch that.

    PS – why does everyone keep demanding Bolt’s blood? He’s hardly a primetime star. You dont hear people shouting about axing Meet The Press.

  16. Always sad to see people lose their jobs but in light of so many other sackings/axings/cutbacks at Ten, this one had to have been inevitable. The Breakfast concept was confused from the word go and the numbers it was attracting (in relation to the cost it was incurring) simply made it a matter of time before it had to be chopped. And viewers were frustrated to see the show last this long at the expense of other shows and talent. It was never going to work.

    But as Sunrise found it took them a few goes to get the right team/formula so one hopes that in the long term Ten can get something more competitive out there.

  17. What a stupid resposne and statement, by some namelss network Ten spokesperson, but obviously comes via senior management “The Breakfast ‘program’ has not resonated with the viewers”.

    “Paul Henry” alone did not resonate with viewers, Network Ten, not the program concept as such.

    While network Ten continues to treat us viewers, who they need the most, as seemingly ‘A Necessary Evil’ nothing much has or will seemingly change.

    What next and with much fanfare, will they annouce that ‘Breakfast’ will in fact return next year only this time with the much loved Andrew Bolt as its new host?.

    After many other viewer alienating decissions it would not surprise me in the least, and the exec;s at network Ten will probably say, what a great idea! why didn’t we think of that!

  18. The other issue to come out of this is that the networks’ 2013 programming launches clearly don’t mean much. I’m pretty sure Australia’s Got Talent was part of Seven’s launch, only to be dumped a few weeks later. Now Ten does the same with Breakfast.

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