ABC News Breakfast: We genuinely like each other

In Breakfast TV, we are told, chemistry is everything.

On Monday ABC News Breakfast will celebrate its 5th year on air and co-host Virginia Trioli attributes the show’s success to her partnership with Michael Rowland -so much so, that she believes it is their point of difference with commercial offerings.

“At its heart the real difference is –and I’ll put my money on this one–  I think we are the only Breakfast TV show in the world where the two presenters like each other!” she tells TV Tonight.

“Find me another show where they really like each other. Not where they tell you they do, but where they do.

“Michael Rowland and I are very good friends and we like each other enormously. We love working together and we respect each other enormously as well. I think that’s just gold, and bloody rare. I really do.”

While Sunrise and Today have provided plenty of fodder for newspaper articles, Trioli takes pride in the strength of their partnership.

“I think there’s a lot of tension in those relationships. They are hard to get right and I think there’s probably a lot of unhappy campers,” she says.

“I’m prepared to be contradicted, but that’s my strong feeling.”

Trioli is one of three originals on the show, alongside Sports Presenter Paul Kennedy and weather presenter Vanessa O’Hanlon. Rowland joined in 2010 replacing Joe O’Brien. Barrie Cassidy was also an original presenter.

The show started out on ABC2 on Monday, November 3, 2008 with next-to-no budget.

“We were crazy brave in the early days when we started this programme. When I was talking to Publicity about the 5 year anniversary I told them something about starting the programme with tin cans and a wire, which is not so far from the truth. We were really at the leading edge of trying to use as much automation as we possibly could, with camera robots if you like, but also automation in the control room. Systems that had been used a great deal overseas but not so much here in Australia,” says Trioli.

“So we set ourselves a huge, and sometimes impossibly difficult, task.

“Because the ABC, in a very ambitious sense, was wanting to get this programme up but not having a great deal of resources in order to fund it, that was the way we decided to do it. So everybody had to take a deep breath and jump in, to make it work, and they did.

“Money certainly wasn’t siphoned off to fund this. We just had to make it work with what was there in the existing budget.”

Ratings have been building for the show at up to 130,000 recently, combining ABC1 / News 24. But that’s only part of the story.

“Our weekly Reach is about a million, if you combine the days, which is fantastic and gratifying,” she explains.

“In addition to the audiences we get on News 24 and ABC1 there’s also our international Reach. We go out on the Australia Network and that’s immeasurable. It goes out to every single satellite service that exists. Indonesia, India Singapore. They’re phenomenal potential numbers but we don’t really have the money to do the research to find out how many are watching over a period of time.

“Harold Mitchell said to me a very long time ago, “Virginia, it’s not about the numbers. It’s about the trend. You always want your trend line going up. And ours has always been on a steady trajectory. That’s how you build an audience.

“Another wise person, Jon Faine, once said ‘You just have to keep showing up. It’s a long term game so keep doing what you do.’

“I think over 5 years we’ve shown the wisdom of those two observations.”

While rival shows lead with a light entertainment tone, ABC’s offering is news-driven. Trioli’s day may begin with 3am rises, but she’s already checking international news from the make-up chair.

“I get to see BBC, Al Jazeera, some of the American shows and if I’m coming back into the make-up chair at 5:30 I might get to see the beginning of (news) here in Australia. But what I want is for someone to tell me ‘What did I miss?’ I’ve just woken up after hopefully 8 hours, probably more like 6 so what did I miss? Did I miss anything crucial? Did I miss anything worrying? Tell me if things are still ok or not,” she observes.

“The abiding principle for me has always been we want to inform, entertain and educate.”

But if there is any criticism to be found, it is often that the show is too newsy and too serious.

“Our programme is always going to cover off on the serious news because that’s what we’re there for. We have the responsibility and the remit of the ABC to do just that,” she insists.

“But there’s a fair bit of bally-hooing going on, in the sense that it ticks off some of our more serious ABC viewers. This morning there was a lot of discussion on Halloween and on Talk Like a Pirate Day, I’m afraid to say, Michael Rowland actually dressed like a pirate.

“I was looking at him in utter horror!”

Monday’s anniversary episode will see the return of former presenters and regular co-host Beverley O’Connor. It will be a big day in breakfast television, especially with the launch of TEN’s Wake Up.

While she envies their location, Trioli questions some of their decisions.

“I love where they are. I’d love it if we could be on Manly Beach as well! A little message there to Mark Scott if he’s reading this. Put us on Manly Beach.

“But I think TEN is also going ahead with their on-set McDonalds outlet, is that right?” she asks.

“One of the most important issues you’ll always get to with a breakfast TV programme are family / health stories: obesity, body image, the fact that Diabetes Type 2 is the fastest growing illness in this country.

“It just goes to the territory of breakfast television and when you have turned on you have little kids running around. So it strikes me as an odd conjunction and potentially an uncomfortable one.”

After TEN ditched Breakfast within a year of its launch, it remains to be seen if Wake Up will also still be here in 5 years time.

Trioli is sticking with the ABC offering, despite its punishing hours.

“It’s odd, working these hours you often think ‘I just couldn’t go back to civilian hours now!’ Whenever the alarm goes off at 3 you do want to have a little bit of a cry, but once you’re in it you get most of your hard work done in the early part of the day,” she says.

“I wish them all the best, it’s a tough job.”