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Wake Up axed, cuts to TEN News.

Wake Up, TEN Early, Morning & Late News are no more from Friday, as TEN cuts costs.

2014-04-02_2337TEN has confirmed the end for Wake Up and the TEN Early, Morning and Late News from Friday, May 23, as part of wider network redundancies.

The decision, made this morning at a Board meeting, is understood to affect approximately 150 staff.

TEN issued the following statement:

Network Ten would like to thank the people involved with Wake Up and the TEN Early, Morning and Late News for their dedication, enthusiasm and hard work.

TEN Eyewitness News at 5pm will continue to be produced locally in each market. It will continue to have local news, sport and weather, local presenters, local reporters and local production staff, and will continue to bring the best of local, national and international news to viewers.

A voluntary redundancy program has commenced in Network Ten’s News and Operations department.

No further details are available at this stage.

TEN is understood to be in discussions with Wake Up hosts Natarsha Belling and James Mathison about their future with the network.

CEO Hamish McLennan also emailled staff today:

Today we are announcing a series of proposed changes at Network Ten.

As you all know, the television advertising market has been soft in recent years. At the same time, our ratings, revenue and earnings performance has been disappointing.

It is a tough period for Ten and we need to take some painful, but necessary, measures to restructure the business.

Our existing business model needs to change and we need to achieve greater efficiencies, tighter cost management and greater focus in terms of the parts of the company in which we invest.

A review has been conducted to establish a new structure for Ten and to better allocate our resources, with the aim of improving our performance.

As a result of that review, there are proposed changes to News programs, the structure of News and Operations, and other departments.

Unfortunately, it is proposed that Wake Up and the Early, Morning and Late News will cease production on Friday, May 23, 2014. Studio 10 is performing well and will continue as a vital part of our daytime schedule, which ranks number one.

Despite the commitment and enthusiasm of its staff, Wake Up has not resonated with enough viewers to make it a viable program.

It is very disappointing that these programs have not been more successful, but I would like to thank everyone involved with them for their focus, dedication and hard work.

We need to use our News resources – staff and content – more effectively, while continuing to provide high-quality local News services.

TEN Eyewitness News at 5pm, which is consistently number one in its timeslot, will continue to be produced locally in each market. It will continue to have local presenters, reporters, production staff and so on. It will continue to bring local news to viewers.

A process of consultation will begin tomorrow around a proposed voluntary redundancy program in News, Operations and Engineering. Consultation will take place in each station with the News Directors, Operations Managers and Human Resources staff to manage this process.

We are in a constant, fierce battle for the attention of viewers and we need to ensure we are investing in the areas that will deliver the greatest potential in terms of audiences and revenue.

The next few weeks will be a difficult and sad period, as colleagues leave the business.

Let me assure you the changes are not being undertaken lightly. No one is happy about them, but unfortunately they are necessary.

To the people affected by today’s announcement, please accept my thanks for your important contribution to Ten.

67 Responses

  1. @ jonno & andrewb fair enough, thats just the report i saw first as i don’t watch all news broadcasts, usually i switch between 7 & 9. You must admit though that there has always been fierce enough rivalry between the 3 stations to suspect it was the case. At times its been downright childish really eg putting big watermark writing across their news footage, ACA & Today Tonight always trying to outdo each other etc.

  2. TEN management should all be sacked . we want to wake up to a breakfast show not bold and the beautiful a cooking show and reruns of ET. seriously ten you have no idea what your viewers want .what is wrong with getting the right breakfast show on air . we want news and entertainment not reruns .bring GMA back and put KAK and sandra sully as a point of difference two female hosts with matt white to front it with a newsreader in natasha belling. loved natasha belling just her side kick had no personality and do the show from darling harbour .Nula can be your roving reporter she is lovely as well just not as a news reader. studio shows are old school thats why you do the show from darling harbour..three hour breakfast show followed by studio 10 . its not rocket science

  3. I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape over Ten’s new morning line up as it’s basically a fill in untill the management “WTF can we do” meetings come up with some ideas. As I have mentioned b4, a direct feed from the kitteh play pen at the local cat shelter would rate higher than Wake Up or just about anything else on Ten atm.

    Congrats to management… job well done folks. (extracts tongue from cheek)

  4. @tvaddict – The Channel TEN job loss story was also covered on ABC News Melbourne. I don’t think Nine covered it just to lay the boots in. A very Newsworthy story, no different to job losses in the car industry etc.

  5. @tvaddict – 150 jobs lost from a major Australian business is a major news story. It was covered on Seven News as well. Nine News were not putting the boot in, simply reporting the story which in my opinion was impartial to the fact it was another network.

  6. It’s always sad when 150 people lose their job through no fault of their own, but it’s even sadder when it’s due to repeated poor decisions from above and yet those who made the bad decisions will get to keep their jobs.

    Now that there will hardly be any news and current affairs, what will Peter Meakin be doing or is Hamish McLennan willing to pay him not to work as well as John Stephens?

  7. Once more at Ten, the loss of many good people as a result of the failures of many still there.

    The only positives out of all this, at least this sad news release’ picture’ got rid of the sneering smile of the of the ‘Great Big New Taxes’ man, and no more embarrassing ‘ Vilma’ style exchanges, at least on Wake Up that is, so watch out Studio 10 where Joe will probably be now drooling in anticipation.

  8. Reminds me of 1989 when Network 10 was in deep trouble and people were predicting its demise. Neighbours was declining, The Comedy Company had passed its peak and they were getting crticised for axing Richmond Hill, which was reported to be the most succesful Aussie soap ever axed (they had to make room for E-Street which was a big flop at first) – apparently someone from Ch 10 or Grundys had already renewed the contracts on the Richmond Hill cast.

    To save the network they brought some yank over (Bob Shanks i think his name was) to turn around Ch 10 fortunes and make it viable again. Most of his changes tanked and it wasn’t until a year or so later when 10 lucked in on the boom of teen/young adult entertainment with shows like Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, The Simpsons, Twin Peaks and our own E-Street that things turned around for 10.

    Some of the things I remember this…

  9. On paper before Wake-Up aired, it looked great. I gave it a go a few times but it just never worked. All on air talent are fantastic but the show itself was not up to scratch to make inroads. TENS biggest error was to dump AFL, Big Brother and other shiny floor shows and go el cheapo. In this multi channel world you need sports and reality on the main channel. Ten know this now but is it too late?

  10. You’ve got to wonder if they leveraged “The Cicle” brand for breakfast whether it may have had a better chance. I suspect channel 10 look back at that decision as a major mistake.

  11. Aussie, if what your saying is true, do Ten really think filling their schedule with cooking shows will really fix their woes? I think a bit more variety would be good.
    Pleased Studio 10 is staying its a great show, plus it would be a bit rude to give it the boot while Her Itaness is out of the country….

  12. A couple years ago in Townsville Southern Cross Ten trialled broadcasting the breakfast show of 4TO’s Steve Price, playing music video clips of the songs as they played then live studio footage during the talk breaks. Ten could do this with Kyle and Jackie, or have a local radio station from each market – crazy idea, but surely it would rate higher than Wake Up.

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