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When ‘Exclusives’ come full Circle

Despite a few teething problems, The Circle girls had a good rapport on Day 1. But their 'Exclusive' with Eva Mendes had already aired on The Morning Show on Seven.

TEN’s new morning show The Circle premiered this morning on TEN, and the girls on the show had a good on-air rapport.

Sitting on a couch, as opposed to The View‘s table, Denise Drysdale, Yumi Stynes, Chrissie Swan and Gorgi Coghlan bantered and laughed their way through two hours of interviews, songs, cooking and advertorials. Drysdale’s down-to-earth humour is a welcome return to the genre and Coghlan was particularly assured.

No doubt a few teething problems between presenters, cameras and vision switchers will be ironed out, along with knowing whether the show is on or off air. Ooops. The cramped audience shots did little to add to the live feel other than remind us how uncomfortable it looks.

Former Catch-Up showbiz presenter Pete Timbs delivered a few entertainment lines (read from notes too awkwardly below his eyeline) while former Temptation host Ed Phillips made an appearance hosting advertorials. Drysdale noted he would also be presenting some stories for the show.

But of most interest on Day #1 was a filmed interview between Australian reporter Samantha Brett and US star Eva Mendes.

The Eva Mendes segment was couched as an ‘Exclusive’ by The Circle -yet it had already appeared on rival programme The Morning Show last June. In morning television it is not uncommon to “buy-in” celebrity interviews that can be packaged with file footage if the subject is interesting enough.

A spokesperson from TEN told TV Tonight: “We were advised by freelance reporter Samantha Brett, that her interview with Eva Mendes was supplied exclusively to Network TEN for use on The Circle and we agreed to broadcast it in good faith. Unfortunately we have since uncovered that small snippets of this interview were previously aired on another network.”

Updated: Much of the interview was also published by the Sydney Morning Herald last April.

Not exactly the news you want to learn after you’ve just kicked off your new show…

The Circle continues at 10am weekdays on TEN.

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