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Report: Jennifer Byrne for new TEN current affairs

TEN is rumoured to be planning to revive its 6-7pm block with Jennifer Byrne tipped to host a new current affairs show.

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The latest rumours on the future of TEN’s early evening programming speculates that the network is planning two and half hours of news and current affairs from 5pm – 7:30pm.

The Sunday Telegraph reports TEN is planning a new line-up from January with a one hour news service at 5pm, a half hour news bulletin at 6pm, a current affairs show at 6:30pm to be followed by The 7PM Project.

Jennifer Byrne is said to be in line for the new current affairs show, to compete with Today Tonight and A Current Affair. Byrne, who currently presents for the ABC, is a regular panellist on The 7PM Project and comes with a well-regarded track-record in journalism.

Such a move would elbow Neighbours to a new home, and there is again speculation it could wind up on TEN’s unannounced third channel. But under current regulations, that would see the show fail to deliver TEN any local quota points. Recently there was even a rumour Southern Star was pitching a new soap to the network to address that very question.

TEN has been coy about the many rumours that swirl around its early evening timeslot. Remember those stories about axing The Simpsons in favour of 90 minute bulletin last year? There was also a recent rumour that Sports Tonight could get an early primetime play -it already gets some early screenings on ONE.

TEN trumpeted Neighbours‘ achievements at its recent anniversary celebrations. Programming chief David Mott has said the show will remain part of the TEN family, which arguably says more about what he isn’t saying.

If TEN is indeed planning a current affairs bulletin with Jennifer Byrne it will need to invest significantly into its News resources. Such shows do not come cheap and TEN’s News budgets are more modest than those of Seven and Nine.

TEN’s 2011 Programme Launch is due in a little over a month’s time.

Source: Sunday Telegraph

46 Responses

  1. Channel 10’s news is the best on offer.Compare it to 9 or 7 and there is no competition.A good move with Jennifer Byne!!
    The McManus and Denton families will rule channel 10!!

  2. Don’t do it, Jen! Learn from Hinch. Learn from Alan Jones. Learn from Andrew’s experience and stay at the ABC. Denton never really had great success on commercial television but the ABC audience loves him. I can’t see Jennifer being successful on a dumbed down TEN offering.

  3. Since everyone is having a crack at being the channel 10 programmer, I’ll have a go too.
    How bout: 5-6pm stick with the news. It rates well, so why change something that ain’t broken?
    6:-6:30 – Neighbours. It should rate above what the repeat Simpsons does and ten can still get their drama points.
    6:30pm – New current affairs show with Jennifer Byrne
    7pm – 7pm project.
    Done!! Now to fix the rest of their numerous problems in their schedule..lol.

  4. I think weekend local news bulletins would be a better idea than 2.5 hours of news, I can’t stand such line up unless there is a big breaking story or I’m watching a news channel. Axing Simpsons as long as the new episodes will still be aired is fine with me.

  5. This move could really challenge 7 & 9 as they carve up the 55+ audience with their suicidal race to the bottom. I really hope it works. It’s also time to move on from Neighbours and do more prime time drama to meet their quota requirements.

  6. I thought it would be a simple move to put Neighbors on at 5 – it would be a good follow through from Bold and the Beautiful.
    Then followed by news from 5.30 – 6.30. Then the new Jennifer Byrne show at 6.30.

    Could Work.

  8. 6:30 current affairs show sounds like a good idea, a less trashy alternative to ACA or TT, and it could be paired with The 7pm Project in a similar way to Sunrise/The Morning Show.

    I’m not so sure about the 6:00 News though. Having an identical news bulletin following their existing one I don’t think will work, because viewers from the 5:00 bulletin will already have their news fix and will switch off, and viewers who tune in at 6 will most likely just stick to 7 or 9 News. I think they should keep The Simpsons, as it has a loyal audience and I know that many parents rely on it as something to entertain their kids while they are preparing dinner etc. Or even, have either The Simpsons or Neighbours at 5:00, and then have their news hour 5:30-6:30, so that they can compete with 7 and 9 News while at the same time retaining their pre-6:00 audience.

  9. I hope this report isn’t true, Jennifer Byrne has to much self respect as a journalist to do a show that reports the same kind of rubbish that Seven and Nine do every night.

    If they’re going to do Current Affairs they should do it properly instead of descending into the kind of tabloid rubbish the other networks produce on a nightly basis, that’s not journalism.

  10. The 6pm bulluld be a “ten news extra” kind of thing, with feature stories from international affiliates (CBS & their UK affillate.)
    Just my 2 cents worth

  11. If this is true, I applaud Ten for bringing unique offerings to News/CA. At least they are addressing their 6-7pm weakeness.

    Does anyone here actaully watch Ten News. To all those nay sayers, I would rate Ten News at Five as the best commercial news offering in Australia. So it would be great to see a natural extension of that into prime time.

    Furthermore, Ten has been beefing up its news dept. of late. Danielle Isdale in London – Seven have no presence in Europe, Nine about to re-open their bureau. Ten also appointed Hugh Riminton as Senior Political Correspondant. So all in all these rumored moves make sense. They have been positioning this for some time. So kudos to Ten!!

  12. And where’s the mystery bandwidth for “TEN’s unannounced third channel” coming from? They had Fox Sport’s feed of the Sydney vs Hawthorne AFL match on One “HD” in Sydney yesterday & the picture quality was appalling.

    Just because you can run bit-starved SD channels, it doesn’t mean that you should.

  15. Two and a half hours of news & current affairs seems a bit of an overkill. And wouldn’t a good current affairs programme at 6.30pm make the 7pm Project redundant?

  19. I think 10 should do new from 5-5.30 then puts Neighbours on at 5.30pm (it doesn’t rate well enough and it will keep their drama quotes up) then do their news show from 6-7 could be their current affairs type show and then 7-7.30pm would be 7pm project.

    it could work!!

  20. Sounds like Ten will finally start focussing on the 25-54 demographic like the others which is something they haven’t done for quite a while now. Good to see it won’t be a network for kids anymore.

  21. Great, another program about dodgy builders, miracle skin creams and how to make your supermarket purchases go further. Just what we need. Tragic to see a top notch and intelligent journalist like Jen get sucked into that though. I guess they’re promising her it’ll be a “real news program”. Yeah, sure it will, on TEN and up against ACA and TT.

  22. I hope tens current affair show is more like Cambell Live (TV3 NZ) than ACA/TT. It’s about time Australia has a decent current affairs show than the crap that Seven and Nine give us each night. Thirty minute news at 6pm sounds like a good idea
    too.

  23. Wow, if that is their plan, i think it is just overload! Talk about one extreme to another. For a network committed to Simpsons and sitcoms for many years, nurturing 7pm project is one thing, but two and a half hour block!!!!! I haven’t watched Neighbours since the late 80’s, but where would it end up? News First at 5 works really well and rates, maybe sliding Neighbours back to 6pm with another rebranding, and a Number 96 type make over – a fire, bomb, flood, something to shake up its foundations, and then try something worthy of competition with TT and ACA after that, Jennifer Byrne is a great idea, and then into 7pm.

  24. Sure, no more Simpsons or Neighbours, but wow, I never saw this coming…

    Good on them. I implore TEN not to compete with TT/ACA is any way shape or form – hopefully with Byrne at the helm this won’t happen.

    Personally I’d be happy to leave it on TEN from 5-7PM if this were to happen (I leave it on in the background).

  25. TEN has a stack of CBS News content they don’t use, including 48 Hours, Face the Nation, the Early Show on weekends, the 60 Minutes stories not aired by Nine, and full CBS Evening News reports they don’t show. So they could use some of that content to help fill a semi-serious 6:30 current affairs program.

    Would assume that the 6:00pm news would be a national bulletin.

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