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Behind the scenes rumours nag Breakfast

Media speculation today questions behind-the-scenes friction on the set of TEN's Breakfast led to Andrew Rochford exiting the ailing show.

Media speculation today questions behind-the-scenes friction on the set of TEN’s Breakfast led to Andrew Rochford exiting the ailing show.

An unnamed source tells the Sunday Telegraph, “Paul (Henry) and Andrew couldn’t stand being in the same room as each other, which is part of the reason Andrew moved from being on the couch with Paul and Kathryn (Robinson) to roaming around the building and then leaving.”

“It is an absolute disaster,” said one source close to the production. “I’ve heard pretty much everyone on the show is looking for another job.”

Both Rochford and producer Majella Weimers have exited the show, with TEN confirming Weimers had resigned. She was replaced by her deputy Sarah Bristow, who has worked with co-host Paul Henry in New Zealand.

Aside from an occasional spike in numbers, such as last Monday’s 45,000 viewers, ratings haven’t yet improved.

TV Tonight has also heard suggestions that staff have been trying to switch to other programmes such as TEN Late News.

Rochford remains well-regarded within TEN, returning to The Project. He was the first to be cast on the show, critically there for the network when it announced the show at its 2012 programming launch last August.

Henry recently told Mumbrella, “Where do I begin? You want everybody to be on the same page at the same time. If it is truly going to evolve properly it will take a long time to get to its best. It’s a long, long way from its best now.”

TEN declined an interview request with Paul Henry by TV Tonight.

A spokeswoman for TEN told the Sunday Telegraph: “As we have said many, many times, we are committed to Breakfast.”

30 Responses

  1. Channel ten should dump the current show and hosts, but keep Ron Wilson as the new host, bring back Jessica Rowe to also host with Ron. They were a good pair on the evening news.
    Next, change the show name to “Good Morning Australia” and base it in Sydney, don’t have advertorials, they will get more audience support.
    Because I will start to watch this show.

  2. I’ve said it once before on this blog and I’ll say it again. Ten would be better off capturing the British expat market and simply broadcasting either the BBC or ITV’s primary equivalent of NBC Today.

  3. @Craig – There is another one, with twice as many viewers – ABC24 Breakfast.
    Well, actually a few million viewers if you add Australia Network.

  4. Paul Henry is not someone you would look up to for breakfast news. I don’t know what his appeal is, as he doesn’t seem to have any, as far as being a host on the show is concerned. He has a reputation of being immature. Ten must have rocks in their heads.

  5. I really think this show needs a complete relaunch. Keep Ron Wilson on news and Magdalena Rose on weather, and maybe bring someone on for sport.

    Ditch the Breakfast name, ABC already has it and it would let people know the show is changing, change to name they use to have and what I’ve thought it should be all along GMA Good Morning Australia. Audiences already know of the American GMA show, especially now with the news of them beating the Today show. ABC have just started Good Afternoon America to build on the success of the brand during Summer.

    Do a show on a Saturday and Sunday and on a Saturday run a new ep of The Circle rather repeats, maybe with a different four then during the week, gives a better option then the repeats on 7 & 9 and then on a Sunday after GMA run Meet The Press and The Bolt Report.

    Get rid of the two co-hosts, I don’t like Paul Henry (why is Kiwi doing an Aussie job?) and Kat Robinson, while she seems nice doesn’t seem (from the very, very little I’ve seen) very appealing, a little dull no camera. Just me though and I really haven’t seen enough to pass full judgement.

    Maybe give some fresh blood a go at it, younger people, after all this network is suppose to be focused on the youth.

    Get rid of the set and start over, making it much better and have cameras setup somewhere in Sydney that were shown in real-time on plasmas to give viewers something interesting to look at and see what was going on; to me its what makes Sunrise a better show than the others.

    Finally fix up The Circle by finding 4 permanent hosts again to build up the audience and get used four familiar faces not changing ones, I really like Mishel Laurie (I think thats how she spells it). Anyway thats just my 2 cents on how they could improve the show!!!

  6. Hey David, The Daily Telegraph has quoted you as saying “Breakfast” should be plotting a relaunch for 2013.

    dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/ten-serves-up-a-dogs-breakfast/story-e6frewyr-1226426046055

  7. Best plan would be to ditch Breakfast for the rest of 2012 and relaunch in January with new hosts. Henry may have been a hit in New Zealand but he is a no one in Australia. Ten are always sprouting they’re target audience is a younger demographic well hiring Henry goes totally against that theory.

    Ideal hosts would be Hamish MacDonald and Natarsha Belling who have an excellent rapport and are both talented journalists.

    The relaunch of Ten Late News with MacDonald has hardly set the world on fire. It has peaked at 240,000 with a 10:30 timeslot. At 10:30pm Sandra Sully’s version would rate over 400,000 and it didnt require a “musical act” to draw in viewers. Move Sully back to Late News, keep the same format and watch the ratings drastically improve.

    That leaves the issue, however, of who to replace Sully with at 5pm where ratings have improved substantially over the past 2 months.

    Perhaps keep Sully where she is and move Matt Doran to the Late News. To my surprise he actually outshone MacDonald when he filled in.

  8. People want to agree with the people on these shows.
    Just think:
    Talkback radio: agree with the listeners
    Today and Sunrise: the people on them make informed, and good decisions that you can either agree with or learn from
    Breakfast: Paul disagrees with everything ever.

    And he’s just not likable. It’s not that we don’t want change, it’s that the TEN Breakfast is bad.

  9. Murdoch must love Henry’s right wing views,(like he does Andrew Bolt’s) and is determined to keep him on regardless of wrecking the brand and the show.
    II wonder if Gina gets more control of 10, will she will make sure Bolt compares Breakfast as well

  10. If they ever do change the host and they want to try again. I suggest they change the name. So they fully disassociate themselves from the previous show. I’ll note I don’t advocate a name change lightly because I loathe the new 7.30 Reports current name. And can’t wait for it to be changed back.

  11. The only way out of this issue, is for Ten to rethink their entire morning news strategy.

    In my mind, the best way to go, will be, for Ten to air local news in all it’s markets, from 6-9am Mon-Fri. It would prove a point against stiff competition, as well as reflecting the need for local news at breakfast time, that makes breakfast talk radio so successful.

  12. People like Paul Henry who have inflexible socio-political views and who insist on dragging their prejudices and bias into what they do will always marginalise many potential viewers – at least half, if not more. It’s no wonder the ratings are so low. We need a new, fresh approach to Breakfast but this guy just isn’t it. The majority of people simply don’t care what his opinion is. End of story!!

  13. So, let’s get this straight- there’s a man on a show that people who work on camera don’t like, people behind he camera don’t like and people watching (or for that matter not watching) the show don’t like. So, the guy in front of the camera quits, the people behind the camera quit or are scrambling to find new jobs and the people who should be watching aren’t.
    Is it just me or is there a really simple remedy to this situation?

  14. Just saw an article on the Sunday Times here in Perth and I am truly amazed that Breakfast sometimes has virtually 0, yes 0 viewers on some days here in the West.

  15. I have only watched it once, and I wonder why people don’t watch ABC News 24, no ads, no screaming singers, and really a very watchable show in order I would say for myself, ABC news breakfast, Sunrise, Ten’s show and then coming last Channel 9’s production, been so long since I saw it I can not even remember the name of the show, ahh thats right Today and Sunrise and Breakfast real imaginative names.

  16. I have rarely seen a more unappealing host. If they are committed to the show, he needs to go , otherwise put cartoons back on, they wiull triple their ratings. !!!!!

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