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Executive Producer quits TEN’s Breakfast

Exclusive: First Andrew Rochford leaves, now exec producer Majella Wiemers quits Breakfast.

EXCLUSIVE: Majella Wiemers, Executive Producer on TEN’s struggling Breakfast programme, has resigned.

She will finish with the show on Friday.

A TEN spokesperson told TV Tonight, “Majella has worked tirelessly on Breakfast and she leaves with TEN’s thanks for her hard work and commitment.

“Her successor as Breakfast EP is Sarah Bristow, who was her deputy.”

Her resignation follows the exit of Andrew Rochford on Friday.

Rochford was the first of three hosts announced for the show last August, but in recent weeks his role diminished. He is well-regarded within TEN and continues on other programmes, including The Project.

After the announcement of Rochford last week come commentators likened the change to “shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Many readers of TV Tonight remarked that it was the high-profile Paul Henry who should have left the show, rather than Rochford.

The controversial Henry was appointed by Lachlan Murdoch in a million dollar deal.

TV Tonight understands internal network research has since given management a detailed understanding of how Henry lacks resonates with audiences, yet he continues with Breakfast.

Since launching in February Breakfast has struggled to perform in the crowded morning television market, hovering around 30,000 while Sunrise and Today chart over 300,000.

TEN maintained it was entering the breakfast market “for the long haul.”

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39 Responses

  1. Disagree @adamnews. I’m not a fan of MacDonald on Late News at all. Ten should have left Sully on Late News. Her ratings were much better and if she had the luxuary of a 10:30pm start time, like MacDonald does, her ratings would have been even stronger.

    “faux-flirting” doesnt make a 3hr breakfast program, correct. But a Belling/MacDonald combo makes for more than flirting. They are talented journalists and I believe Belling could manage to get MacDonald to tone down his poor interviewing technique – actually allowing someone to respond to your questions is Interviewing 101.

  2. I know who they can get!!!
    Kim Watkins!
    She is amazing, connects with people really well, isn’t scared to ask the hard questions and very intelligent. They need to give her something!

  3. That’s not a promo, that’s an awful 30 second cross.

    I mean ads every hour during prime time, and during the day. At least the same as Seven and Nine do, or more.

  4. Long time reader, first time writer as they say. (What a pain having to start an account!)

    Some of the responses on here are rather silly. They’re not going to axe Henry, or Kath, or Magdalena.

    Hamish and Natasha may be faux-flirty on The Circle, but that doesn’t make a 3 hour breakfast show work. Hamish is good on late news, definitely not a fit for morning TV. Natasha is good on the weekend news. Leave it at that.

    They need to fix the PR disaster. The only time the show is in the news is for negative stuff. How bad ratings are, Rochford sacked, EP resigns. How do you do that? Promotion.

  5. Didnt like Henry to start with, but now I tune to Ten just to hear his comments. At least he is saying what a lot of people think not like the others who walk the fine line. Keep him…

  6. If they lost the Kiwi they’d go a long way to gaining more audience, without doing anything else…

    We don’t need more opinionated holier-than-thou breakfast presenters, we already have Sunrise for that. I’m afraid that Kath just doesn’t carry much presence either, hard to say if she would with another co-host or not. At the moment she’s as bland as the presenters on 9’s morning offering. The only reason I’m watching Breakfast now and then is that David Koch makes me want to stab myself in the eye.

    Ten *could* have done great things with this show, as the competition is very stale. Someone at 10 *must* know how to do a breakfast show, the old one with David & Kim was an excellent way to start the day.

  7. If Ten are sticking with Breakfast for “the long haul” than first thing they need to do is replace Henry and Robinson with Natarsha Belling and Hamish MacDonald. Belling and MacDonald have an excellent rapport which has been demonstrated on numerous occasion on The Circle.

    The public hasn’t warmed to Henry at all so best end the agony now. As for MacDonald, Ten Late News isn’t rating as Ten would have hoped. Put Sully back where she belongs. She has a loyal following and was easily outrating MacDonald even when cancellation was imminate.

    The new Ten Late News was advertised with MacDonald as the headline act but it’s become more of an ensemble. He lacks rapport with Kitson and McEwen – they come across as nothing but awkward.

    Time for Ten to really get serious and aim for ratings success. Their “news revolution” was a dismal failure, as has Breakfast been. Late News has potential but fancy graphics and colourful pants arent going to cut it for long. They need Sully to bring back a national audience.

  8. Given the amazing similarity between the two existing big breakfast shows, I reckon there was space & time for something new, but really they couldn’t have done a worse job than Breakfast, almost solely because of Paul Henry. The bloke has absolutely no credibility. They say he calls it as he sees it and that is the problem! No-one cares a jot about how he sees it. When he is gone, start again and be innovative next time (e.g The Project). Give us some choice!

  9. I agree with what people have said and are saying about Paul Henry, he definitely needs to go. However, it is unfair to refer to Majella Weimers simply as a weather presenter. She did do the weather for a while several years ago, but she’s been a producer since at least 2000-2001 and a journalist prior to that.

  10. The sooner this gets axed the better. They can say all they like about being in ” for the long haul” but viewership will simply continue to fall off.

  11. Actually, or should I say Seriously, bettestreep is correct, Majella Wiemers was the replacement weather girl on Nine, filling in for Jaynie Seal when she became pregnant.

  12. I think the problem with this show started right from the outset when it was announced it was to be modelled on “The Project”. How can you possibly have a successful breakfast program when it is modelled on another failed Ten concept?

    The figures for this show are so bad I seriously think that had they gone back 20 years and named The show “Good Morning Australia” and got Kerri-Anne for the gig again it would have been guaranteed to rate higher than this.

  13. Majella may bear some responsibility for the show’s performance – but whoever put together the original team of 3 – and it may not have been her decision – is where the success or failure of the venture lies. Paul Hnery dominates everything he presents, Kath is way too nice as contrast, and Dr Dimples had no chemistry with either co-host. That and the fact that there are 4 brekkie shows, and 3 morning shows – too much!

    And as for weather presenters or former on camera folk turning into executives – former pop star Lin Buckfield (Electric Pandas) is now a multi Walkley award winning Producer and currently Media Watch’s EP.

    ‘Breakfast’ has more problems than its behind the scenes personnel.

  14. We all know how this will end so why don’t they just get on with it and send Henry back to New Zealand now and find someone a lot more palatable to look at and listen to in the morning?

  15. Oh wow – I didn’t realise that the weathergirl was actually the EP as well.

    I guess after paying the horrible Paul Henry millions of dollars – they had to save some money so they combined the EP/weathergirl roles.

    Totally agree with the suggestion that Henry should have been given the boot.

    However this is one of Murdoch’s decisions and he will rather see the entire network go bankrupt rather than admit he made a stupid decision.

    Remember One.Tel?

    And how about the nepotism for giving his wife Sara the hosting job for So you think you can dance meets The Voice.

    Seriously Kelly Rowland and Jason DeRulo are the team coaches – couldn’t find any Australians to do the job TEN????

  16. As EP Majelle Weimers has to bear the responsibility for the failure of Breakfast.

    That said, what was Ten doing hiring a weather presenter to EP it’s foray into the hyper competitive Am timeslot.

    And her replacement is her deputy? You mean someone under the weather presenter… oh boy… the blind leading the blind at Breakfast.

    Ten should have hired Adam Boland.

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