Wake-Up not before November
Adam Boland's new breakfast show apparently won't start before November, while it digs a deeper publicity trench for itself.
- Published by David Knox
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TEN’s new breakfast show Wake-Up had its press conference announcing its cast in July, but the show won’t air before November according to a media report yesterday.
The Age reports transmission will not begin until November, because TEN needs to dig a trench from its Pyrmont headquarters to Manly, to bring out eight cameras on separate lines.
The “trench-digging,” which was flagged at the July conference, is being conducted by third parties and the network is effectively at their scheduling mercy. And their potential delays. The show will be doing well if it can actually get on air this year.
“There is a bit of chaos in breakfast TV right now,” Executive Producer Adam Boland tells The Age.
“Now, I’ve just poached quite a few people out of Sunrise – which hasn’t helped my relationship with Michael, by the way – but the reason I was able to get them so easily is these are talented people with creative ideas and they’re not getting them up.”
Michael is of course, Michael Pell, Boland’s former partner and current exec producer on Sunrise.
“He takes his show very seriously – which is a great thing, and he’s a very good producer – but he’s taken the fact that I am now setting up a show essentially to compete against him, and my own show, very seriously. But I take the view I’ve got the chance to do something new,” he says.
Much has been written about their former relationship, which frankly is one of hundreds that have developed amongst colleagues in the industry. Not a great deal of detail has been put on the record by either party. But with both set to compete at opposite networks it’s one that is fascinating the industry.
And by that I mean the industry more than the audience.
The audience really just wants to see less hype and more content.
Amongst the other observations are:
- Seven could have handled Doyle’s transition better
- He was bored during his final 2 years at Seven
- He doesn’t want to eat his cat
But scan The Age article and you will find no trace of the three people who are fronting Wake Up: Natarsha Belling, Natasha Exelby and James Mathison.
Its focus is on Boland and his history with an ex-partner. By any measure that’s a publicity failure.
I understood the idea of announcing the hosts of Wake Up was to excite us about their chemistry. But I’ve seen very little of it, I heard very little of it at the Press Conference and now it seems I won’t see it until November at the earliest. At this rate I may well have viewer fatigue before the thing has even started.
Yesterday on Twitter Boland made an apology, “I hereby apologise to anyone who has ever been in a relationship with me. I suspect I’ve offended them all during an interview with The Age.”
That Boland and Pell are both accomplished at their roles is evident from something called OzTAM ratings. But while articles run way past a line in the sand called “too much information” the only winner here is a bloke called Neil Breen at Today.
Digging a trench, indeed…
31 Responses
I think Adam Boland should be applauded for being so honest and candid. He’s actually opened up about living with a mental illness and that’s a really positive thing and should break down barriers surrounding understanding illnesses like bipolar. He has shown you can have a mental illness and be incredibly successful and what he shared about his bipolar is not “too much information”. To suggest it is is akin to encouraging people with mental illness to remain silent and that doesn’t help our society deal with it. Did he have to talk about his relationship with Michael? No. But I also respect him for doing it, it was a fascinating article and why should he have to hide what he thinks and feels. We should see more of this and it is in no way bad publicity. If only all prominent tv execs would speak as openly and honestly as Adam Boland!
Thanks Ryan. There is actually no reference that discussing bipolar, which has been on the record before, was “too much information.” There were other personal history quotes which have since been deleted from the article. Thanks.
At least, someone is trying to bring something new. Good on you Adam! I hope this will kick start a new era of diminishing boredom in our Australian TV
David, as always: wise words. You’ll be pleased to learn we are about to launch a major viral campaign showcasing each of the presenters – and then, their chemistry. And we were always keen on a summer launch – not the least being because, our main studio is at a beach! We never wanted to rush things. We will get on air when the show is right. It will be tough enough to change viewing habits — that task won’t be made any easier if the show looks rushed. And as some have noted, the fibre is a pretty smart technical way of doing things. Cuts sat delay, removes comms issues etc etc. Everything is on track. The only thing that will derail things is a nutty EP having too many on the record lunches and over sharing about things best left unshared! One of many character flaws.
Thanks Adam. Appreciate the feedback.
Point of order, it was an SMH article.
Yesterday on Twitter Boland made an apology, “I hereby apologise to anyone who has ever been in a relationship with me. I suspect I’ve offended them all during an interview with The Age.”
Adam Boland (lives in the City) and the rest of the production team will be at Pyrmont whilst the show will take place at Manly and Downtown Melbourne.
muscledude_oz all though having a live feed via satellite is a good idea, running it up to 3 hours a day 5 days a week would be expansive, not to mention the cost of having a crew on location and a crew back in the studio. the cables is expansion but its a one of cost,
Also as you probably know satellite feeds are unpredictable and the signal could be lost at any given time, esp on cloudy days.
He doesn’t want to eat his cat
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You mean hat ?? David ?
Vinny: No, cat.
Don’t generally watch morning television but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to launch the program in summer against a summer series of sunrise or today to give then a chance to gel before ratings. If its such a big deal that they launch earlier can’t they find a temporary solution until the main studio is ready. Maybe do broadcasts in different states until sorted. They need to think outside the box.
Why bother launching in November with only a few weeks to the end of the ratings year?
A trench from Pyrmont to Manly? I need more detail on how that works
The big story here is this 15k trench. A lot of infrastructure for a show that could fail.
@Bella lol. the reality show sounds like a great idea. I would watch that
Why dig a trench? Just sink the cables in the harbour from the ten studios all the way to Manly.
Sounds like the planned setup will be a bit more complicated than a simple outside broadcast, they plan to control the cameras etc. from Pyrmont remotely ie less crew so cheaper in the long term, that’s if it ends up having a long term.
Seems like its no expense spared, big move for such a high risk project.
I still think they have their priorities wrong. Put this money into a primetime show. Masterchef does not have a long term future. Ten will go into 2014 with very little content.
Sounds like a fairly costly and old fashioned way to get vision back to the studio. I remember when I was doing media at school in 1976 our teacher set us an assignment before the October long weekend that we had to watch the Bathurst car race on Channel Seven, and there would be a discussion and test about it on the Tuesday when we returned.
Even back then, almost 40 years ago you would have the cameras and broadcast van on site at Mt Panorama and send the feed back to the studio in Sydney via satellite for live transmission.
Surely going back to the future and digging trenches across Sydney (and under the harbour) is a fairly slow and expensive way to get a program onto the air.
I read the article and there was a sense of no love lost between the two (Boland & Pell) professionally of course. It was a court order that prevented Boland from leaving seven.
I’m looking forward to Wake up it is looking like being something very different in a timeslot that has a very set in format.
I think they got ahead of themselves. Maybe they should just launch it in 2014?
Or make a new reality show. The Trench — 5 couples build a trench in 10 weeks.
I understand why they want the trench etc… but to get the show on the air (when the set is finished being built) cant they just use a short term set up as an OB like Today or Sunrise do whenever they go outside the studio?
Surely that has got to be better.
Ten definitely need to launch Studio 10 early otherwise viewers will get frustrated.
If they could also reinstate some news bulletins to warm the slot and to cover the election that would be a good start.
I’m still bemused as to why Ten ever axed Breakfast. When they did the relaunch into the Ten newsrooms around August average viewers rose from 30,000 to 60,000 and growing. For all the effort Boland will still be lucky to get over 100,000 viewers daily.
A 20Km cable? 8 cameras? You’ve got to be kidding.
I’m bored already, waiting for this to happen.
This seems like an expensive show to produce. Ten must have very deep pockets. I just wish they had cast it better. Still think Natasha Exelby and James Mathison are not right. Maybe I will be proved wrong.
I just dont understand why they have cast Excelby and Matherson. Did anyone watch This Week Live, how to create the most awkward and cringeworthy interview 101! At least with Paul we were all on the edge of our seats waiting for something funny to happen.
This Manly Beach idea had better be worth it. It’s holding up the show by several months. I wonder whether or not they will wait for Wake Up to launch Studio 10?
I don’t mind Natarsha Belling, but she’s not a reason for me to specifically tune in. I also don’t mind Mathison, but i think he works better in supporting/occasional gigs.
However I can’t stand Natasha Exelby. She’s horribly annoying to me. In fact she’s probably the main reason i wont even give this a go.
They’re definitely losing momentum with it all though… when talks first arose of new morning shows on Ten, there was a bit of excitement about what might be offered and if they really were capable of doing something fresh.
But that all seems to have been diluted now. None of the announced hosts have got people particularly interested and it just seems to have been coming soon, coming soon, coming soon… might be stale by the time it arrives