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Anchors aweigh as Studio 10 is under tow

It was supposed to be a marvel of live television and technology, but Ita Buttrose's appearance this morning on Studio 10 was all at sea.

ita10It was supposed to be a marvel of live television and technology, but Ita Buttrose’s appearance this morning on Studio 10 was all at sea -towed to shore after a water taxi broke down in choppy waters.

Buttrose had been guest-tweeting at Wake Up‘s Manly studio and was then supposed to be whisked away by water taxi to TEN’s Pyrmont headquarters. According to pre-publicity the plan was to transport her “in ultimate style across beautiful Sydney Harbour to Studio 10. And what better way to follow her journey live on television than with a chopper.”

But distance and weather got the better of those plans.

First the 71 year old took a limo to the water taxi, but that also entailed an umbrella all the way to the water’s edge in the first rain-soaked segment, ably escorted by roving reporter Sam Mac. It looked like a queue to get down the pier before reaching the tiny water taxi.

But worse was to come en route, when water got into the fuel, resulting in the engines being stopped and the skipper Michael had to phone for help.

“Sam and I were muttering in the back, ‘it’s a joke,'” she said later. “They’re just pretending. It’s Rob McKnight again, our executive producer. This is his idea of being funny.

“Then he got the anchor out and we thought ‘He’s not joking, it’s real.’ It’s really quite a strange feeling to be in a little craft on quite a rough seas and you’re not in control of the boat.”

Live crosses to Studio 10 from a camera crew showed Buttrose was putting on a brave face, escorted by Sam Mac.

Eventually they were towed by a ferry to Chowder Bay where they hitched a ride in a Commodore back to Pyrmont where an apologetic McKnight was waiting with a bottle of Moet champagne.

What should have taken an hour took almost two, none of it filmed by a live chopper.

“I’ve never been so happy to see Channel TEN’s building in my life!” Buttrose said.


I suppose it’s possible that such a comedy of errors will endear the show to a new audience, but the timing and the metaphors could hardly be worse. Well done to Buttrose for smiling through first-world problems like a trouper.

“It’s the best thing we’ve done yet,” joked Joe Hildebrand.

14 Responses

  1. Whilst I do not think I can ever warm to Natasha for several reasons, but definitely not because of her diction and so called ocka accent, because I am someone who has had hearing problems since birth, and have experienced some of the prejudices that are perceived by others if one does not “Talk Proppa” as we repeat things as we hear them, some good clues are when some of us mispronounce someone’s name, simply because we have heard only one letter differently.

    I can assure anyone who does have excellent/normal hearing how disappointing is to us when our so called uneducated diction is interpreted as exactly that, as us being “Uneducated “, with no better example of being complemented on a written report/proceedure, but received differently when the exact same report is given as a verbal presentation, ‘ people’ its the quality of the content that counts

  2. When I previously suggested that extra efforts would be needed when the sun drenched big white boomers of the rolling surf disappeared and melded into a rain lashed promenade, but little did I expect they would be going out into it, much like natural disaster reporters standing knee deep in flood waters instead of up on the nearest river bank only meters away, surely there were contingency plans and if not why not?.

    Perhaps one urgently needed contingency, would be securely bolting down the base of the pedestal that Mr McKnight has been spruiking from??

  3. The bottle of Moet McKnight handed Ita look suspicious like one out of the box Larry Emdur sent the Studio 10 team on their first day hmm.

    Unfortunately Wake Up was an absolute trainwreck this morning. The weather had been forecast to be bad this week from about Wednesday last week so there was ample time to come up with another plan. The hosts on this show are totally wrong. Natarsha and James appear to have an issue with Natasha, rolling their eyes, cutting her off etc. Hate to say it, but Natasha was a very peculiar choice by Boland and unfortunately most of what people predicted about her has been spot on.

    As for Studio 10, it’s great minus the advertorials. I was no fan of Sarah Harris when she filled in on Today & Mornings for 9 but she is really shining at Ten.

  4. I’ve watched may fair share of morning tv over the years since the 80’s, however Wake Up is just stupid. And today it was capped off by putting Ita in a boat. Wouldn’t you have plan B Mr McKnight. I don’t know how you can go from being a promotions producer to an EP. That’s just ridiculous this morning, time for the EP to wake up!

  5. Tried hard to watch wake up all week good idea ,great bqckdrop wrong people at the helm. Can not stand that tash girl with that okker slang accent . Why is she there.get rid of her , And the delayed news from melbourne is ridiculous. News needs to be live and read live in the studio bring sandra sully in for that. The melbourne experiment is stupid. Cannot watch anymore until these problems are fixed up. Ten should seriously consider bringing in Kerrie anne kenerley .she single handedly could rescue this show.. None of the hosts on this show have any personalities, belling is better than the other two only marginally.as for stusio 10 its growing on me except for the infomercials too many of them

  6. Sam Mac is a blight on Wake Up! He would be the first to go followed by Matho, Noula & Tash. Keep Natarsha Belling bring in Matt Doran & Reuben Mourad to do the weather.
    Forget the ‘local’ bulletins they are an insult to our intelligence.

  7. We were all wondering what would happen to the sparkling beachside backdrop and the north shore location when the sun wasn’t out and the weather turned nasty and we saw it this morning. But it wasn’t a complete disaster. I actually enjoyed the segment on Wake Up showing the fitness fanatic in Black Caviar Budgy Smugglers working out in the rain and the interview with him shortly after. So much so I immediately went to the Budgy Smuggler website and ordered a pair of those togs.

  8. It poured here in Sydney…almost continuously from 11PM last night to 11AM today…I know..I have a metal roof…I doubt they would have be allowed to get a chopper up….we did get a few minutes of sun, just after the last post.
    I would not have liked to have been out on the harbour in a large boat, let alone a small one…bouquet to Ita!!

  9. I’m starting to like this show more, I caught about an hour of it today from 7am. It doesn’t have constant recaps and up next cut aways like Sunrise does, and Sunrise also seems to be very sport focused these days I feel. I think I’ll continue to flick between the two shows.

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