Australian Story airs Adam Boland profile next week

Australian Story‘s profile on TV producer Adam Boland will screen next Monday night on ABC1.

The episode looks at the former Wake Up producer’s bipolar disorder and breakdown whilst launching his most recent venture at TEN.

Interviewees include his former news boss Peter Meakin, former colleague Studio 10 producer Rob McKnight, The Australian media journalist Michael Bodey, partner Kenny Ang and mother Chrissy.

The episode is introduced by Jessica Rowe, who has dealt with her own form of depression, and worked with Boland at both Seven and TEN.

This one is bound to attract plenty of media attention.

“It’s that Shakespearean arc you have when people vie for something that they want so desperately and are taken down by that very thing. He wanted to be in television since he was a child but it’s what cost him in the end.”
Kenny Ang, Adam Boland’s partner

“It’s like Willy Wonka’s been eaten by the chocolate. I don’t think the final chapter’s been written yet.”
Peter Meakin, Channel Ten

Since he can remember, Adam Boland has lived and breathed television. He recalls as a young child staring through the fence at Channel Seven thinking it was a place where dreams come true. By his early twenties he was working there and at 26 was handed the reins of Sunrise, Seven’s ailing breakfast show.

Within two years it was the No 1 breakfast show in the country, helping turn around the fortunes of the Seven Network and contributing to the rise of a then little-known Queensland MP, Kevin Rudd.

One of Boland’s initiatives, says media writer Michael Bodey, was the idea of the Sunrise “family”, making the show a club every viewer could join. As his mother Chrissy points out, Sunrise was also Adam’s family. “He craved family because he grew up with very little family,” she says.

In the workplace he was a polarising figure, “loved by many, hated by some” according to former boss Peter Meakin. “It was always ‘Adam Boland’s new venture’, not ‘David Koch’s new venture’, says Meakin. “He was the star of the show and some producers don’t like that.”

Boland’s obsessive nature, creative flair and ability to work long hours gave him the edge in a fiercely competitive industry. But it also pointed to an underlying mental health condition – bipolar disorder. After a breakdown in 2007, Boland says he was formally diagnosed and prescribed medication. He took the drugs briefly but found they blunted his edge.

Boland became increasingly restless at Seven, finally leaving the network early last year. A week later he announced he was joining Channel Ten to establish rival breakfast and morning shows. For many former colleagues it was an act of betrayal.

Three days after the launch of the shows Boland suffered a breakdown. He returned to work a few months later but soon had to face the truth – he could no longer work in the only industry he’d ever known. So he quit, vowing never to return.

Now Adam Boland faces perhaps his greatest challenge – “to find out who I am without television”.

Monday March 24, 8pm on ABC1.