Wake Up axed, cuts to TEN News.
Wake Up, TEN Early, Morning & Late News are no more from Friday, as TEN cuts costs.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News, Top Stories
TEN has confirmed the end for Wake Up and the TEN Early, Morning and Late News from Friday, May 23, as part of wider network redundancies.
The decision, made this morning at a Board meeting, is understood to affect approximately 150 staff.
TEN issued the following statement:
Network Ten would like to thank the people involved with Wake Up and the TEN Early, Morning and Late News for their dedication, enthusiasm and hard work.
TEN Eyewitness News at 5pm will continue to be produced locally in each market. It will continue to have local news, sport and weather, local presenters, local reporters and local production staff, and will continue to bring the best of local, national and international news to viewers.
A voluntary redundancy program has commenced in Network Ten’s News and Operations department.
No further details are available at this stage.
TEN is understood to be in discussions with Wake Up hosts Natarsha Belling and James Mathison about their future with the network.
CEO Hamish McLennan also emailled staff today:
Today we are announcing a series of proposed changes at Network Ten.
As you all know, the television advertising market has been soft in recent years. At the same time, our ratings, revenue and earnings performance has been disappointing.
It is a tough period for Ten and we need to take some painful, but necessary, measures to restructure the business.
Our existing business model needs to change and we need to achieve greater efficiencies, tighter cost management and greater focus in terms of the parts of the company in which we invest.
A review has been conducted to establish a new structure for Ten and to better allocate our resources, with the aim of improving our performance.
As a result of that review, there are proposed changes to News programs, the structure of News and Operations, and other departments.
Unfortunately, it is proposed that Wake Up and the Early, Morning and Late News will cease production on Friday, May 23, 2014. Studio 10 is performing well and will continue as a vital part of our daytime schedule, which ranks number one.
Despite the commitment and enthusiasm of its staff, Wake Up has not resonated with enough viewers to make it a viable program.
It is very disappointing that these programs have not been more successful, but I would like to thank everyone involved with them for their focus, dedication and hard work.
We need to use our News resources – staff and content – more effectively, while continuing to provide high-quality local News services.
TEN Eyewitness News at 5pm, which is consistently number one in its timeslot, will continue to be produced locally in each market. It will continue to have local presenters, reporters, production staff and so on. It will continue to bring local news to viewers.
A process of consultation will begin tomorrow around a proposed voluntary redundancy program in News, Operations and Engineering. Consultation will take place in each station with the News Directors, Operations Managers and Human Resources staff to manage this process.
We are in a constant, fierce battle for the attention of viewers and we need to ensure we are investing in the areas that will deliver the greatest potential in terms of audiences and revenue.
The next few weeks will be a difficult and sad period, as colleagues leave the business.
Let me assure you the changes are not being undertaken lightly. No one is happy about them, but unfortunately they are necessary.
To the people affected by today’s announcement, please accept my thanks for your important contribution to Ten.
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- Tagged with TEN Eyewitness News, Wake Up
67 Responses
It should be an interesting show tomorrow for ‘Wake Up’ LOL
@glennc – I only asked because ever since TP first went to air there have been calls for it to be axed, just surprised that wasn’t the case here. Yes the ratings are good by TEN standard and it’s a show I watch just about every night.
Maybe TEN needs to stick with things a bit longer before dropping the axe?
@aussie
dull line up …..overkill on the Jamie and cooking programs …. Ten seems to be obsessed with cooking programs since playing MC …..ridiculous then to have an encore(technical term for repeat) of MC in the middle of the day – overkill again ….. they should get a telemovie and play that instead …… that should break up the whole day from the oversupply of reality crap, cooking and light entertainment(if you could call it that) like Judge Judy …..
I’ve made no secret of the fact I am a fan of Wake Up. I watch each day for about 1 hour and have made it part of my mornings. I’ll definitely miss Wake Up. In my opinion it offered better news than the other channels and found Tarsh, James and Nuala very likable. I feel particularly sorry for Tarsh, I recall an interview on here not too long ago where she described it as her “dream job”. I think she’s probably taken this decision very tough.
It’s sad to think all the crew and on screen talent must now put on brave faces for another 2 days. I’d like to think there is still a place at 10 for Tarsh- whether it’s on the Project or filling in at Studio 10 when Sarah’s on holiday.
I just think the show didnt market itself very well- most of my friends didnt even know it was on. Channel 10 never really took any steps to improve the ratings which is what annoys me most. I feel so…
I’ve never seen morning TV but a real shame to lose all these jobs. 10 should be mighty ashamed of their gross mismanagement of a once great network.
@Craig The Project is going nowhere. Not sure why you think it would be cut given it actually rates reasonably well for Ten. The 7pm-7.30pm block is often Ten’s 2nd or 3rd best program (and 1st or 2nd in the actual ratings period).
Very sad day for Australian television. Yet again, this excellent newsroom cops it after continual idiotic management decisions.
By the way, ABC isn’t the only late news – there’s also an exceptional late service on SBS.
For sale, fibre optic cable Manly to Pyrmont, only used Nov13 to May14.
I am not surprised that wake up as been axed. It was expected.I can’t help but feel that they made the same mistake as they did with breakfast. It was bland especially the content. Not sure where Tarsh can go from here. Surely they should have kept the morning news at least.I don’t even know if matt doran and hermione kitson have a job waiting for them. A disappointing result for Ten.
TEN schedule from Monday 26 May 2014:
6:00-7:00 Ready Steady Cook
7:00-7:30 Entertainment Tonight [encore]
7:30-8:00 The Bold and the Beautiful [encore]
8:00-8.30 Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals
8:30-11:00 Studio 10
11:00-12:30 MasterChef Australia [encore]
12:30-13:30 Dr Phil
13:30-14:30 Come Date With Me
14:30-15:00 Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals
15:00-15:30 Judge Judy
15:30-16:00 Entertainment Tonight
16:00-16:30 Everyday Gourmet with Justine
16:30-17:00 The Bold and the Beautiful
17:00-18-00 TEN Eyewitness News
Mr J – Adam Boland has no responsibility for this. He did what he could for Channel Ten, but his health had to come first. The buck stops with Channel Ten management – Wake Up’s failure and the redundancies lie at the feet of the management, not Adam.
Let the man enjoy his new life away from TV in peace.
@deedeedragons No!
what will become of the trench now?
I’ve just seen some of Nine 6pm news in Melbourne & they had a whole story devoted to Ten cut backs. To put that in the first 15 min slot of the news seems like they are revelling in Ten’s losses, typical!
@cjschris completely agree, it left things with a negative feel. Sorry for Natarsha though, she is lovely to watch & a good news reader so i hope somewhere more worthy will snap her up.
I’m sure those who allowed the ridiculous amount of spending on Wake Up haven’t been made redundant even though they should be the first to go. The show had potential but Ten gave up months ago. A revamp of hosts, beefing up the content and it may have stood a chance. Feel for Natarsha Belling who took a risk leaving the newsroom. There’s basically nothing left for her at the network.
As for the axing of newsroom jobs, Ten has the best commercial news service which already operates on a skeleton staff. If Ten let Sandra Sully go, the world is ending.
I saw this coming!!! What 10 needs to do now is have The Simpsons in the mornings as a lot of teens would love to watch it in the mornings. It would compete better with ABC as well. Late night timeslot should be an American Show.
Sad news .Surprised no one has commented yet about how these axes/job losses have occured without a reference to how Andrew Bolt has survived the cuts. (However Wil Anderson nailed this in a tweet today)
It is amazing how 3850 TV meters can literally demolish hundreds of jobs in this country. Management of course is in part to blame, but surely we do need a more robust, accurate and modern live system that can give us a true indication of what people are watching. ( real time)
If TEN become a budget network again, the AFL, NRL & Rugby will lose potentially hundreds of millions in the next FTA TV rights. Which in turn will effect a lot of people.
NEWS need to act asap a try to salvage this once great network.
to many good people work there.
@deedee: Making TEN a non-stop Simpsons channel is not as far-fetched as it sounds. After all, there is a radio station in the US which plays nothing but Elvis songs.
Never watched Wake Up but sorry about people losing their jobs. Will miss the late night news though.
In the Australian Story episode on Boland he talked about creating a family vibe for breakfast TV with Sunrise. And that’s so true, they have real chemistry on 7, and it has a fun atmosphere.
But the fact that Natasha Exelby was sacked just weeks after the show started meant the show was destined to fail. Not only did it break the 4th wall (Wake Up became just another TV show), but it brought the show negative headlines, and from that point on I was just counting the days until the axe would fall. Even if she wasn’t the personality the show needed, surely Ten could’ve just put her somewhere else on the show rather than publicly axe her. Instead there was just a constant “oh there’s an axe hanging over their heads” feeling every day. No confidence in their product. And surely that decision should’ve been given more time for consideration, or have been made by more people.
I am a bit surprised especially for those of us who cannot always be there at 5,6 or 7pm for the News services that they are making these chops.What next for a replacement for the late night Bulletins.The Cleveland Show or Benny Hill?Lets wait and see what they plan.
Not sure how expensive it would be, but there is almost an argument for Ten to go off air for a pre-determined time, and plan themselves from scratch. This policy on the run strategy and seemingly high lack of change management planning is doing them no favours in winning new revenue and viewers and so far (apart from maybe the Big Bash, and even then…) no new ideas to attract ratings. They need to confirm once and for all who they want to be, run with it for 3 years at least and then assess.
Might as well make 10 a 24/7 Simpsons channel. it would probably rate better.
Sad news, but completely expected. They learnt very little from the Breakfast disaster. Wake Up tried to copy Sunrise and Today with a much smaller budget. The only differences were that it was set at the beach, and the newsreader was in a different location. Neither of these things proved to be much of an advantage which just highlighted how much more money Sunrise and Today had to giveaway and put on huge intl music performances.
10 had the opportunity to bridge to enourmous gap between the pointless fluff of Sunrise and Today and the heavy politics of ABC24 but chose not to do it. A morning version of The Project (or something like Studio 10) would have done this and the guests and hosts would have been very interchangeable. I’m happy to hear Studio 10 is staying as its excellent.
10 continue to fail to learn from its mistakes.
I said in October last year this would be a flop.
Whoever thought James , Tash and Tarsh would would work is nuts. You need people like Kerri Anne- if she doesn’t work nothing will ever!