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Biggest Loser was “too close for comfort” says Shannan Ponton

Lynton wins $100,000 as TEN's reality show ends in a rare daytime TV finale.

Flight Instructor Lynton Dalla Rosa has won TEN’s failed reality show The Biggest Loser: Transformed, scooping a $100,000 prize in the process.

He lost 43 kilos and was voted the audience favourite as “most transformed” despite Stonemason Brett earlier winning $50,000 as ‘Biggest Loser.’

“It was hard for me, but I had the support of friends and family,” Lynton said.

The Live final produced by Studio 10 asked the TBL hosts why the show had not been a success in the ratings.

“I think it challenged a lot of people,”said Shannan Ponton. “When your contestants are 250 kilos there’s a degree of separation. We now know that about 70% of Australians are overweight or obese. That’s a lot in that middle section. I think people who are 80 or 90 kilos were being challenged by the show.

“It was a little bit too close for comfort.”

Contestant Nikki, who entered the show at 78 kilos, was also asked about a backlash about being ‘too light’ to be on the show.

“I knew that I was unhealthy,” she said. “78 kilos for me was overweight, and I think everyone got to see that with the DEXA scan. I had 24 kilos of excess fat on my body. I wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle. The thing with me too was I needed self love. It didn’t matter what weight I was, once found that self-love and worked on that mindset throughout the show through eating right and exercising I felt fantastic within myself.”

16 Responses

  1. I’m still dumbfounded that they went through with the finale and $100k cash prize despite TEN’s financial woes. Yasmin wasn’t given the same daytime courtesy, and last I checked, the poor woman is still single!

      1. Out of sheer curiosity, I once checked to see if she had a Facebook account and lo and behold, she was there (I’ve just checked again now, and she’s still active if you’d like to contact her). Judging by what she’s shared publicly, she doesn’t appear to be married yet. I’m surprised that TEN would commit themselves to pay for her wedding all things considered. Perhaps they can get their money’s worth and air the wedding on Studio 10 (if/when it ever happens). A future Bachelorette perhaps?

  2. I think TEN should tell it’s long suffering shareholders – and billionaire smartypants who invested in it – exactly how much they pay for these multi night franchises. That rarely deliver. Was IACGMOOH a massive success?
    Here’s an idea – steer clear of the commercial pack and invest in great once a week dramas and new Australian programmes that provide some point of difference to the MKR, The Voice , House Rules, The Block etc etc.
    I think viewers would welcome a change instead of being asked to give up 4 nights on some confected BS. How these Programmers keep their jobs for so long bettingr everything on black is beyond me.

    1. Previous articles have noted that attempts to programme against stripped shows have failed, both on TEN and Nine. Yes these are big “all or nothing” bets and sometimes they fail. Networks respond to viewing numbers which indicate stripped is working better than non-stripped.

  3. I hope the show returns next season but go back to it old roots. Keep Shannon and Libby as trainers, Fiona as host and bring in a trainer called Amazon(she was featured in the show a few season back) as the 3rd trainer.

    1. I hope The Biggest Loser comes back in 2018 too. Definitely keep Shannan and Libby as trainers (and bring back The Commando), bring back Fiona as host, but don’t put it on against MAFS and MKR. Save it for later in the year.

  4. I guess it was to be expected that Ten would treat the finale with the same gracelessness it did the rest of the series. It was a stupid decision moving it to daytime, showing no faith in their secondary channels or TBL brand itself, especially when it could’ve aired in the Easter non-ratings period. Trying to catch up on the series using Tenplay these last few days has been a joke. The home visits episode before finale was uploaded with only 9 mins of content. Then when they tweeted they were looking into it the episode was removed altogether.

    When I went online again today to see if they’d fixed the problem I was hit with the spoiler of who had won. Even worse, I had to sit through an episode of Studio 10 to see the final makeovers. A complete balls-up from start to finish.

  5. I don’t know why they had the whole Studio 10 panel on the couch and the TBL hosts at the back. It just wasn’t right. It should’ve been just Sarah and Shannon on the couch. Shannon had more of an insight.

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