Media buyers remain pessimistic about Ten’s future despite cuts
Media buyers have described Ten’s move to axe morning breakfast show Wake Up as unsurprising but hold little hope for a turnaround in the beleaguered station’s fortunes anytime soon.
Ten announced the cuts to Wake Up, early, morning and late news bulletins yesterday, with up to 150 staff affected and a voluntary redundancy round already in progress. Eyewitness News at 5pm will continue.
From Monday early news and Wake Up will be replaced by repeats of Ready, Steady Cook, Entertainment Tonight, The Bold and the Beautiful and Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals, while morning news will be a repeat of Masterchef Australia, and late news with Blue Bloods.
One senior media buyer bluntly told Mumbrella they were not shocked by the news yesterday given Wake Up had limped along with dismal ratings of between 30-40,000 daily viewers since it launched in November 2013.
Ten’s executives should hang their heads in shame.
Natasha Belling was a good choice for “Wake-Up” but James Mathieson ???
He seemed “tepid” at best and I (for one), always felt like I waiting for him to do a Movie Review or something.
Wake Up was so middle of the road, it was always going to be run over by the Juggernauts on 7 & 9.
They needed an Andrew Bolt or (dare I say it) Derryn Hinch in the second chair. Someone that would “wake you up” !!!
Sadly, TEN has a long way to go towards attracting viewers and Bold and the Beautiful, Ready Steady Cook, etc. tells me to just F*&*k Off !!!
Agree re the male host – tepid is a great description.
I think Sam Mac would have been great in that role.
Anyone really surprised here. Non TV people running a TV Network is the blind leading the blind in the dark! No change here in the near future!
Casting is SO important… I’d argue that that had a lot to do with the terrible performance of SYTYCD this year… and as for Wake Up… agree with the comments here… definately nothing to drag me away from Today or Sunrise…
I think the idea was to emulate “The Big Breakfast” on UK Channel 4, but upper management basically emasculated the program so as not to offend “middle Australia”.
You could tell there were problems from the start. In one of the first programs, they were interviewing some guy and he kept saying “the problem was the dues” or something like that, and James was wriggling around because someone was screaming in his earpiece, and he interrupted and said “he means d-u-e-s, not j-e-w-s”. LET IT GO !
Could be a bonus for Ten, that may attracted bored 7,9,2, ABC 24 viewers wh all have similar formats
Blunt reality was never going to make people change 20 year old habits from 7 and 9. Back drop on the beach, wrong hosts and content “soft” challenge was forlorn from day 1. For Adam Boland to suggest his personal health which led to his departure was the reason for the cancelation is nothing more than an ego out of control. 1 person can not influence a show not matter how good they think they are. I worked with Adam and yes he was a bright young guy but not SUPERMAN that he had everyone believe he was.