TV3 cans breakfast business programming

Thursday 8th April 2010

TV3's owners, Mediaworks, are cutting their losses on their low-rating breakfast television programming, cutting ASB Business and the Sunrise programmes, citing the need to cut costs.

The morning news shows launched two and a half years ago, but had struggled to rate against TVNZ's Breakfast line-up, which was rating 4.1% of the potential audience against 0.6% for Sunrise last month.

Sunrise had targeted a younger audience, but in the 18 - 49 age group, Breakfast was outrating TV3's offering by more than five times, increasing its average rating from 3% to 3.3%.

As many as 20 redundancies are possible, although some redeployments are likely, particularly among presenters with established reputations such as Mike Wilson, who was wooed to TV3 with sponsor ASB when the breakfast programmes launched, after years presenting the TVNZ equivalent.

"Despite helping grow the total early morning television audience, the cost of producing these programmes has proven to be unsustainable - particularly in the current economic environment," said MediaWorks TV Executive Director, Ian Audsley

“We have not taken this decision lightly, and it has been the subject of a lot of debate and discussion at both a Board and Management level – ultimately it has been the Board’s decision.

“Despite the terrific work of the people involved and the commitment of everyone at TV3, we’ve not been able to make these programmes work financially. Today’s announcement is not a reflection on the calibre of the people involved in the production of the programmes. They’re as good and capable a team as any I’ve seen anywhere,” Audsley said.

Businesswire.co.nz

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