Paul Henry's Breakfast show on Ten has been axed for persistently low ratings. It seems that Australian television viewers didn't have quite the high opinion of Paul Henry as he does of himself.
In June the host of Breakfast predicted the show’s rating's would improve once its inexperienced production team had found its feet. Apparently the dismal ratings had nothing to do with the fact that Australian television viewers just didn't like Paul Henry and his right wing bigotry.
Said Henry ”Everyone thinks breakfast is the people you see on television. Much more of breakfast is the ice under the water, and it’s new for all of them.'
But two months later Breakfast continued to struggle pulling in roughly one-tenth of the number of viewers that its morning rivals were getting. It had an audience of just 30,000 and it was making no money despite costing $7 million to produce - $1 million of that reportedly being pocketed by Paul Henry.
In comparison, Seven's Sunrise was pulling in a daily audience of some 370,000 while Nine's Today was attracting a daily audience of approximately 310,000.
One former Ten executive described the hiring of Paul Henry as “The worst on-air appointment I’ve seen in 20 years”.
One viewer observed: "Get rid of the nasty guy with glasses and ratings may rise."
But Ten ignored this sensible advice possibly because Henry was the personal pick of Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, who flew to New Zealand to meet 'the genius'.
So Henry will have to find somewhere else to inflict his sneering right wing bigotry and he may be looking to TVNZ to meet his big fat salary demands. He is reported to be a contender to take over from Mark Sainsbury once Close Up is closed down for good at the end of the year.
Given the lamentably low standards exhibited by TVNZ's news and current affairs service, its not surprising that the state-owned channel appears to have no concerns about allowing Henry to re-commence his on air love affair with the Prime Minister.
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