A Channel 10 news show has made history – and not in a good way – after clocking up just 44 viewers to become the worst rating program ever in Australia.
The new show, 10 News First: Breakfast, broadcast its second episode today and received the dismal ratings. The revamped breakfast program comes after channel 10 dropped the first half-hour of Studio 10 to replace it with the news bulletin. It features Natasha Exelby and Lachlan Kennedy as hosts.
The 30-minute broadcast racked up 44 viewers in Sydney and 224 watchers in Perth according to OzTAM figures.
Despite the shockingly low figures, a Channel 10 spokesperson told The Australian that they are satisfied with 10 News First: Breakfast results.
‘Network 10 is happy with the launch of the 10 News First: Breakfast. It has lifted the 2022 timeslot average by 13 per cent in its first week,’ they said.
This year has seen Channel 10’s breakfast news shows cursed with devastating blows. In May, popular Studio 10 host Erin Jayne Plummer passed away. Her death was first made public in a segment on Studio 10 in late May by the show’s hosts Sarah Harris and Angela Bishop.
“We’ve got some really sad news to share this morning,” said Studio 10 host Sarah Harris said. “Over the weekend, Studio 10 lost a little bit of it’s sparkle with our friend and advertorial host Erin Jayne passing away suddenly.
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“Now, for two decades, Erin Jayne has been a friendly and familiar face on Australian tele and for a lot of that, she’s been brightening up our mornings with her bubbly personality and megawatt smile. ”
“Her career began when she plucked from a Sydney beach to star in an international tourism campaign. Then came aerobics Ozstyle watched by forty million people around the world,” added Angela Bishop.
Plummer was best known for regularly hosting advertorials on Studio 10 and the shopping channel TVSN.
A few days after Plummer’s passing a Facebook page was set up in her memory that included the phone number of crisis support and suicide prevention organisation Lifeline.
However, social media activity shows that Plummer’s friends don’t believe that she committed suicide.
“Erin was truly the most beautiful soul I had ever met,” one friend said.
“No words can describe how special she was and the love she had for her three girls.
“She absolutely adored her girls. There is not one person who thinks she would have left her beautiful girls this way.”
Another friend said that she didn’t believe that Plummer was suicidal, either.
“Erin definitely had her battles over the years,” they wrote.
“And all of us wish we could have done more to help carry the weight of her pain. But she was happy and well the last time we saw her. Even her last Instagram post showed she was excited to be back at work.”
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