Seven's Sunrise team has hit out at a report the show's high profile hosts Melissa Doyle, David “Kochie” Koch and Natalie Barr only narrowly survived axing as a “big steaming pile of poo”.
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Last night Nine's A Current Affair (ACA) program repeated a story that Adam Boland, former executive producer of Sunrise, had started a secret plan to axe the popular trio, replacing them with unknowns.
The story was part of a pointer to the ABC's Australian Story profile of Boland which also aired last night, detailing the rise and fall of Boland, who recently quit as boss of Ten's morning news programs for health reasons.
“He wasn't looking at anything because [Boland] wasn't in charge of this show at the time,” Koch said.
“He was simply sending an email with his thoughts. Thoughts that were rejected by those actually running the joint.”
But while Koch was explaining calmly, his co hosts were showing their obvious exasperation.
Samantha Armytage, who replaced Doyle earlier this year, rolled her eyes and complained: “I cannot believe that we have given this (claim) more airtime,” she said with a laugh.
“It's such a big steaming pile of poo.”
Koch said he received concerned messages from fans after the ACA story went to air with many thinking he was due to go.
“Well no,” he said on air Tuesday morning. “That (the email) was in 2011 from a bloke who had moved on and saner heads prevailed.”
“Brilliant minds stepped in,” added Barr.
“In breaking news,” Armytage joked, “We’re getting some news about something that didn’t happen three years ago.”
Despite the comments on air this morning, Seven made no official comment on the ACA story and Armytage later tried to soften her response.
"We didn't mean it like that," Armytage tweeted to her 62,000 Twiter followers, "Unfortunate choice of words."
She later added: "Apologies to all about this morning's poor choice of words. My grandfather was bipolar. I would NEVER make light of it."
The world of morning television has received a slight shake-up on this morning, with Ten confirming another tweak to its ailing Wake Up program - the breakfast show started by Boland earlier this year.
Nuala Hafner, who had been hosting from a new studio built in Melbourne’s federation Square, is to move to the program’s Sydney office, working from Manly with co hosts James Mathieson and Natarsha Belling.
This is the third announcement since Boland left Wake Up for health reasons and was replaced by executive producer Steve Wood.
Local news bulletins have been dropped and a weather presenter is due to be named shortly.
