IT’S been a fairly bleak month for Network Ten.
First it was the axing of ailing breakfast show Wake Up, along with its early, morning and late news bulletins and then the confirmation of company-wide job cuts and redundancies.
News Corp revealed earlier this week that some of Ten’s most familiar faces will disappear from our screens from as early as next month, as well as others behind the scenes — a total of 150 jobs nationwide.
But while everyone anguishes over the doom and gloom of mass redundancies and the rocky state of Australia’s television networks, it’s important to remember that Ten has been here before.
In 2012, the beleaguered network lost about 100 colleagues as part of a cost-cutting drive in the wake of a full year net loss of $12.9 million.
In wielding the axe the first time, plenty of longstanding TV talent was culled. But 18 months down the track, many of the former employees are flourishing in new roles.
“It’s called Ten’s Manus Island,” one insider told news.com.au, adding that there was indeed life after leaving the commercial TV network. Here’s the proof.
RON WILSON:
Veteran Ten newsreader Ron Wilson had been with the network for 34 years when he was let go after its morning offerings Breakfast and Morning News ceased production in November, 2012.
“The crunch finally came for me a year and a half ago. I’d been through so many of those [redundancies], there’s nothing new in these major restructurings at Ten,” Wilson, 61, told news.com.au.
“I learnt back then and there that you always need to have a second line in the fire ... there’s not too many avenues out there, especially for older gentlemen leaving TV, so I was very lucky.”
Shortly after leaving Ten, Wilson joined DMG Radio Australia as smoothfm’s weekday afternoon newsreader in Sydney, where he still sits today.
“It’s got nothing to do with experience or gender, it’s purely about money,” the news presenter said, adding: “If you’re very well known with a particular network then you’re tainted with that brush ... there is huge competition for the very few positions that are available.
“I’ve always planned for the day when I wouldn’t have a job. I’ve always done little things on the side, survival is the basic instinct you’ve got to have if you’re working in broadcast journalism.”
PAUL COCHRANE:
Senior sports reporter/producer for Ten News, Paul Cochrane, was part of what he described as the “class of 2012”. The award-winning journalist spent six-and-a-half years with the network, surviving a bout of redundancies in 2011.
“The process happened again in 2012 and I guess there were two ways they could have gone with it — they could have culled the junior ranks or the senior ranks and they chose the senior ranks,” he said.
“There was so much talk of a performance matrix, and so at the time it was quite disappointing to have a public perception that you’re being told that your time was up on the back of a performance matrix.”
Cochrane, who is now media and communications manager for the NBL, said he decided not to put his hand up for a voluntary redundancy.
“I never once even contemplated that I might be one of the people who might get let go until the morning that I actually got speared,” he said.
Cochrane said, in hindsight, his time at Ten “was done”, but the network “was great to me, they sent me overseas on trips, I covered some of the biggest sporting events in the world and Ten put faith in me to do that.
“Ultimately, it wasn’t about me, it was my role that simply didn’t exist any more.”
GABRIELLE BOYLE:
Former Ten reporter and presenter Gabrielle Boyle was retrenched along with Cochrane in 2012 after working for the network in Sydney for five years and in Adelaide prior to that. She managed to land a freelancing role with Seven’s Sunrise as a reporter and producer before getting a job as a full-time news reporter at Channel 9.
JACQUELINE MADDOCK:
Finance reporter Jacqui Maddock was made redundant in November 2012 after two years as a political correspondent for Ten. Maddock is now a business news anchor for CNN and is based in New York City after a stint in Beijing with China Central Television as host of BizAsia.
JIM CARROLL:
Former Ten news boss Jim Carroll was appointed to the same role at SBS in May 2013, replacing Paul Cutler. Carroll left Ten in 2011 after 11 years, falling on his sword after an ill-fated overhaul of its news and current affairs line-up. He now leads the team at SBS, delivering a sizeable output of news content across television, radio and online.
BILL WOODS:
Bill Woods was one of the highest-profile staffers let go as part of Ten’s 2012 bloodletting, ending his 24-year tenure at the network. He is now a radio host and joins Steve Price on Friday nights on 2GB to discuss sport and current issues.
EDDY MEYER:
Well-known Sydney reporter of 20 years, Eddy Meyer, took a redundancy package in 2012. He is now a senior reporter for the weekly Financial Review Sunday business program on Nine.
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