No more manufactured laughs. I’m switching off morning TV

AFTER 10 long, devoted years, this viewer has had enough of the morning shows. Everything started to go wrong in the last six months.

OPINION

IT’S taken 10 years, but I’m losing my taste for commercial free-to-air breakfast TV. Yep — I’m ready to skip breakfast.

The breakfast war — the rise of Channel Seven’s Sunrise since 2007, its battle to overhaul rival Channel Nine’s Today, followed by years of domination, and now, Today’s fightback — has intrigued me as a viewer and a critic for a decade.

Despite relatively small ratings — 600,000 to 650,000 viewers in five cities are shared between the big two most days — breakfast shows are the networks’ advertising Cash Cows. They’re also the Blocky, upon which the tone for each channel is built.

I’ve watched both shows experiment with co-host pairings, make media stars out of the unlikeliest of politicians (I’m looking at you, Kevin Rudd and Joe Hockey); and yes, I’ve laughed uproariously at the antics of hapless weather presenters, live crosses gone awry, Karl Stefanovic fronting up under the weather post-Logies, and the many wonders of live television going amiss.

I love a good blooper reel. I love the unpredictability of live television.

But in the past six months, breakfast has started tasting way too much like a canned laughter sitcom, with occasional bit of news popping up.

I’ve had pretty much a bellyful of the new brand of breakfast.

The segments are shorter. The promos of “what’s coming up” often take more airtime than what eventually comes up. Subtlety has gone out the window. And the laughs are more manufactured.

Increasingly, presenters have become stunt actors — and bad ones at that.

Look, I know Karl loves his karaoke, but I don’t know that I need to see him and the rest of the Today crew playing dress-ups and performing lip-synch tributes whenever their show manages to pull in a major act or interview.

Long before last week’s Sex and the City skit went cagefighter on Sunrise, I was tiring of scripted re-enactments featuring breakfast presenters in bad wigs having a crack at acting.

The rejuvenation of breakfast television in Australia worked because producers threw out the script.

They loosened up, engaged with viewers, laughed at themselves and showed live television could be done warts and all, without the need for a full spit and polish. They took the irreverent approach of breakfast radio and put it on the box.

Losing it: Karl Stefanovic collapses in giggles — again — during a live cross.

But now, with the chase for eyeballs becoming a seesaw battle for viewer margins of 10,000 people or less, the stunts have intensified in an effort to up the appetite for breakfast.

Tune into Today and I feel like I’m more likely to see Karl doubled over with mirth, laughing hysterically and unable to speak during an interview than I am to see Lisa Wilkinson taking no prisoners against Clive Palmer.

And at Sunrise, David Koch’s hapless dad jokes, fuddy-duddy utterings and the resulting rueful headshaking from his colleagues sometimes feel like they’ve been scheduled on the hour.

I still love a soft introduction to the news of the day to take the temperature about what the public is thinking.

The beauty of live television — especially when it’s done for as many hours a week as it is by these breakfast stalwarts — is that the laughs will come anyway.

I don’t need my presenters to be fans. They’re smarter than that. I need them to show me the talent and expose the story. I want them to elicit the laughs, not stage them.

It means when the shows switch gears to cover breaking news — which they have shown, again and again they are the best in the business at doing (think the Lindt Café siege and the Paris attacks coverage) — they don’t have to re-earn their kudos.

Last week’s Sunrise debacle highlighted not only how pursuing a stunt skit can go wrong, but was also a powerful reminder to on-air talent that when it doesn't, they’ll carry the can for it.

The fallout descended into a feminist debate with accusations of bullying, with Samantha Armytage and her colleagues attacked for the dumbing down of TV.

I maintain if the skit had featured three blokes in wigs it still would have been a lame idea.

Sunrise executive producer Michael Pell put his hand up when questioned about who had control of the skit — saying the buck stopped with him — but few were listening.

The reality of television is — rightly or wrongly — that it’s the on-air talent who get the accolades when things go right, and cop the public hits when it goes pear-shaped.

Because nobody is putting Michael Pell or Today EP Mark Calvert on the cover of a magazine in their swimsuits — although I’ve no doubt they’d carry it off.

I’m hungry for the days when half the schtick of breakfast TV was watching the co-hosts keep a straight face as chaos unfolded. They elicited it, rather than engineered it.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t lost my sense of humour.

I just want a bit more strong coffee, a smaller serve of Fruit Loops, and a laugh that is organic for breakfast.

Originally published as No more manufactured laughs. I’m switching off morning TV