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Annette Sharp: Sarah Stinson a new dawn for TV breakfast boys’ club

Channel 7 has a new head of morning television in Sarah Stinson and among a host of competing priorities the future of David Koch is chief among them.

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As far back as any can recall, the Seven Network’s news division, like that of chief rival Nine, has been a boys’ club for suitably hardened men accustomed to playing high-stakes games on behalf of proprietors advocating they win at all costs.

While a woman is yet to be appointed national news director of either Seven or Nine, there was a hopeful sign last week when Sarah Stinson, long-time executive producer of Seven’s The Morning Show, was promoted to director of morning television at that network.

It’s a role that positions Stinson, 41, at the helm of Seven’s top-rating breakfast show Sunrise (controversially a program she hasn’t EPed), Weekend Sunrise and morning entertainment advertorial offshoot The Morning Show and represents a huge promotion for the popular producer – who is currently on maternity leave following the birth of her second child seven months ago.

The Morning Show hosts (from left) Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur with Sarah Stinson. Picture: Supplied
The Morning Show hosts (from left) Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur with Sarah Stinson. Picture: Supplied

Stinson takes up the new position after Easter – that is, unless baby Harry takes the bottle sooner, expediting her start.

Stinson will oversee two new EPs in the role – producer Sean Power, who replaces live TV whiz-kid Michael Pell at Sunrise and Weekend Sunrise, and producer Chloe Flynn, who replaces Stinson at The Morning Show.

The last person to hold Seven’s director of morning television mantle was Pell’s predecessor, departed Sunrise founder Adam Boland, who, a year after taking the expanded role in 2006, suffered a public breakdown in the role before quitting Seven.

The position was subsequently decommissioned when Boland left in 2010.

Stinson knows she’s taking on a high-stress job.

“It’s not really a job, it’s a lifestyle really. But I love live TV. There’s nothing like the energy of it, and I always thought if I were to leave The Morning Show that would be the next step,” she said in her first post-appointment interview with this column on Friday.

Sarah Stinson with former Sunrise host Sam Armytage. Picture: Instagram
Sarah Stinson with former Sunrise host Sam Armytage. Picture: Instagram

Pell, who is headed to LA in a new programming role, is leaving Sunrise in excellent shape as the highest-rating breakfast show on Australian TV, well ahead of Nine’s second-placed Today show.

That said, 2021 was a tough year for Sunrise and for Pell, who is said to have been at loggerheads with Seven’s news director McPherson.

Contributing to tensions was Sunrise host Samantha Armytage’s departure after a fallout with her co-hosts David Koch and Natalie Barr (denied by Seven), and a temporary dip in the ratings thanks to heightened news interest across the dial in the pandemic.

While swiftly scotching rumours her appointment could pave the way for a future return to the program by her friend Armytage – “Oh no, Sam’s never been happier. She’s got her farmer” – Stinson acknowledged top of her to-do list, when she begins, is settling her troops and bedding down her new teams.

“My starting point will be to try and improve the slate of number-one rating programs I have, and concentrating on the team and making sure I’ve got the right people in the right places.”

With Koch’s contract up at the end of the year and the 66-year-old talking about throwing in the towel, persuading Koch to stay will be another high priority.

“Kochie is instrumental to the success of Sunrise. I think David is Sunrise, and while Kochie and I have never worked together, I believe we can,” she said, deftly sidestepping our question about rumours Koch is displeased Sunrise supervising producer Monica Lepore had been overlooked for Pell’s job.

Sunrise host David Koch’s contract ends this year. Picture: Tim Hunter
Sunrise host David Koch’s contract ends this year. Picture: Tim Hunter

Lepore quit on Thursday after the new appointments were announced.

“Monica wants a change,” Stinson offered.

“It’s (a different regime now) and change isn’t for everyone. You hope everyone is on board but if they’re not, that’s OK.”

Addressing the much-discussed control room inexperience of Pell’s successor, Power, said to be about 30, Stinson offered that there was considerable depth in Sunrise’s production ranks to assist Power until he finds his feet instructing some 20 hours of gruelling live television a week.

“He’s a newbie in the control room, yes,” she admitted, “but Sean’s incredibly smart and he will get on and learn the job.

“When I first started at The Morning Show, I’d never done live TV and I thought that maybe I was out of my depth – but it turned out all right.”

Stinson got her start in TV after a chance meeting with legendary Nine executive Bruce Gyngell on a treadmill at a gym in Dorset in the UK in 1998.

She worked at Nine’s Today and A Current Affair before jumping to Seven’s Today Tonight in 2005 and being handed the reins of The Morning Show in 2010.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/annette-sharp-sarah-stinson-a-new-dawn-for-tv-breakfast-boys-club/news-story/ee8a1b05bd899e472b8ae44a5b2b2450