Annette Sharp: No end in sight for boys’ breakfast burnout club

Judging from the rate at which they’ve been burning out, the role of the breakfast television executive producer is easily TV’s toughest gig. Just ask Nine’s Today Show executive producer Mark Calvert, who is the latest to leave, Annette Sharp writes.

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Judging from the rate at which they’ve been burning out and exploding of late, the role of the breakfast television executive producer is easily TV’s toughest gig.

The departure of Nine’s Today Show executive producer (EP) Mark Calvert a week ago was accompanied by a dignified statement from his boss.

“From personal experience, I know there is no more challenging role in news and current affairs,” Nine News executive Darren Wick said.

“The hours are exhausting, the competition is intense and the media coverage — good and bad — is unrelenting.”

Mark Calvert has quit from his position as the Today Show executive producer.

The statement contained no mention of the personal issues that have, for half of his five-year tenure, given rise to rumours compromising Calvert’s standing and reputation as EP of Today.

There was no mention of him giving up alcohol and losing himself in what increasingly has become a “party culture” at Today, as revealed here in September.

Back then I reported Calvert had been blurring the lines between work and play at Today — something that was creating problems both at home and work.

Complicating matters further was the fact his wife, Belinda Russell, is Nine’s attractive
weather presenter.

Calvert started at Today in October 2013 — hailed as a news “guru” who had been rushed in
to replace the then-exploding EP Neil Breen.

Breen’s one-year stint at Today is remembered not for some of his early ratings gains but for the ex-newspaperman’s blow-ups with on-air talent, including one furious spray directed at Today’s entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins, who was in the makeup department having an eyelash tint when he should have been on-air.

Former Today Show executive producer Neil Breen. Picture: Supplied

Shown the door from 10 in similar circumstances was Studio 10 executive producer Rob McKnight in 2017.

After five years as founding EP of Studio 10, McKnight was suspended by his television bosses in September 2017 and sacked two months later after his relationships with TV panellists soured.

McKnight moved briefly to a role as Head of Video at News Corp (publisher of this newspaper) but has now left that role and quit television entirely.

He yesterday confirmed he is selling his Sydney home and making a clean break from the industry for the sake of his family. They are moving to the Gold Coast.

For decades, the role of a breakfast show EP was a stable and unremarkable one.

That changed in 2000 when the Seven Network launched its extended-format breakfast show, Sunrise, in direct competition to Nine’s long-established sedate Today show.

Rob McKnight (left) used to work at Studio 10 and Adam Boland used to work as an EP for Sunrise at Seven. Picture: Sam Mooy

An energetic 20-something producer, Adam Boland, was installed to run the show and overnight became celebrated as the exciting new industry game-changer.

He would also become, thanks to its daily 3am starts and punishing 15-hour days, its most exciting new casualty.

Bruno Bouchet quit as EP of the Kyle and Jackie O show.

Following a series of breakdowns, starting in 2007, Boland burned out and quit the business, bound for a Pacific island.

Radio too, has had some notable departures this year, with KIIS FM’s breakfast show EP, Bruno Bouchet of The Kyle And Jackie O Show, quitting the business after two gruelling years running that show.

McKnight is of the view the industry needs to change before it loses more still-young creative talent to breakdowns and burnouts.

“I certainly don’t think there is enough support in the industry for people in high-pressure jobs like these,” he said yesterday.

The reigning star of breakfast TV, Sunrise’s EP Michael Pell, said his longevity in the role after eight years can be attributed largely to having the right people around him.

Pell, 36, agreed the role is “brutal — because the stakes are so high”.

“In any given day you’re required to be all things to all people — TV producer, supportive friend, taskmaster, accountant, sales rep, publicist, marketer,” he said.

“There are so many constantly moving parts.”

Something the new guy sitting in Today’s exploding chair, Steve Burling, may need to take on board.