Shock departure for another ABC Breakfast star after Michael Rowland’s exit

Another respected ABC Breakfast reporter is set to finish up, bringing the number of familiar faces leaving the program to four.

Music reporter Zan Rowe has announced she will finish up with ABC Breakfast bringing to four the number of familiar faces leaving the program in recent months.

Rowe has been with the program for 10 years.

Her departure news follows the announcement anchor Michael Rowland will also step down from the program on December 13.

It comes after the losses of female anchor Lisa Millar in August and sports presenter Tony Armstrong in September and represents, in total, the loss of 34 years experience from the breakfast show in just four months.

Music reporter Zan Rowe to finish up with ABC Breakfast. Picture:NewsWire/ Monique Harmer

Rowe has been a star for the ABC, on both radio and television, and is the popular host of the Take Five series which will proceed to a third series in 2025.

The presenter offered little insight into the decision when she announced the news on the program on Wednesday.

The loyalty of ABC Breakfast’s viewing audience will be tested when the respected Rowland finishes up at the program next week.

During the past year the ABC’s broadcast viewing audiences have softened in line with Sunrise and Today’s, making it increasingly difficult for the industry to justify star salaries.

The frontrunner to replace Rowland is former ABC correspondent James Glenday, the ABC’s ex foreign correspondent and, for the past year, presenter of ABC Canberra’s news bulletin.

Glenday announced his departure from the Canberra role last month adding he was looking forward to an “exciting new role” in 2025.

His last day will coincide with Rowland’s on ABC Breakfast December 13.

Michael Rowland of ABC Breakfast. Picture: Instagram

The ABC is yet to announce the new host for the breakfast show.

The transition from Rowland and Miller to the younger Dja Dja Wurrung, Yorta Yorta woman Bridget Brennan and the favoured Glenday, 37, is expected to challenge the ABC’s traditional older viewing audience.

On Tuesday ABC insiders said the back-to-back departures of Millar, Armstrong and Rowland were “no coincidence” coming as they did following new chair Kim Williams push to “refresh” the ABC’s news offerings, move away from soft news and redirect funding into digital services like iView.

The ABC Breakfast budget was not helped by the decline of TV news and current affairs viewing in 2023-24 by four per cent compared to 2022-2023.

Rowland told ABC viewers on Monday that after 15 years on the breakfast show he felt like he’d been living with “perpetual low level jet lag”.

“I decided that 15 years of 5am starts is quite enough,” he said, adding it had been an “immense privilege” to host the program.