Surprise new ABC Breakfast host rumoured after Michael Rowland’s departure

Respected ABC breakfast host Michael Rowland is set to finish up on the program next week, with one personality reportedly a frontrunner to replace him.

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

His departure comes four months after his female co-host of five years Lisa Millar left the program in August and three months after Tony Armstrong was farewelled.

The trio successfully threw down a challenge to dominant commercial breakfast rivals Sunrise and Today in recent years and in 2022 managed to topple Nine’s Today for second place in the ratings race behind Seven’s Sunrise.

Michael Rowland of ABC Breakfast. Picture: Instagram

However 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.

Emma Rebellato, Michael Rowland, Bridget Brennan and Charles Brice. 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.

ABC correspondent James Glenday. Picture: Supplied

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 jetlag”.

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

Rowland is the third male to host the program which launched in 2008 on ABC2 with veteran political reporter Barrie Cassidy and journalist Virginia Trioli at the helm.

Newsreader Joe O’Brien, the program’s original Friday host, took over from Cassidy in 2009 and retained the role for 18 months before being replaced by Rowland in 2010.

Trioli made way for Millar in 2019.