Television

Fitzsimmons to join wife at Nine?   Author: eNews staff and agencies | Nov 8, 2007, 14:07

There seems to be a push for radio head Peter Fitzsimmons to make the jump to commercial television.

Fitzsimmons currently earns an estimated $650,000 a year co-hosting breakfast on 2UE in Sydney with Mike Carlton (more than $1 million a year). Both their contracts with the station, now owned by Fairfax, are up shortly and will have to be renegotiated for next year, possibly with pay cuts disguised as performance bonuses tied to ratings (that's dangerous).

Fitzsimmons resigned from 2UE this afternoon and the news has heightened suggestions that he could be bound for Nine.

Sydney reports say he wants to spend more time writing and at home to help his wife who leaves home around 3.30 am Monday to Friday. He and Ms Wilkinson have three young children.

He confirmed that in his statement:

"For me, my wife and three children, the situation changed from the first days of Lisa becoming co-host of the Today Show. While we coped fairly well as a family with the two of us getting out of bed in the wee hours, we came to the conclusion that it was going to be difficult to flourish as a family doing that over the long haul. I am now looking forward to getting the kids off to school, continuing my columns for the Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald and getting stuck into my next book on Charles Kingsford- Smith."

That should put an end to the speculation, but he didn't rule out not going to Nine, although it would be hard to see.

Fairfax media boss, David Kirk is due to speak to 2UE staff tomorrow about the new brave world of being Fairfax radio: he will involve talk of pay for performance and trying to align costs with revenue, which is a mantra heard in all media groups of late.

Fitzsimmons is being mentioned as a co-host of Today, a proposition that was looked at when David Gyngell last ran Nine.

Today isn’t setting the world on fire at the moment. Seven’s Sunrise is still far in front. But Today’s ratings haven’t worsened and have steadied in a range of 260,000 to 280,000 most mornings.

The real problem is the Early Sunrise dominance of Early Today: the two 6 am hour long programs are some mornings separated by over 100,000 viewers or more in favour of the Seven show.

That gives 7am Sunrise a great platform to start and build on.

Fitzsimmons was free of day to day to requirements when Lisa Wilkinson was working at Seven.

But from Britain there's a cautionary story that should be a bit of a reality check: Richard and Judy's show on Channel Four is ending. Their contract ends at in 2008 and they and the management decided to end it there by mutual agreement.

Their program is at the other end of the day in Britain: teatime (a great British phrase). Britain's indifferent weather for much of the year makes teatime TV an option; here it would be a disaster.

Our prime time starts with the 6 pm News; before then its kids TV and the odd gameshow.

News in Britain is around 9 to 10 pm most nights, with a short broadcast early in the evening and the longer bulletin on the BBC and ITV later in the night.

By the time Britain's main evening news bulletins are going to air, the majority of Australian TV viewers are thinking about bed while enjoying the likes of City Homicide, CSI, Dancing With The Stars, sea Patrol, the Chaser or House.

Its two very different TV audiences.

Richard and Judy will remain working the network but it was decided by management the show would end because there was no longer any 'spark' in it according to British TV viewers.

A phone-in scandal on rigged contests didn't help Richard and Judy who say they knew nothing about that

Channel 4 is still awaiting the results of the inquiry by British media regulator, Ofcom, into allegations of irregularities in Richard & Judy's You Say We Pay competition.

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