Driver and Flynn farewell viewers in front of Sunset

Oliver Driver and Carly Fynn. File photo / Supplied

TV3's final Sunrise morning show farewelled viewers at 8am this morning with co-hosts Oliver Driver and Carly Flynn sitting in front of a sign that read "Sunset".

TV3 announced yesterday it was cancelling Sunrise, which struggled to compete against TV One's Breakfast, which this Tuesday had eight times as many viewers as TV3's show.

Sunrise's final segment was "Weird Wrap", featuring ad libbed commentary over clips of fire breathing robots, dog yoga and dogs attacking a police car.

Most of the show's crew – including Driver's dog Jack - appeared in the studio before the lights were turned out for the last time.

Driver said the rest of the staff were already at the pub, and "I apologise in advance for anything I do later today".

In its last half hour, the show also replayed its "Magic Moments" and highlights from its popular segments "Hurricane Josh" and "Emma's gadget Emporium".

The show had received a lot of emails angry at TV3 for cancelling the show, but Driver told viewers to "please remember TV3 is a whole bunch of individuals and lovely people ... please don't boycott 3 News because it's such a superior news service."

"Thank you TV3, it's been a pleasure to be on the show.

"See you later everybody," Driver said.

MediaWorks TV executive director Ian Audsle told staff 10 minutes after yesterday's broadcast that Sunrise and ASB Business could not be sustained in the present economic environment.

At the same time, an internal memo was sent out to unaffected staff to break the news.

Audsley, who was appointed in January, said the decision would result in at least 20 job losses across the board but TV3 would be able to offer "redeployment" in some cases.

"We have not taken this decision lightly, and it has been the subject of a lot of debate and discussion at both a board and management level. Ultimately, it has been the board's decision."

He said he could easily have made the decision to end the show earlier.

"I would like to see it stay. I could have easily made this decision back in January. I elected not to because I wanted to see if I could get the programme to a place where it could be earnings-positive but that's not the case ... You just can't sustain it."

TV3 has replaced the time slot with repeats of the previous night's Campbell Live, followed by Magnum P.I., Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond.

Flynn wrote on her Facebook page yesterday: "Obviously all a bit shocked ... [This] would have made a good April Fool's ... but alas no joke. We're gutted."

Cheeseman, the breakfast sports presenter, said he was also upset about the decision. "There's not much you can say about it when your boss says we need to save money and we're going to save money by cutting Sunrise. I thought it was a great show and I've loved everyone who has worked on it."

The morning news show was launched two years ago but struggled against its rival, Breakfast.

TVNZ's flagship was rating 4.1 per cent of the potential audience, against 0.6 per cent for Sunrise last month. On Tuesday, 169,000 people aged 5 and over watched Breakfast, compared with 21,490 who watched Sunrise.

Sunrise had targeted a younger audience, but in the 18-49 age group Breakfast was out-rating TV3's offering by more than five times.

Another casualty of the cuts is ASB Business presenter Michael Wilson, who moved over from TVNZ's morning business show after 10 years in 2007, bringing the sponsor with him.

The veteran broadcaster received the news on the worst possible day - yesterday was his birthday.

A news source, who asked not to be named, said the decision was "not great for the 3 News brand as a whole".

He described Audsley's announcement as "pretty hideous. There were lots of tears. That was the first time I met Ian Audsley and hopefully the last".