Paul Henry's Aussie show avoids the axe - for now

Paul Henry. Photo / Doug Sherring

Paul Henry's struggling Australian breakfast TV show will not be dropped but its time slot has been cut by 30 minutes.

The low-rating Breakfast show on Ten was rumoured to be facing the axe after staff were summoned to a crisis meeting at the channels' Sydney headquarters this morning.

The meeting was called last night to discuss the show's performance, Sydney's Daily Telegraph website reported.

Henry said this morning he was not aware of a meeting to discuss the future of the show, saying he was more concerned with getting to work on time.

The New Zealand broadcaster later told Radio Live the show would continue but there would be changes.

Following the meeting in Sydney it was announced that the Breakfast show would air from 6am to 8.30am, instead of the previous three-hour slot until 9am, Herald Sun reported.

Ten confirmed Henry and his co-hosts Kathryn Robinson and Magdalena Roze would remain.

The Breakfast show has struggled to pick up viewers despite millions being invested in setting it up and revamping it.

It debuted with 51,000 viewers in February but viewership has since dropped off, with an average daily national audience of about 28,000 people.

It attracted just 1000 viewers on one day this month, and on one occasion there were no viewers at all in Melbourne for 15 minutes.

Ongoing tension between the co-hosts reportedly led to the departure of presenter Andrew Rochford last month.

The show's executive producer, Majella Wiemers, also quit. Former TVNZ staffer Sarah Bristow - who worked with Henry on TVNZ's Breakfast - took Ms Wiemers' place.

Last week, Ten tried to douse the rumours about the demise of the show.

A network spokesman dismissed the chatter and called it the work of "naughty'' people at other networks, a local newspaper reported.