Former Queen of daytime TV Kerri-Anne Kennerley says Studio 10 has gone “woke” since she left the show two years ago.
The television star told Woman’s Day that her former show had lost viewers because producers were scared of cancel culture.
Kennerley was sacked from panel show Studio 10 in 2020 as Network Ten cut costs during the Covid pandemic.
She said her sacking coincided with a drift to the political Left that had failed to resonate with the show’s mostly conservative audience of over 50s.
The Logie Hall of Famer said Studio 10 had a loyal audience who would tune in to watch the panel debate news events from a range of political perspectives.
But she said the program had curtailed debate after a range of controversies had frightened producers.
“I don’t know what got into producers’ minds,” she said. “They all got scared. They’ve chickened out, in my view.
“If I’d produced it, I would have doubled down. I would have said, ‘Okay, let’s go further, let’s go more controversial’”.
Kennerely said she did not believe her sacking was “personal” but she agreed that her time on the show had coincided with a number of on-air controversies.
Kennerley was accused on air of “sounding like a racist” for suggesting that Indigenous people should be more concerned about abuse in remote Indigenous communities than changing the date of Australia Day.
Ten Network executives have recently denied Studio 10 was on the chopping block, despite viewer numbers being in freefall.
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Author James Macpherson
