Kerri-Anne dances across to Seven

Just weeks after hosting her final Kerri-Anne show on the Nine Network, Kerri-Anne Kennerley has now departed the network despite previous reports she was staying on board for “future projects”.

It ends a nine-year association with Nine as host of Kerri-Anne (previously Mornings With Kerri-Anne) although her history with the network goes back way further – as host of Midday and brief stint as co-host of What’s Cooking in the 1990s, and in the 1960s was a presenter on Everybody In at Brisbane channel QTQ9.  She was also a regular performer on Nine’s The Mike Walsh Show.

The future of the Kerri-Anne show was subject to a lot of speculation during 2011 as it was being soundly beaten in the ratings by Seven’s The Morning Show, and towards the end of the year she was on leave for several weeks while guest presenters filled in.  Kennerley later said in a radio interview that the first she knew of her axing from the show was from a newspaper article.

The irony in her departure from Nine is that she appears to be heading to Seven as a contestant in the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars, the show whose co-host Sonia Kruger has just severed ties with Seven – after more than a decade – to take Kennerley’s place at Nine.

Kruger is set to co-host Nine’s revival of the Mornings brand (with singer David Campbell) as well as the network’s upcoming return of former reality giant Big Brother.

Apart from Dancing With The Stars it is not known if Seven might have other plans in mind for Kennerley but they have been known to use the show as a vehicle for cross-network promotion, and DWTS would provide a strong platform to promote any new Kennerley venture.

Source: news.com.au, news.com.au

TV’s golden girls signing off

It was a morning of farewells as two of TV’s golden girls signed off from their respective shows today.

Over at Ten’s The Circle, Denise Drysdale (pictured) announced her retirement – marking the end of a showbusiness career that has spanned more than fifty years.

Starting as a performer in early children’s shows including The Happy Show and The Tarax Show, Drysdale worked her way up to pop music shows such as Uptight, Kommotion and Dig We Must.

Then in the 1970s she became Ernie Sigley’s ‘barrel girl’ on The Ernie Sigley Show, forming an enduring partnership that saw both of them win Gold Logies in 1975, with Drysdale winning a second Gold in 1976.

One of TV’s more versatile performers, she has appeared in dramas such as Division 4, Homicide and Cop Shop, comedies like The Bluestone Boys and The Norman Gunston Show and countless music and variety shows including Countdown, The Penthouse Club, The Daryl Somers Show, The Mike Walsh Show right through to Spicks And Specks. 

Living on a farm in Gippsland, in the 1980s she hosted a morning show for local channel GLV8, and later took over from Jacki MacDonald on Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday before being re-united with Sigley to host morning shows In Melbourne Today and In Sydney Today (both shows later merged into Ernie And Denise).

In the ‘90s, Drysdale teamed up with Frankie J. Holden on the revived In Melbourne Tonight before moving to the Seven Network to host her own daytime show, Denise.

Early last year Network Ten announced that Drysdale was joining the presenting team on its new morning show The Circle.  Later in the year she was again re-united with Sigley in a segment on the show.

Although the show faces tough competition, particularly from The Morning Show on Seven, The Circle this year won a Logie for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program.

Drysdale now looks forward to taking a well-earned break and spending time with her new grandson.

Meanwhile, over at the Nine Network, there was a farewell for Kerri-Anne Kennerley whose morning show comes to an end after nine years on air. 

Kennerley was a teenager when she appeared on children’s programs on Queensland television in the 1960s and 1970s.  After working overseas for several years she returned to Australia, appearing on the soapie The Restless Years before taking over as co-host on Network Ten’s Good Morning Australia in 1981.  It was a role that she made her own for 11 years, outlasting a number of her male on-air colleagues.  She later hosted an afternoon show, Monday To Friday, and worked in Sydney radio.

In the mid-1990s, Kennerley took over as host of Nine’s Midday – giving the show a new lease on life after some years of instability.  The show wound up in 1998 and after a stint back at the Ten Network on ill-fated shows like Moment Of Truth and Greed she returned to Nine in 2002 to host Mornings With Kerri-Anne, later re-named Kerri-Anne.

The show achieved global fame in 2007 when an interview with a “jet-lagged” John Stamos went viral.

The demise of Kerri-Anne comes after recent speculation about the show’s future, sparked by Kennerley taking leave from the program and with the show featuring a number of guest hosts. 

Although the Kerri-Anne program has ended – the ‘summer series’ of best-of segments starts on Monday – Kennerley remains with the Nine Network for future projects.

Nine will replace Kerri-Anne next year with a new show to be hosted by Sonia Kruger, who is coming across after more than a decade with the Seven Network and is best known as the co-host for eleven seasons of  Dancing With The Stars.

YouTube: aussiebeachut0, Michael Shephard

Good Friday Appeal on again

Good Friday in Victoria means another Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, raising funds for what is one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals – caring for over 280,000 children each year from around Australia and overseas.

This year marks the 80th year for the appeal which was started as a sporting carnival, organised by journalists of the Herald and Weekly Times (HWT), in 1931.  During World War II, HWT’s radio station 3DB launched an all-day broadcast for the Appeal.

The advent of television in 1956 saw HWT’s new television station, HSV7, first involved with the Appeal.  HSV7’s first effort for the Good Friday Appeal in 1957 was a three-hour afternoon telecast.

In 1960, HSV7 presented its first all-day telethon on Good Friday – starting at 7.00am and continuing through to 6.15pm, before resuming for an hour at 8.00pm and then again at 10.30pm through to the announcement of the final total at midnight.  This is in contrast to HSV7’s usual weekday transmission which at that time didn’t start until mid-afternoon and would wind up before midnight.

The 1960 appeal raised a total of £231,750, far exceeding the previous year’s total of £174,129. 

In 1977 the appeal passed the $1 million milestone for the first time – raising a total of $1,489,866.84 – and the $2 million milestone only four years later.

This year’s appeal is likely to top last year’s record total of $13,862,734.

Meanwhile, the Herald Sun reports that rival channel GTV9 has upset Good Friday Appeal organisers with the Nine Network opting to air segments of the Brisbane-based Good Friday telethon for the Mater Children's Hospital, during its regular national programs Today, Kerri-Anne and A Current Affair.

The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.  Friday 2 April, from 9.30am.  HSV7 (Melbourne) and Prime Television (Regional Victoria) – in association with the Herald and Weekly Times and radio stations 3AW and Magic 1278.

Pictured (top): HSV7 weather presenter Ilona Komescaroff with actor John Thaw, from UK series The Sweeney, in 1977, and (above) Countdown’s Molly Meldrum, Pat McDonald (Sons And Daughters) and booth announcer John Deeks on the Good Friday Appeal panel in 1982.

UPDATE @ 12.40 3.4.2010: The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal has signed off with a record-breaking final total of $14,462,000.