Top shows big losers in Ten plan to trim fat

POPULAR Australian-made shows Bondi Rescue, Shark Tank and The Biggest Loser face the axe under a Network Ten secret management plan that would also slice almost $19 million in costs from the news divisions alone.

The five-year plan, obtained by the Bulletin, was formed in July as Ten went bust. It also reveals all news bulletins would be produced out of Sydney, while broadcasts of Formula 1 and V8 Supercars would disappear from the network.

Under the secret plans, production of Family Feud would move to Sydney and 15 per cent of jobs across the board would go.

In the cost-cutting document under the subheading “+ bankable plan” it reveals statebased newsrooms would be decimated with the one-hour news bulletin to be produced and broadcast in Sydney seven days a week. A segment of local state-based news would also be produced from Sydney.

Currently the weekend bulletins are produced in Sydney.

A bid by US entertainment giant CBS to take over the network won the support of the network’s 14-member creditors’ committee. The vote from the network’s 750 staff was crucial to getting the bid by CBS – one of Ten’s biggest creditors – over the line.

After the September 19 creditors meeting administrator Mark Korda, who described CBS as a “$27 billion big brother looking after Channel 10”, said that it would be “business as usual for employees, business as usual for programmers”.

CBS has not revealed what, if any, cuts formulated by current management it will adopt.