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Paul Henry - Source: ONE News -
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Ratings for the Australian Breakfast programme fronted by former TVNZ broadcaster Paul Henry are continuing to slide.
Channel Ten's Breakfast programme launched in February with 51,000 viewers, compared with the 300,000-plus who tune in to rival shows Today on Channel Nine and Sunrise on Channel Seven, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
By March Breakfast's audience dropped to around 45,000, but has since regularly dropped to below 30,000 - twice falling to a paltry 22,000 viewers.
However, Channel Ten's director of news and current affairs and former TVNZ executive Anthony Flannery, told the Herald the key to the show's success was giving Henry "more time to be himself".
Breakfast is mostly unscripted and has three presenters instead of two.
Henry left TVNZ's Breakfast show in 2010 after a furore erupted over comments he made about former Governor-General Anand Satyanand and Indian politician Sheila Dikshit.
He has continued to stir controversy across the ditch when he made "sick" remarks about asylum seekers including a suggestion they could live in linen cupboards earlier this year.