Grant Denyer has opened up about the two most brutal axings of his career: one a breakfast radio show that left him in tears, and the other, his dream TV show that never aired.
Speaking to news.com.au’s podcast, I’ve Got News For You, Denyer revealed that one of the most brutal moments of his career was when he was axed from the 2Day FM breakfast show.
In 2018 Denyer was a co-host of the show in Sydney alongside Em Rusciano and Ed Kavalee. Rusciano left the show late 2018 and was replaced by Ash London- but the program failed to get good ratings so the trio were axed in August 2019.
“That one really hurt,” Denyer said.
“Because I’d had lunch with a head executive a week earlier who promised me that they were going to sign me for another five years, and then a week later I finish a show and then at 9.05am I walk into a meeting and they say, ‘well, that was your last show.’
“I burst into tears,” he added.
“I was a blubbering mess. I cried in the corner for quite a while.
“That one hurt because you give so much of yourself in breakfast radio … and you share a lot of deep, personal stories, some that are humiliating and embarrassing … because there’s such a need to deliver content every day to connect with an audience,” he said.
The Gold Logie winner added that because he had shared so much of his life on the radio show, and it still wasn’t enough, the impact “shocked and rocked” him for a couple of years.
“I took a lot of getting over that.
“In fact, I went from having probably the most confidence I’d ever had in my entire career to having the least amount of confidence that I’ve ever had, and it’s taken a bit of a steady road to come back,” he added.
The other most brutal moment in his TV career was when a new version of Hey Hey It’s Saturday called Saturday Night’s Alright was cancelled before it even aired.
The show was intended for Channel 7 and they had apparently spent a million producing the pilot.
“We’d spent a million bucks on a pilot, it was incredible, it was a game changer, it was going to blow everyone’s mind”, Denyer said.
Unfortunately, the show was axed when they heard that Channel 9 was going to bring back Hey Hey.
“They (Channel 7) were like, ‘let’s let Channel 9 and Daryl (Somers) go first and then if it works, we’ll run ours,’” Denyer said.
“After two or three episodes, unfortunately Daryl’s show started to fizzle and then that killed our big, giant variety show, which is the show I’ve always wanted since I was a kid.
“It was axed before it even went to air!” he revealed.
Image: Getty Images
This article first appeared on Over60.