The story of Adam Boland and his (and Channel Seven's) success with Sunrise got an awful lot of publicity in the 2000s, especially considering breakfast shows don't really rate that highly. There's a lot of talk about how important breakfast TV is for a network but I think the showbusiness media loved the fact it was a good old fashioned success story about networks versus networks, and brought the barons back to the days of the 80s and 90s when TV really counted.
For someone who left the media Boland has kept a high profile since, appearing in Australian Story and various magazines going on about being bipolar, and now writing his memoir. It's an entertaining read it must be said, covering the rise of Sunrise, reminding us of the role that show played in the rise of both Kevin Rudd and Joe Hockey, it's successes covering Beaconsfield and the Asian tsunami charity concert, an Anzac Day scandal, its stoushes with Media Watch, it's more humanistic agenda (in a News Limited dominated environment, Sunrise was practically left wing).
There's a hilarious chapter on how a Justin Bieber concert went haywire, funny insights into the dick swinging antics of Big Apes such as David Leckie. I had forgotten Boland had a crack at a late night show - it's a shame he wasn't given more time to work on this. Good on him for devoting time to his failures - he discusses in detail his unsuccessful sojourn into Channel Ten and attempt to set up a bathhouse.
There is a disappointing lack of scandal in the book - some references to a feud between Chris Bath and Sam Armytage but that only goes for a paragraph, a few snipes at Armytage, boorish behaviour from Leckie, some "enemy" at Sunrise who leaked his emails to the media. There was no reason for Channel Seven to fear this book.
Description of Boland's private life is surprisingly scant - he shacked up with one of his female producers, then fell for a male producer (who was living with a girl), then they got together, broke up, and he took over Boland's old job... that's a novel in itself right there. But he doesn't go into it in much detail; there is relatively little on his sexuality and personal relationships (he does allude to some orgies in his apartment), his exes are discussed with the greatest respect (and, to be honest, lack of colour), his mother barely figures in the book, ditto his upbringing.
One can't help wondering what now for Boland. Has he already peaked, like many a wunderkind? Is he destined just to rehash the same old ingredients on other shows following his inevitable return to television? (Once show biz is in your blood it never leaves). Time will tell...
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