History
In 2005 the Seven Network replaced its struggling Sunday morning program Sunday Sunrise with a program called Weekend Sunrise which originally was an hour-long (8 am – 9 am) program with an identical format to Sunrise. Hosted by Chris Reason and Lisa Wilkinson, the program was successful and various critiques at the time called for the program to be lengthened to two hours (7 am – 9 am) and be extended to Saturday mornings as well as Sunday.
In 2006, Weekend Sunrise was extended from an hour to a two-hour show, running every Sunday from 8 am till 10 am. When Sportsworld returned for the football season Weekend Sunrise settled into a 90-minute format, 8 am - 9.30 am. After Sportsworld's series concluded, the show returned to a two-hour format.
Andrew O'Keefe initially temporarily replaced host Chris Reason in 2006, but after improved ratings he was given the hosting position permanently. In 2007, Wilkinson moved to the Nine Network to host Today, and was replaced by Samantha Armytage. In 2008, Weekend Sunrise moved their start time 30 minutes earlier to 7.30 am, to match the new start time of Nine's Sunday program. The program continued to run through to 10 am, meaning the program had a two-and-a-half-hour running time.
In 2009, the program's start time was moved even earlier. Originally, it was announced that Today on Sunday (now Weekend Today), the replacement the long-running Nine's Sunday, would run from 7.30 to 9 am. But this was changed on 28 January 2009 to 7 to 9 am. As result, Seven announced that Weekend Sunrise would also commence at 7 am and run through to 10 am, meaning the program would go for three hours, the same as the weekday version of Sunrise.
On 13 February 2010, Seven announced that Weekend Sunrise would extend to Saturdays to compete against Weekend Today. The Saturday edition airs in the same time slot as Weekend Today, i.e. 7 am – 9 am. Saturday Disney, which previously occupied the timeslot, immediately followed Weekend Sunrise, until in 2012 it was permanently moved to 7Two, airing in the same time as Weekend Sunrise. The original Saturday team consisted of Samantha Armytage co-hosting with Larry Emdur with Sarah Cumming presenting the news, Simon Reeve presenting sport and James Tobin presenting the weather.
In November 2011, Adam Boland was appointed executive producer of the program. Boland overhauled the program introducing a new format, a number of new segments and new regulars.
In September 2012, executive producer Adam Boland announced that the show would extend to three hours on Saturday from October.
Read more about this topic: Weekend Sunrise
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