Network Ten has announced that Australian media identity and businesswoman Ita Buttrose AO OBE will be joining the network’s revamped morning line-up.
She will be part of the Ten’s new panel-based morning show to launch later this year.
The yet-to-be-named program is one of two being developed for Ten by its new Director of Morning Television, Adam Boland — the former Seven Network producer who joined Ten earlier this year.
Hamish McLennan, Ten’s Chief Executive Officer, welcomed Buttrose on board:
“Like all Australians, I have long admired Ita Buttrose’s remarkable contribution to our country, through her publishing and media career and her vast array of charitable activities.
“Everyone at Ten is extremely pleased – and flattered – that she has agreed to join our network and become an integral part of our new morning show.”
“Not only is Ita a consummate media professional and a tireless contributor to myriad causes, she is the only Australian media person ever immortalised in song. Cold Chisel knew Ita was cool when they wrote a song about her, and her status has only grown since then.”
Buttrose rose to prominence in the publishing industry as founding editor of Cleo magazine in 1972 — the subject of the ABC mini-series Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo. She became editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly and then moved to Rupert Murdoch‘s News Limited to edit Sydney newspapers The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.
She was a presenter for Network Ten in the early 1980s, owned at the time by Murdoch.
Earlier this year she was named Australian Of The Year for 2013 in recognition of her contribution as an ambassador for various social and health issues. She is the current National President of Alzheimer’s Australia, Patron of the Macular Disease Foundation, and Emeritus Director of Arthritis Australia.
Further details of Ten’s new breakfast and morning shows are still to be announced, although Boland has teased social media with hints that the new breakfast program may include a focus on music.
