Studio 10 announces another shock departure
There wasn’t a dry eye in the Studio 10 studio after Joe Hildebrand announced his departure from the show.
“I am leaving Studio 10,” Hildebrand, who been on the show since it started in 2013, said on air. “I have given it a huge amount of thought. It has been really hard.”
Last month, Channel 10 announced that Studio 10 was undergoing a massive shake-up due to cost cuts with Kerri-Anne Kennerley and Natarsha Belling set to leave the show.
Hildebrand was offered a lesser role than the one he has now and spent the last few weeks weighing out his future.
“We all know the show is getting a bit of a shake-up,” he said on Studio 10 today. “Channel 10 and my lovely bosses asked me if I would stay in a new role. We talked warmly and openly about what that might look like, and they were really keen and really lovely about it.”
But in the end Hildebrand decided it was better to leave the program and “give the new show, whatever it may look like, a chance to breathe and have a fresh start without me hanging around”.
His last day on air will be tomorrow.
Hildebrand became emotional as he praised Sarah Harris, who he called his “best friend, my work wife”.
He also thanked the show’s viewers, saying: “People often stare down their nose at daytime television because it is only watched by pensioners at home or … housewives. They’re the people I love. They’re the battlers. They’re people who have often had really tough lives and they’ve overcome that and I just draw great strength and inspiration from them.”
As for what he’ll do next, Hildebrand said: “I’m talking to other people about exciting stuff that I can do.”