Kerri-Anne Kennerley - The Midday Show 1998 FINAL SHOW

Midday (commonly referred to as The Midday Show) is a television show that aired on Australia's Nine Network from 1985-1998. The show aired, like its title suggests, at noon on every weekday and was a 90 minute variety programme with international and local guests. It featured interviews, musical performances and comedy spots. The format of the show was similar to that of its predecessor The Mike Walsh Show which it replaced in the lunch time slot.Kerri-Anne Kennerley (1996 - 1998)
In 1996, Kerri-Anne Kennerley was appointed to the new incarnation of the show, with the title becoming Midday with Kerri-Anne. Geoff Harvey re-joined the show from a period of semi-retirement, albeit with a streamlined, six-piece band and not the full orchestra the show had had in previous days. Initially, Kerri-Anne caused a resurgence in ratings, with her enthusiasm and her tendency to physically interact with guests (i.e. doing dance steps with dancers, attempting to play the respective sports of sporting personalities) rather than confining herself to sit-down interviews. She gained three consecutive Gold Logie nominations for her work on the show, and was widely praised for "bringing the magic back to Midday". However, the show was eventually not able to compete with better rating, imported programs on other networks, and the general decline of locally-produced daytime talk shows and budget concerns that prompted the 1994 axing caused the show to again be axed at the end of 1998. In 1999, Kerri-Anne was appointed to co-host the cooking show What's Cooking, alternating host Geoff Jansz's cooking segments with her interviews which were not related to cooking. This was seen as an awkward change to the show, which was axed at the end of that year, causing Kerri-Anne to leave the network, openly criticising the format that What's Cooking was given. After spending some time in other media and a stint at Network Ten, Kerri-Anne returned to Nine to host Mornings with Kerri-Anne in 2001, a morning talk show with some similarities to Midday, but without a live audience and with heavy infomercial content.