RIGHT before she landed one of the most coveted roles at Channel Seven, breakfast television star Samantha Armytage actually feared she was about to be fired.
Months prior, she’d been quietly sounded out by senior executives at the network to see if she was interested co-hosting Sunrise.
But then she heard nothing else and her shifts anchoring the 4.30pm news bulletin started disappearing.
“They never tell the talent anything,” Armytage, 38, laughed. “They started to pull me off the afternoon news and I thought I was about to be sacked.”
In reality, the move was part of a secretive transition strategy — the details of which not she even she was privy to.
“I hadn’t thought too much about the Sunrise conversation ... (so) I was fearing the worst. I pictured myself having to go and live in the cottage at the back of mum’s property near Wagga.”
The outcome was much more positive and for two years, Armytage has hosted the top-rating breakfast show alongside David Koch.
“It’s been frantic and a huge challenge,” she said of the milestone.
“It has been a much bigger challenge than I expected, but it’s fun. It’s a total cliche but I do pinch myself.”
She said the idea of Armytage fronting one of Seven’s most important programs was first put to network bigwigs by Michael Pell, the executive producer of Sunrise.
And she suspects it was a pitch probably met with a certain sense of scepticism.
“They were probably like, ‘well, you better be right about this’ and thank goodness it went well.”
Pell had decided six years prior to put Armytage in the vacant co-host chair on sister program, Weekend Sunrise, alongside Andrew O’Keefe.
“She was a natural,” he said. “In those six years, she really honed her skills. She did a lot in that time.”
He was a junior producer at Sky News when they met more than a decade ago and said Armytage had “something special” even then.
“I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” Pell recalled.
“She was always very good live, she had a nose for a story and she struck me as someone who had credibility. There was also this air of confidence that never strayed to arrogance.
“Plus her face lit up the screen.”
