The 'sexless marriages' of morning TV hosts and the thing that causes them to crumble.

There was a time when Mel and Kochie determined the trajectory of my day. 

Along with hundreds of thousands of other Australians, I spent my noughties mornings slurping coffee and slapping on my Great Lash mascara in front of breakfast television. This was a pre-child existence, when my mornings were my own and Sunrise was my backdrop, cheering me along my weekday routine with a constant commentary of salacious news headlines, silly stunts and the occasional hapless producer in a cow suit.

There were other people who loved Karl and Lisa (and oh, how I do love Lisa), but for whatever complicated personal chemistry reasons, I settled on Seven and the connections I formed with my chosen mum-and-dad morning duo ran deep. If one of them was away as I dashed from kitchen to bedroom to couch, everything that day would be off. 

The mum and dad TV duos were everywhere, then and now. Lisa and Karl. Larry and Kylie. David and Sonia. A formula as safe as houses – white Australians, big teeth, blue suits and shift dresses in an assortment of primary colours. He’s a bit naughty, she’s the smart one, they flirt and banter but they never close the deal. It's a formula tweaked and replicated for radio, too – Jonesy and Amanda, Hughesy and Kate, even Kyle and Jackie O. 

What we want from our morning hosts is a sexless marriage we don’t have to worry about. 

Until we do. 

Over in the UK, mum and dad are breaking up. 

Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby have been hosting This Morning together for 13 years. He’s 61, she’s 42, and until very recently, they were self-proclaimed ‘best friends’. Together, they have been through a lot. Their on-screen relationship endured a tsunami of attention when Schofield came out as gay (he’d been married to a woman, Stephanie, for 27 years at the time, and remains so), that time they both skipped the mega-queue at the Queen’s funeral and – more recently – when Philip’s brother was charged, and convicted, of child sex offences. 

WATCH: Phillip And Holly Struggle To Recover From Their Nta Win! This Morning. Post continues after video.

“Holly has been my rock,” Philip said of his co-host, after the court case, in a statement that was, reportedly, not cleared by Willoughby. “We’re the best of friends — as always, she is an incredible support on screen, behind the scenes and on the phone. Holly has always been there for me, through thick and thin. And I’ve been there for her."

Then, this past Friday, he was fired from the job he’s held for 20 years amid rumours that he and Holly, actually, far from being the best of friends, couldn’t stand each other. Bosses had decided that things had become untenable and that their behind-the-scenes relationship was so bad it was weirding out the show’s guests. Mamamia’s Katie Stow wrote an excellent breakdown of it all, here. 

In the aftermath of this rift, Britain doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. 

What can you even count on any more, if even your daytime TV hosts are living a damn lie? 

Australia was similarly unsettled when my chosen TV ‘mum and dad’ – Mel and Kochie –  went through their split, 10 years ago. While the dark arts of TV spin dictate that we might never really know why Melissa Doyle left Sunrise, the accepted narrative was that the experienced and classy Doyle needed to be replaced by someone younger and cheaper. The powers that be had decided that this "mum and dad" duo were tired, and David Koch needed a new "wife". That was Sam Armytage, and then Natalie Barr, both talented and smart women. 

The implosion of The Today Show's Karl and Lisa was even more seismic. Lisa Wilkinson is an accomplished journalist with decades of experience and she has the kind of unflappable capability that made viewers feel safe and informed even when her co-host, “larrikin” Karl, was half-drunk, going through a high-profile, messy divorce or just… saying some dumb stuff. But as all of Australia knows, Lisa also had the audacity to want to be paid what he was paid, and in 2018, Lisa left when contract negotiations "broke down".  

Back in the UK, Holly Willoughby had already achieved pay parity with "veteran" Schofield. And with reputational question marks over her co-star’s head, she was clearly the preferred 'parent' when their relationship became unworkable. 

And reputational is the word. Because there's one glaring problem with TV "marriages". When you're sitting next to the same person on the same couch every morning, laughing at their jokes, bantering as the script dictates, balancing each other's strengths and weaknesses, your reputation IS their reputation. 

This was the crux of The Morning Show, the Jennifer Aniston/Reese Witherspoon vehicle that hinged on the idea of a high-profile morning host getting "me-tooed" (as US TV host Matt Lauer indeed did), and his co-host trying figure out where that left her. Had his bad actions tainted her forever? Was smiling at him for three hours a day tantamount to an endorsement of his behaviour? Is a professional relationship an agreement that you support each other's actions on and off-screen?

Listen to this episode of Mamamia Out Loud, where Holly speaks of the 'end of the breakfast TV couple'. Post continues after podcast.

Consider Lisa Wilkinson smiling through the (likely unjust) reputational freefall of Karl Stefanovic as he went from "good bloke" to "homewrecker" in the eyes of the Australian female viewers in the mid-20-teens. Her presence next to him on the couch was good for his image, not just because of Lisa's unquestionable smarts, but because when she was gone, it was somehow harder for the middle-aged female demo to shrug off pictures of him partying on yachts with women noticeably younger than his first wife. 

Think about how much criticism radio's Jackie O cops for sitting next to Kyle Sandilands as he blunders towards his next great offence. And that despite the vitriol she cops from some corners for "enabling" Kyle's more problematic moments, her very presence reassures us, somehow, that he must like women, despite some pretty damning evidence to the contrary. Because they're mates, right? Have been for years. 

It's all ridiculous, of course. The relationships we have with TV stars are smoke and mirrors. These are jobs. Some days you love your coworkers, some days they s**t you to tears. And chemistry is hard. And culturally, we are moving on from live television, and from the very traditional dynamic of silly men being indulged by smart women. About a third-fewer people watch Sunrise or Today than they did back when I was getting dressed in front of Mel and Kochie.

And yet, if there's a "marriage" breakdown going on in our living rooms, we want to know why. 

Whatever reputational drama is coming for Philip Schofield, over in England, the biggest questions are these: Who can be Holly's new husband? Could it even be a wife? And can they commit to making each other look good, forsaking all others, until ratings do them part? 

Image: Seven, ITV, Nine + Mamamia.