Natasha Exelby leaves Ten breakfast show Wake Up Date November 20, 2013 Megan Levy and Madeleine Heffernan Sydney Morning Herald Natasha Exelby is leaving her role as co-host of Network Ten's new breakfast television program Wake Up less than three weeks after the show's launch. Adam Boland, the director of morning television at the network, announced the 30-year-old's departure on Wednesday morning, saying that "chemistry is everything at breakfast and, right now, I don't think the balance is correct. It's up to producers to fix those things." He said Exelby would remain with Network Ten's News division, while Wake Up would continue to be hosted by Natarsha Belling and James Mathison. "I rate Natasha, Natarsha and James extremely highly individually, otherwise they wouldn't have been there in the first place," Boland said in a statement. "I also saw genuine spark during show rehearsals, but sometimes, that doesn't translate on air. That is nobody's fault, except mine. "Natasha is a dear friend. She is also genuinely talented and will remain a key part of Ten into the future." Exelby grew up near Kingaroy in Queensland, where parents Russell and Wendy Exelby still live. "She's been in touch," Mr Exelby said, when contacted by Fairfax Media. "She's fine, and keen to move on with her life." It is the latest blow for the television program, which only launched on November 4. Experts had predicted that Wake Up's arrival could be costly for the Seven and Nine shows, with Seven cementing its lead recently after parachuting in Samantha Armytage as Sunrise co-host. But disastrous early ratings for the show revealed the audience had dropped below 40,000 viewers by its second day. At the start of this week, it had sunk to 27,000. Channel Nine's Today had more than 12 times as many viewers while Seven's Sunrise had an audience 14 times bigger. Network Ten CEO Hamish McLennan went on the defensive of his morning shows Wake Up and Studio 10 in Melbourne today. "There's a lot of static around those shows. It's a two-year deal for us so in no way did we think we were going to do anything more than the numbers we got," he said. "We felt it was important for us, and you look at the success of Today and Sunrise, and as Adam Boland — who is a terrific EP and a great creative person — likes to say it's 'the window to the network'. "And if just you look at how successfully Channel Nine and Seven have been able to cross-promote their shows from the morning, and people turning on their television and watching those shows, they carry that audience right throughout the day." He said it was "very early days" for the shows and Ten was committed to live programming. "We couldn't be in a business where we were continuing to run re-runs of old shows and not have higher rating shows ... we have to have more shows," he said. "I think Studio 10 is terrific and it's very topical and I think that the line-up of stars is great. We need to do a little bit of work on Wake Up but we're really happy with the setting and we know that it's a very difficult timezone to operate effectively. "And so we're just going to continue to work those formats until we get them into an optimal state, but we're not walking away from them at all." Just three days after Wake Up's launch, Boland went on indefinite sick leave. Friends and colleagues admitted to being worried about Boland's stress levels because of the sheer level of work he was putting in to the creation of Ten's new brands. On Wednesday, Boland said there would not be any changes at Network Ten's new morning show, Studio 10. - with Natalie Bochenski, Michael Lallo .