Waleed Aly has broken his silence following the shock axing of Channel 10’s The Project and denied low ratings were to blame for the show’s cancellation.

Waleed Aly has broken his silence following the shock axing of Channel 10’s The Project and blamed the demise of free-to-air broadcasting on shrinking advertising revenue.

A Ten spokesperson confirmed to SkyNews.com.au on Monday that The Project will end its run after “almost 16 years and more than 4,500 episodes” on June 27.

The long-running panel series was beset by faltering ratings, allegations of left-wing bias and a rotating line up of anchors for years before it was officially axed.

Aly, who won the coveted Gold Logie for his presenting efforts on The Project in 2016, appeared on the Melbourne-based panel show for 14 of its 16 years on air.

The Project will go off air within weeks. Picture: Ten.
In a column for The Age newspaper, Aly blamed the demise of The Project on the growing power of the tech giants which have decimated advertising revenue.

“As a general rule, I don’t commentate on my own work,” he wrote.

“My editors urged me to reconsider, then left me to it.

“Would I identify the things I felt made the show special, perhaps accompanied by a catalogue of highlights?

“Too self-serving.”

Waleed Aly warned about the demise of free-to-air shows. Picture: Channel 10
Aly opened up about his “exhausted” colleagues feeling uncertain about their futures as The Project is set to be replaced by a smaller, Sydney-based news program Ten News+.

“By far the hardest part of this week has been seeing my colleagues exhausted and in tears, trying to discern a future that is precarious and terrifyingly uncertain,” he wrote.

The TV personality went on to warn readers that the demise of free-to-air programs like The Project was the product of an alarming advertising revenue “abyss”.

“There are bigger things at stake than the fate of this or that television show,” he wrote.

“That matters to the people involved – often viscerally – but shows have always come and gone.

“The difference now is that this is happening in the context of an industry staring into the abyss, trying desperately to find the formula for its continued survival.”

Aly wrote that the “rapid emergence of streaming services” has contributed to the decline in free-to-air viewership, but argued shrinking advertising revenue was the bigger problem.

Perhaps offering an insight into the tense atmosphere inside Ten and other free-to-air broadcasters, Aly wrote that double digit drops in broadcast advertising revenue were far outstripping the pace of audience decline.

“The twist is that now, revenue is falling much faster than ratings,” he said.

Tech giants now control most of the country’s ad spend. Picture by Alex Wong/Getty Images.
“Indeed, there are tentative signs that television audiences are beginning to stabilise, but revenue has continued to plummet.

“Hence the reports this week that commercial television networks across the board are poised to ask many of their stars to take pay cuts.

“They may not be losing viewers as fast as they were, but that doesn’t mean the money is there to keep paying them.”

In its place, Aly pointed the finger at tech giants like Meta and Google, who have acquired the lion’s share of Australia’s ad spend through intuitive and frighteningly targeted advertisements.

“Social media companies like Meta or Google, having harvested frankly unconscionable amounts of their users’ personal data, offer a far more sophisticated, better targeted advertising product than free-to-air television can,” he said.