The Project hosts Waleed Aly and Hamish Macdonald reflect on the show's axing

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

Network 10's The Project is a show that has made Waleed Aly a household name.
"I'm astonished I got to do this," Aly told ABC News.
"The chances of anyone getting to do something like this are so improbably small.
"The fact that it got to be me is something to be thankful for and I think that's the only way I can look back on it in the long run — is to be grateful and a little blown away that I got to do that."
After 16 years and more than 4,500 episodes, The Project will air for the last time on Friday, June 27.
Aly says the show has been an unequivocal success.
"And I know that because international guests would constantly tell us that.
"They were blown away by it, they'd go 'I can't think of anything like this' and they would say it in a way that they were really impressed and maybe they were just being diplomatic, but it happened too often for that to feel like that was the case."
In the time it's been on air, The Project has won 11 Logies and one Walkley.
But much of the discourse since news of the show's demise broke has been around the declining ratings.
According to the OzTAM combined 5-city metro ratings, The Project (which was previously named the 7pm Project), attracted an average metro audience of 677,000 in 2009, the year it debuted, peaking at 786,000 the following year. This has declined to an average metro audience of 188,000 in the year-to-date figures for 2025.
Aly says The Project hasn't been immune to the structural decline in ratings across the board in television.
But he says ratings aren't the main issue for TV.
"And once upon a time, ratings and revenue were the same thing.
"The problem is that they're not really any longer.
"There has been a flight of advertising dollars from legacy media to social media and tech.
"So, where people once might've spent money on advertising on TV or radio, now they're going to spend it on Meta or Google.
"That is because they offer advertising based on unbelievable amounts of data that they've farmed from users.
"I think there are very serious ethical questions surrounding that, but that's what's happened.
"That's what we've allowed."
He says with the advertising dollars that once held up legacy media gone, he's expecting serious cost-cutting to happen across the media landscape over the next little while.
"Some of it will be visible, some of it won't," he said.
"I think eventually it will all be visible.
"I hope I'm wrong about that."
Network 10 has announced it will revise its early evening program schedule, making way for a new national "news, current affairs and insights" program, which will run for an hour from 6pm six days a week.
"I think The Project leaves a hole that won't be filled," Aly said.
"And I think it's a hole we'd be better without.
"It's probably not the first show you could say that about and it certainly won't be the last, unfortunately.
Aly feels for the talented staff who'll lose their jobs, and that's something fellow host Hamish Macdonald agrees with.
"[It's] a really tough outcome for many wonderful professionals who I've had the privilege of working alongside both in front of and behind the cameras," Macdonald told ABC News.
"I want to thank them all — and the wonderful audience for making The Project such a unique experience.
"It has been a genuine privilege.
"It's hard for me to imagine a more creative, rewarding and stimulating work environment.
He says The Project sparked conversation and attracted strong reactions.
"The Project is a show that, good or bad, everyone seems to have an opinion on, which probably says something about its ability to engage," he said.
Macdonald has also worked on Q+A, which the ABC has discontinued after 18 years on air.
Publisher and founder of marketing industry analysis newsletter Unmade and co-presenter of MediaLand on Radio National, Tim Burrowes, says the demise of The Project comes down to economics.
"So, this new show, while still in the news and current affairs space, will be cheaper to make, so that's ultimately what it's all about.
"I don't see that particularly as a failing of The Project.
"It reflects what's happened to broadcast audiences generally.
"There's just so much more choice for the public now with streaming and everything else than there was when it launched.