Kochie signs on for another two years with 'Sunrise'

DAVID “Kochie” Koch has revealed that he was almost certain he was going to be replaced as co-host of Sunrise in 2019.

The Channel 7 star recently signed a new contract which will see him stay on the breakfast program until the end of 2020. But he told news.com.au he was “surprised” that network bosses wanted him to stick around.

“I was asked to fill in for three months 16 years ago and 16 years is a pretty good innings,” he said.

“I would have understood if people wanted a change. There were all sorts of rumours out there about successors and all that sort of stuff and I thought, ‘You can’t fight that sort of stuff’. So I was delighted and a bit surprised when they said they want me to do another two years.”

According to The Australian, Sunrise’s line-up will remain unchanged with co-host Samantha Armytage also signing a contract extension recently.

Koch, 62, told news.com.au that despite more than 15 years of early starts (he gets up just before 4am each morning and is in bed by 8pm) he’s never considered walking away from the show.

“It’s three-and-a-half hours of live television and none of us are perfect and you sometime get caught up in controversy … sometimes I’ve thought, ‘Do I need all this angst and pressure?’” Koch told news.com.au. “But I can honestly say there’s never been a time where I’ve thought, ‘I’ll just chuck it in’.”

Over the years he’s interviewed thousands of politicians, celebrities and everyday Aussies on Sunrise but Koch says there are a few in particular that have stood out.

“My favourite has got to be Julie Andrews,” he told news.com.au.

“I’m a massive Sound of Music fan and she’s a hero of mine. To find out she’s just as gorgeous in real life as you imagine is really special.

“Probably one of the weirdest ones we did was with Michael Richards who played Kramer on Seinfeld. Comedians are really tricky because often you don’t know if you’re going to get them as a normal person with their real personality or with their character’s personality. With him we got both.

“We were expecting somebody really funny and the first answer was really serious and deep and we thought, ‘Oh OK, we’ve got the real Michael Richards rather than Kramer.’

“So we gave him a serious question for the second one and he became Kramer and answered it in a really funny manner and we thought, ‘OK, he's going to perform,’ so we gave him another funny question and he went back to being Michael Richards.

“It was the weirdest interview because we had literally no idea who we were interviewing,” Koch said.

In terms of every day Aussies, the Sunrise star said: “Probably the hardest and most emotional thing that you do is some of the stories you cover of people who are going through enormous hardship or facing extraordinary challenges such as natural disasters or family issues.

“I’m a fairly emotional bloke and you can’t help but get caught up in the emotion of it.”

Sunrise has once again defeated the Today show in the ratings this year, a feat they’ve pulled off for more than 10 years now. So what their secret?

“We have a common theme across the team,” Koch said. “We all have similar senses of humour, we all support each other, we have similar values and I think that’s the secret.”

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