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Breakfast fighting a tough battle

Ratings: TEN's Breakfast show slips to just 26,000 viewers, but at least there was brighter news in primetime.

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The morning TV battle is proving to be one very tough fight for TEN, as Breakfast slipped to just 26,000 viewers yesterday. Those were the kind of numbers the network was attracting for the cartoons it replaced.

In contrast Sunrise was 374,000, Today 328,000 and ABC News Breakfast was 42,000 and 17,000 across two channels.

Cultural change to habitual viewing won’t come easily to TEN, so the answer must lay in more marketing, a greater point of difference and bucketloads of patience.

But there was brighter news in primetime, with TEN pushing Nine into third place.

Tuesday night was a king hit for Seven with My Kitchen Rules (1.85m), Packed to the Rafters (1.71m), Seven News (1.34m), Today Tonight (1.07m), Home and Away (1.07m), and Parenthood (657,000).

NCIS led TEN on 1.00m on the network’s best Tuesday shares this year. The Biggest Loser was 830,000, Bondi Vet was 747,000, NCIS rpt was 734,000, TEN News was 622,000 and The Project was 427,000.

Nine News (1.06m) was Nine’s sole show over the magic million then A Current Affair (962,000), Big Bang Theory (746,000 / 710,000), Two Broke Girls (641,000 / 649,000), Two and a Half Men (548,000) and Top Gear (441,000).

ABC News was 964,000 for ABC1 followed by 7:30 (583,000), Foreign Correspondent (480,000), On a Wing and a Prayer (421,000), but Genius was just 275,000.

A Who Do You Think You Are? repeat was 258,000 for SBS ONE, Insight was 220,000 and Dateline was 187,000.

Neighbours topped multichannels with 302,000.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

33 Responses

  2. Do a morning style The 6pm Project (The 7am Project?) with Peter Everett hosting and “detch the Kee-wee”. News & fun is a perfect combination for a show those on the go.

  4. Those figures for breakfast are truly horrific. No surprise however, Paul Henry is extremely unlikeable. Why would anyone bother to tune into a guy who resembles an obnoxious corporate boss. A likeable figure, like Kerri-Anne would have worked beautifully.

  5. Lets face it, the promos are shocking, cheesy as! It doesn’t have a pro feel to it, the 3 hosts are pretty boring and they have no point of difference.

  6. He reminds me of one of the Two Ronnies-guess which one? , I cant take anything he says seriously, He is bossy, get rid of him and you will have a chance. His two offsiders dont have a chance.

  7. Can I just get confirmation that Paul Henry is on 83k a month for a show that rates 26k.
    Oh and by the way he has 84 followers on twitter – yes 84.
    Go Lachlan Go!

  8. Unlike today being today and sunrise a daily occurrence, breakfast is optional…Many cringe at the thought of breakfast so why would a show called breakfast appeal to them?

  9. Deserves them right. What were they thinking hiring Henry? Did they really think we’d want to watch someone like him. When that was announced you had majority immediately say they wouldn’t watch at all for that reason. I may have given it a go because the others are all good, but i’m not sitting through a second of that fool. Big mistake Ten.

    PTTR is increasing…Why? I stopped watching last year when they yanked it off suddenly but even then the quality had dropped so much. Can’t believe it still rates so well when it has gone downhill so badly.

  10. I don’t like to wish anyone ill but I’m delighted that ‘Breakfast’ is failing. Well done, Australia.

    Not only is the host disingenuous & utterly unlikeable but Ten deliberately chose him to capitalise on his notoriety after the Dr Sheila Dikshit incident. So bad cess to you, ‘Breakfast’.

  11. Forgot to add about Parenthood. Shame it’s not doing better but its no worse in the ratings than Castle was and is holding steady, more important it’s miles ahead of TG and not that far behind the NCIS re-run. Only 7 eps in S3 to go, hope they get a 4th season but we probably won’t know until the May upfronts. Its a very good but much underrated show here and in the US. But at least on NBC it stands a chance of returning.

  12. @telle: so much is made of it because it has a lot of people watching. While it might say a 350,000 average over 2 hours (7am-9am) but if people only tune in for say 10-15 minutes while they eat breakfast I would imagine they are reaching audience close to a million every morning per show (anyone actually have this data?). That is hugely important to advertising and the network as a whole.

    Breakfast needs time. A lot of it. I forget that it is on and I read about the media. It wil need a good decae to have any hope. Ten don’t have that sort of patience though.

  13. The only thing the Australian public have ever heard about Paul Henry before 10’s Breakfast premiere was the adolescent reaction he had to the name Sheila Dikshit. How on earth could Network 10 build a breakfast news offering upon that is beyond belief. No wonder it is failing. I managed to watch it once and the interaction between the hosts was incredibly awkward.

  14. Wow Nine third again. Didn’t think that would happen until after Easter at least. Nine have killed its Tuesday lineup. Good to see Rafters go up again and NCIS is a great show and deserves more but building again. TEN need to switch Vet and Rescue around. Why did they move Rescue to Mondays? I never watch it there.

  15. I think TEN should be taking advantage of the F1 and have both The Project and Breakfast shows live from the track this week, surely as word spreads it would help to bring in the viewers.

  16. I’m not a big watcher of Channel Ten, but I don’t recall seeing an adverts during primetime for Breakfast. How are people meant to know it is on, if Ten don’t advertise it?

  18. The promos and outdoor advertisements make the show all about Paul Henry, with him as the main focus. The trams in Adelaide have the team on them with Andrew covering Paul’s mouth. Its a 4 person show not a one man show with sidekicks.

  19. I don’t understand why so much is made of breakfast/morning tv and the people involved with it, it’s 6 to 12 time filler stuff at best, and mostly mindless talk fare at that on all the shows during that time anyway.

    That said, if I get to catch any of it, I only bother with TEN’s breakfast, and catch some of The Circle. Hope breakfast sticks around.

    Tuesday night, I don’t why, but it always seems a dead night of the week, sort of like a Fri or Sat night. For me it was a HAA/MKR/Rizzoli & Isles night,and Rec. 2 Broke Girls, so no complaint as such from me.

  20. If they lost the Kiwi and got in someone like Rodger Corser (insert minor celebrity with a personality of your choice here), they’d go a long way to pulling a better crowd.

    They could differentiate themselves straight away by aiming for a slightly younger market than 7 and 9 do. Frankly we already have plenty of opinionated men doing breakfast news anyway (yes David Koch, I’m looking at you).

  21. More marketing, a different point of view and bucketloads of patience are meaningless David, when you have a highly opinionated presenter with zero warmth and charisma. Send the Kiwi packing as he is as popular as the pickle on a Big Mac.

  23. Wow Nine 3rd on a night which contains new Top Gear and 2.5 Men, how badly have they got things wrong? Now waiting for changes, maybe they need a BBT 2 hour block before TG, Haha, just kidding.

    I must be one of the very few watching Breakfast most mornings.

  24. The producers could only have themselves to blame for Breakfast ratings. The first day comments were made to them regarding the sloppy camera angles and hideous set and yet nothing has changed.

    Bring in a desk, make it more News worthy, let the pretty weather girl have an opinion and start getting some exclusives.

    Oh and did I mention the hideous set?

  25. why not make the news headline “ten push nine network to third place”
    your articles always protects nine network and you dont want to be called “pro-nine”

    1. Josh: Slipping to 26,000 is news in my view, and I acknowledged the primetime lift in the excerpt on the front page. You might want to read an article on Survivor under Programming if you think I am “protecting” Nine?

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