Nine, Seven at odds over breakfast ratings.

It’s cereal bowls at ten paces as Nine and Seven disagree over who has won the year in the heated breakfast television battle.

Nine is claiming Today has won the year with 21 of 40 weeks won in the ratings year, its first win over Sunrise since 2003. But Seven is claiming the metric in television is average audiences not weeks won.

In  the 5 city Metro, excluding Easter and Olympics, Today has averaged 317,000 viewers to Sunrise‘s 310,000. But including Olympics Sunrise averages 318,000 over Today‘s 316,000.

A Seven spokesperson told TV Tonight, “Today is not Australia’s number one. It may be the five major markets number one on weekly wins in a survey year but that’s about all it can claim. Too close to call on audience averages across the five major markets. We’ll see how the survey year ends up on those averages.”

A Nine spokesperson fired back, “Seven’s response is very much like Donald Trump saying he’ll only accept the result if he wins!”

Updated: Seven has since responded, “Unlike Donald Trump, we lead on the national ratings.”

Darren Wick, Director of News & Current Affairs for the Nine Network, said, “My personal congratulations and admiration goes to our hosts Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic, along with the best team at breakfast – Sylvia Jeffreys, Tim Gilbert, Dickie Wilkins, Steve Jacobs and Ross Greenwood, along with all our friends and colleagues who contribute to make it a great show on air.

“Behind the scenes is an outstanding team of talented producers, camera crews and studio production staff. A special thanks to Today Executive Producer, Mark Calvert. No one has worked harder or smarter in achieving this wonderful result.”

Mark Calvert, Executive Producer said: “It’s so incredibly humbling to think how many people wake up with Today. We do it for our amazing viewers, and we’ll keep on working hard to inform and entertain all of Australia.”

Meanwhile there are only 5 more weeks for everyone to reach consensus….