★★★★★ 0/5

Today relaunch improves Nine numbers

Sunrise won the week but is Today's lift the Karl factor or mere curiosity?

10
Leave a comment

The relaunch of Today with Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon has started well for Nine, with improved ratings and positive social media feedback.

Sunrise won the week at 277,000 over Today‘s 220,000. That’s good news for Nine which was coming off a low base.

It’s hard to know if that’s the Karl factor or initial curiosity in a week full of news with bushfires, Harry & Meghan and US / Iran conflict. Nevertheless, Nine should be encouraged by a fresh start and by the fact nobody made any gaffes anywhere along the way (the genre is notorious for it).

Sunrise Sunrise Today Today
National Metro National Metro
Saturday 4/1/20 505,000 312,000 332,000 231,000
Sunday 5/1/20 499,000 289,000 316,000 211,000
Monday 6/1/20 485,000 293,000 335,000 225,000
Tuesday 7/1/20 467,000 266,000 318,000 220,000
Wednesday 8/1/20 439,000 251,000 334,000 235,000
Thursday 9/1/20 479,000 275,000 315,000 219,000
Friday 10/1/20 485,000 299,000 297,000 202,000

Today won the week in Sydney at 75,000 viewers, a mere 1,000 ahead of Sunrise at 74,000. It also claimed some individual wins in Brisbane. For Nine it was their highest weekly average since December 2018.

Sunrise won the week in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide & Perth. By Friday Seven had widened the gap, which may suggest early figures were a curiosity factor. It also bagged the demos and a national win.

Both shows are citing improved numbers for the same week in 2019, with Sunrise up 14% year on year and Today up 5%. But neither network had their anchors on air this early in 2019 and the bushfire news cannot be discounted.

Last week Sunrise Executive Produce Michael Pell told news.com.au, “We are the market leaders for a reason, and I mean that with humility and respect to the audience. We like to work from our own template and then often you’ll find other people borrowing from that. I also think one of the strengths of Sunrise is that it’s a family-friendly show.”

Today Executive Producer Steve Burling told the Daily Mail, “The bushfire crisis is affecting all Australians, and Today‘s special coverage has been widespread, thorough and at times confronting, with our new lineup ensuring viewers are kept up-to-date with the latest news. We’re happy with our new line-up and the feedback has been positive.”

Meanwhile News Breakfast on ABC ran a steady ship with numbers around the 175,000 mark over two channels.

10 Responses

  1. I reckon the only presenter or executive on either Sunrise or Today with humility is the Cash Cow. Both these shows are just cartoons for attention deficient adults with a taste for junk brain food.

  3. I like Karl and Alison, however I think the production is letting them down. I watch in the morning to get a hit of news, however it’s far from a comprehensive coverage, they seem to cover about 4 items from primarily Melbourne and Sydney and bang on about it for 3 hours. Surely there is more news around that they could cover without having to resort to the latest you tube clip doing the rounds. I’m from Perth, we’ve had bushfires, we’ve had shark attacks, we’ve had Claremont serial killer murder trial etc etc none of which is being covered by sunrise or today, these programs need to up their game if they want to stay relevant as at this point the news on Facebook is more informative

  6. I think people love to hate Karl and others hate to love him. I think nine went a little over board culling the entire cast at the end of 2018, hopefully they have learned their lesson.

Leave a Reply