Nine’s Today revamp led by Karl Stefanovic and co-host Ally Langdon is in danger of collapse after another record low audience on Thursday.
Ratings data shows for the third day in a row Today got less than 300,000 national viewers (272,000, equalling Tuesday’s record low for the revamped hosting team) and 171,000 metro viewers — 2,000 down on the previous low.
Unless there’s a big jump in Friday’s audience, Today will have a weekly average of less than 300,000 national and less than 200,000 metro viewers. That would be the first this year. Viewing numbers are now at a level that ended up seeing the 2019 hosting team led by Georgie Gardner and Deb Knight sacked.
Sunrise sailed on again with 470,000 national and 275,000 in metro markets (more than Today’s national audience). Elsewhere, No MAFS meant Nine ran dead last night. MKR was top 10 (seventh) with 753,000, which won’t cause its rivals to lose sleep. Seven won from Nine, Ten and the ABC. The network’s digital channels had a combined audience share of 35.1% which was more than the shares of any network — in other words, viewers preferred repeats of repeats and second rate programs on the digital channels to the dross on the main channels.
Network channel share:
- Seven (28.5%)
- Nine (25.9%)
- Ten (19.8%)
- ABC (15.7%)
- SBS (10.1%)
Network main channels:
- Seven (17.8%)
- Nine (17.4%)
- Ten (12.7%)
- ABC (10.0%)
- SBS ONE (6.2%)
Top 5 digital channels:
- 7mate (4.4%)
- 7TWO (3.7%)
- 10 Bold, 10 peach (3.6%)
- GO, Gem (3.3%)
Top 10 national programs:
- Seven News — 1.314 million
- Seven News 6.30 — 1.308 million
- Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.034 million
- Nine/NBN News — 994,000
- 7pm ABC News — 937,000
- Home and Away (Seven) — 901,000
- ACA (Nine) — 839,000
- The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 730,000
- MKR (Seven) — 753,000
- 7.30 (ABC) — 717,000
Losers: Today, all the networks last night except SBS which saw its audience rise.
Metro news and current affairs:
- Seven News 6.30 —864,000
- Seven News — 843,000
- Nine News —798,000
- Nine News 6.30 — 796,000
- 7pm ABC News —681,000
- ACA (Nine) — 630,000
- 7.30 (ABC) —504,000
- The Project 7pm (Ten) — 433,000
- Ten News First — 372,000
- The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 274,000
Morning (National) TV:
- Sunrise: National: 470,000, Metro: 275,000
- Today: National: 272,000, Metro: 171,000
- News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) —a/a
- The Morning Show (Seven) — n/a
- Today Extra (Nine) — n/a
- Studio 10 (Ten) — n/a
Top five pay TV programs:
- MH370: The Untold Story (Sky News) — 150,000
- Marsh Series – St Kilda v Hawthorn (Fox Footy) — 97,000
- Paul Murray Live (Sky News) —68,000
- Outback Opal Hunters (Discovery) — 66,000
- Gold Rush (Discovery) — 57,000
Ever since we have been given the option of watching ABC Breakfast TV I have gladly fled the appalling breakfast shows on seven and nine. Sometimes, to avoid some excruciating interview with a lying politician, or a live broadcast of a lying prime minister, I will flip back to a commercial channel to see what they are doing now. Assuming I manage to avoid an ad break (increasingly difficult), I inevitably find the current programs so banal and boring I flee back to the ABC. Even listening to Scott Morrison is preferable and that is saying something.
There was a time, many years ago, when the only alternative to breakfast TV on Nine or Seven was to turn off the TV (aaarrgh! No!). I watched the Nine version for many years. I don’t remember it being so bad during the George Negus or Steve Lieberman years. Later I watched the Seven version for a while. One thing that struck me was that, after George Negus left, the women hosts nearly always seemed smarter and more intelligent than the male hosts. Yet, apparently, the male hosts always got paid more. Steve Lieberman was a dimwit and so is Karl Stefanovic. If they wanted to bring back someone from the past to save the program I would have gone for Lisa Wilkinson or Liz Hayes or even Jessica Rowe and would never, ever, consider Karl Stefanovic for anything more than running errands.