Sunrise beats Today in ratings war as new line-up fails to impress

The Today show made a long-anticipated return on Monday with a whole new line-up following the highly publicised exit of host Karl Stefanovic over the Christmas period.

But while the choice to replace him with Deborah Knight – alongside a series of other new appointments – has caused widespread debate, it appears viewers weren’t impressed as the show suffered a ratings slump just one day in.

According to The Australian, overnight figures released by ozTAM (Australia’s television audience measurement) showed that the opening show was watched by 196,652 viewers across the five metropolitan cities.

It was a significant drop from the average working week last year, when Karl was at the helm alongside existing host Georgie Gardener, with an average of 235,000 viewers tuning in each day at the time.

In contrast, it seems more viewers were tuning in to Sunrise on Channel 7 as hosts David Koch and Samantha Armytage won 266,469 viewers across the five major cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane.

Welcome to Melbourne, and welcome to our new look #9Today show! pic.twitter.com/GlYnPAbMDr

— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) January 13, 2019

The ABC’s News Breakfast came in at third place with 137,287 people watching over the same five cities.

Today‘s first show back also featured news presenter Tom Steinfort, sports presenter Tony Jones and entertainment reporter Brooke Boney, alongside existing star Richard Wilkins, as they filmed live from the Australian Open.

A Nine spokesman told the Herald Sun that “everyone is happy” with the result, noting that viewing figures can fluctuate over summer.

Meanwhile, according to The Australian, Nine’s director of morning TV Steven Burling added in a statement that “it was an extremely positive first morning with our new team.”

Burling said that “it was an extremely positive first morning with our new team”.

“There are always challenges when producing an outside broadcast of this size and duration and our on-air team wonderfully covered any early hiccups our production team may have experienced behind the scenes,” he added.

“We know this is a long game and we will continue every day to work hard and improve across the board to provide our audience with the best show we can each and every day.”

It comes hours after a flurry of annoyed viewers took to social media on Monday to share their thoughts, with many not happy.

A large amount of people claimed they no longer want to watch the show after the likes of Stefanovic, his brother Peter, sister-in-law Sylvia Jeffreys and sports presenter Tim Gilbert bid the program farewell.

“This once dedicated viewer has switched to seven! Boring personalities! How to fix what wasn’t broken!” one outraged person wrote on the Today show’s Facebook.

“The new team is terrible. Hopefully Channel Nine read the feedback and sort it out. Scrap the lot and start fresh,” another added.

Read more: Aussies label Today show’s new panel ‘boring’ and ‘awkward’

While a third said: “Channel Nine shot themselves in the foot… should not be political… should be entertaining… and it’s not!”

However, there were some positive comments, with a handful of people backing the new team and showing their support for the presenters who have only just stepped into the new positions.

“Everyone looks great and doing a great job, love the new line up… people don’t like change in all walks of life… so ignore the negativity,” one person commented.

Another wrote: “About time… breath of fresh air, well and truely overdue for a change!”

What do you think to the new Today show line-up?