‘Sunrise’ and ‘Today’ Are In An Incredibly Dumb Fight Over Who Is More Popular
The real winner is probably Pauline Hanson tbh.
The world of commercial breakfast TV is a brutal (and incredibly white) one. You only need to watch an episode of the new Australia comedy drama The Wrong Girl to find out for yourself. The show follows the story of Lily Woodward (Jessica Marais), a producer on a morning television show, and what happens when life, love and friendships collide.
As her journey continues, Lily discovers that sometimes the right choices can lead to the wrong places and the wrong choices can turn out to be the right ones. If those sentences make you feel ill, don’t blame me, blame the show’s PR company.
Despite being a fictional drama The Wrong Girl has a lot in common with real life breakfast television in that they are both bad. Yet for some reason hundreds of thousands of Australians continue to eschew the awkward yet lovable chemistry between Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland on ABC News Breakfast, Filipino News on SBS and Family Feud re-runs to tune into Sunrise and Today.
For over a decade Sunrise has reigned supreme in the rating wars. The lovable, roguish charm of David ‘Kochie’ Koch has proved irresistible for families as they get ready for work and school in the mornings. Australians just love waking up to Sunrise. Fair enough, I reckon. Who can say no to the Cash Cow?
But this year it looks like Today took out the ratings crown. In a triumphant media release Nine declared that Today had won “21 of the year’s 35 rating weeks across five mainland capitals.”
A huge thank you to all our fabulous, loyal viewers who have just made @TheTodayShow the No1 breakfast show in the country. #WeLoveAustralia
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) October 22, 2016
Karl and Lisa have finally done it! Despite Sunrise formally appointing Pauline Hanson as a permanent host (well, almost) in a bid to draw in the viewers, Steffo and Wilko have taken out the title.
‘Sunrise’ Tried To Fact-Check Pauline Hanson And It Was A Complete Trainwreck
Today managed to pull an average of 317,000 viewers a day compared to Sunrise’s measly 310,000. But the real congratulations belong the 22.4 million Australians who refuse to tune into either each day.
It turns out Seven wasn’t too happy with the way Nine was reporting the numbers. According to Seven, once regional audiences are taken into account Sunrise comes out on top. But Nine’s fired back. According to one insider, “for Sunrise to start changing the metric is like Donald Trump saying he’ll only accept the election result if he wins.”
Seven is now suing Nine in the Federal Court to prevent them from publicly claiming Today out-rated Sunrise. To be honest, as ridiculous as this fight is (the gap between them is only SEVEN THOUSAND VIEWERS FFS), I’d rather Seven waste its money suing another network than making biopics on has-been icons like Shane Warne and Paul Hogan.
Oh wait, they’re actually doing that.
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Feature image via Nine