Today (2015-Sept 2020)

Weekend Today looks much better , a big improvement, but David Campbell is annoying. Overbearing during the cooking segment at the end and annoying during Prue McSween’s rant. Actually they all were…sitting back laughing at her …why have her on if you’re going to laugh at her. That said, she wouldn’t be missed. She’s over-opinionated.

Stevie has been in the studio all week for the weather. I understand that they probably want to do it differently to Sunrise but surely when there were floods in QLD, storms and heatwaves in NSW and VIC and bushfires in Tasmania, Stevie should have been out in the elements?


With Stevie in studio, Lara was on location yesterday for regular live crosses for a giveaway. It is almost like a roving reporter gig:

Live performance yesterday:

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The new promo looks pretty good but the voiceover guy from WWOS doesn’t sound right.

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What promo?

For the Today show

This team is not going to cut it. They are going to sink in the direction of ABC News because they come across as too newsy and too serious. No matter how they jazz up the segments and the topics, the presenters - God love them - are too bland and boring. There’s no connection. Deb is a nice newsreader but not a big “personality” for a show. Same for Georgie. On the other hand, Sunrise is full of personality and connection - they are as comfortable as a glove - Sam, Kochie, Nat, Berretts - household names and the team just gels. I don’t know what Nine was thinking. This is how you do it:
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I have to agree. I wish them all the best, but I think it’s safe to say this will be the year Today fights off News Breakfast.

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Because she’s ridiculous?

In hindsight they really should’ve introduced the changes to the show over time and not all at once.

Yes she’s ridiculous. I’d laugh at her too.

A person in a cow suit. I’ll pass on that.

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Whether you like it or not, the f&%$ing cow has contributed to their being #1.

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Just looks like a dilapidated mascot for extinct Gateway computers to me.

I’m probably going to be a very small minority to say that Nine will eventually need to localise Today to five shows for the five main markets on weekdays (with a national “Summer Today” during the holiday period when resources are reduced) at the very least.

The product we’re currently seeing on Nine for 3.5 hours on weekdays isn’t a national breakfast show. It’s a Sydney breakfast show which is broadcast nationally and barely presented as if it’s a national breakfast show. If a Sydneysider can tell you this, people outside of NSW (particularly in the more parochial states) should be continually drilling it into your brain! But enough of that for now…

I personally think Nine should’ve only made minor tweaks to keep the existing look fresh and more newsy (eg, changing the design/layout of Today’s supers so they look a bit more like Nine News’ current supers) and saved the really big changes for “a new era of Australian television in the most advanced broadcasting facilities in the Southern Hemisphere” at North Sydney.

Then again, there were a lot of “they should’ve only done minor tweaks” comments (including some from yours truly) directed to Sunrise when they relaunched in Early 2016 and we all know where they are now…

I personally would’ve said that the Sunrise Cash Cow looks like a character from a cheap kids show.

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I’ll be honest, I think some of the criticism leveled at the new team is unjustified. This new on-air team have not even been on-air together for a month , yet people are already calling for their heads. Give them time to gell. Let’s see what the chemistry is like in another three months or so and then judge it from there. Success doesn’t come overnight.

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So far I liked the new team especially when Stevie Jacobs came back on Monday

Whilst I agree to some extent, you could kind of tell that things weren’t going to work from the start when Jessica Rowe was there (I don’t know maybe that was just me). But obviously a lot has changed since then, but we’ll see how this new team goes.

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But it hasn’t just been one month of the Today team not “gelling” - it has been more than 18 months! In such a competitive slot, I don’t know if that is sustainable.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Today (I have watched it nearly every day for 10 years) and I love the new team (they got rid of EVERY member I didn’t like). And no one expected them to be no.1 from day 1. But this new team needed to hit the ground running. Frankly, I don’t think the new team would be rating any better than the Sylvia, Karl and Georgie one (possibly even worse).

Ten’s Breakfast and Wake Up were given less than a year to work and they didn’t have the loyalty or branding that Today has. Like Wake Up, senior executives have pubically outed the show- saying Karl, Calvert and Today needed to pick up their game. Now it is only left to the show.

I see what you mean, but on the other hand, I think it would be unfair to not give the current team some chance at succeeding. Today would only have egg on it’s face if it were to make changes so soon after introducing it’s new-look team. It would be a disaster. Not only would the tabloids feed off of it, but such a move would do nothing to establish viewer confidence. The Today show would only be digging itself into a much bigger hole. It needs stability.

I’m not sure if any group of presenters would have been capable of hitting the ground running from day one, to be honest. It was always going to be unrealistic. The changes that have been made over the past few months have been significant to say the least and viewers are always going to find fault with something. You’re not going to please everyone, unfortunately.

Also, there are still some faults with the show that haven’t been addressed since the relaunch. The content is a huge factor in this. If Nine went to the effort of actually improving the content on the show, I think there’s a good chance that ratings will improve over the next few months. That’s just my opinion anyway. :slight_smile:

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I wonder if things might look different now if Deb had replaced Lisa last year. It’s easy to point the finger at Karl but Georgie has played a significant role in the shows decline as well.

Or a Karl, Georgie, Deb trio in 2018 could have been interesting. Georgie and Deb are both great but it’s proving to be a very flat pairing as I suspected it would be.

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