Today (2015-Sept 2020)

Ouch.

Certainly was not expecting it to be that low.

Did they at least win Sydney and/or Melbourne?

They won in Sydney, got thrashed in Melbourne and Adelaide.

Today won in Sydney yesterday morning (7am-9am) but lost all other markets. In Melbourne, perhaps surprisingly, Sunrise won by 30,000 the biggest margin of any market.

Today’s 9am-10am segment was beaten in all 3 markets where it was broadcast with the extended portion of Sunrise (5 markets) even outrating the 7am-9am segment of Today.

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So the heavy Melbourne content did nothing to help them in Melbourne.

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Early days. Plus OBs rarely result in better ratings. Let’s see what happens this year.

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You can see city comparisons of how Sunrise and Today rated yesterday in this article:

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Melbourne is the biggest surprise to me.
A long year could be ahead for Georgie and Deb.

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The Australian is reporting that even ABC’s News Breakfast beat Today in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

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I think it’s not unexpected when you make so many big changes, all at once. That was the concern I raised when they announced all the changes one after the other. It probably would have been wiser just to make changes and tweaks slowly.

But Nine probably had no choice than blow the whole thing up and start again since Karl, Sylvia and Pete were connected and intertwined. They just need to be patient and let the audience find them and become familiar with them again.

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Geez.

For now I’m willing to give Nine the benefit of the doubt because as we all know, one day hardly makes a trend and that it can take time for viewers to be accustomed to major changes.

However…if News Breakfast on the ABC manages to frequently outrate Today in some metro markets during 2019, then I do believe Nine will eventually have to seriously consider the idea of splitting Today into five local programs (except maybe with a national “Summer Today” during the holiday period, ala 4pm News).

Well, I think the problem was that they didn’t make enough changes. They promoted it as the ‘NEW’ Today, but other than the new team and a few visual changes, no changes were made to the format or content.

I am not saying that if they did change the content, they would have beaten Sunrise yesterday but I think they would have been more competitive.

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Nine didn’t have to rush the changes and launch off the back of the Australia Open. Should have waited two more weeks (IMO). I think the promotion was very soft as well.

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But we also know that people don’t respond well to changes. Sunrise were in a winning position and then decided to refresh almost everything. Viewers switched off.

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It’s still non ratings, isn’t it? What better promotion can there be with the whole new cast broadcasting two weeks ahead of the ratings season?

I’m talking about telling potential viewers that is happening. There didn’t seem to a major on-air, social media or any other campaign to promote the early return and new cast line-up. The promotion seemed all very tentative and low-key.

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Every time they posted something new, even when the updated the cover photo they got slammed for all the changes. So part of me can understand why, but then the other half of me thinks well if you want it to succeeed dedicate the time.

im taking the ratings with the grain of salt . because that would be only people with tv rating boxes and doesnt take in to account the rest of australia and those with out a box

I would say a lot of the damage has already been done… It will take them awhile to gain back this market. Its not just Melbourne, but Adelaide and Perth are following.

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I can see the appeal in having localised breakfast programs for each market, but I personally don’t think it would ever be a viable outcome. For starters, such a move would be a pretty significant strain on their news resources and finances. You would essentially be producing five big-budgeted programs every morning for almost 365 days a year and for what gain? Sunrise could still very well out-perform the localised Today programs, despite Nine’s investments into the programs. Today needs stability, not more changes for changes sake.

Also, how would this have an effect on their news department? We’ve already witnessed the effects that it can have on a news bulletin in the form of Georgie and Deb joining the Today show. Nine News Sydney has lost two of it’s weekend news-anchors within the space of just 18 months. This can be detrimental to the success of the news service, because it allows the competition to gain ground and potentially outperform the bulletin across several nights of the week. If you were to launch five localised Today programs, this would likely see a similar set of circumstances occurring in other markets around the country. We could see Alicia Loxley, for instance, presenting Today Melbourne, while Brett McLeod would suddenly be promoted to the position of Nine News Melbourne weekend anchor.

That’s not even taking into account that free-to-air is gradually dying and it is becoming less economically sustainable as each year passes. Viewers are leaving free-to-air in droves. It isn’t the main medium of consuming news & entertainment and it hasn’t been for well over a decade now. That’s just my take on the idea.