As I said before, if the shoes were on the other foot you can bet Nine would be the first ones firing all shots at Seven negatively. They did that for the Bieber crush back in 2011 so it’s nothing new with the pettiness on both sides.
We occasionally see numbers that might suggest that, but overall there are so many other times when it doesn’t occur that as a theory it has pretty much been disproved - like after a SOO for example.
I’m quite sure the ratings boxes detect who has come into the room or left it. I remember reading that the box prompts you to enter a number for the family member or guest who is watching with you.
Last week Today achieved its highest audience of the year. Sunrise won the week by just 20,000. That is the closest margin across the week since August last year. Today closed the gap in Sydney and is was ahead in the Melbourne market that is flip flopping between the two programs.
Sunrise was 40,000 higher this week last year Today was 20,000 higher so the margin then was 40,000 compared to 20k this year. News B was 40k higher last year as well.
This week last year MAFS’s ratings were 55,000 higher than this year in linear numbers.
The more annoying part of that shot are the two screens that are very clearly off-colour, yet it seems they don’t really care enough to do something about them.