I think you need to do a little more extensive research here Although there have definitely been similarities between the 2 program’s over the years, but I’d just like to clarify some thing’s.
Whilst the concept of Hollywood gossip guru was definitely introduced by Sunrise first, Today originally had Joan McInnes as an entertainment reporter in the 1980s.
Before Sunrise became a big hit, Today was already doing this. With sport being integrated into the news report.
The constantly on the road award would definitely go to Grant Denyer, but the concept of a roving weather reporter is not new. Today had Monte Dwyer in the 1990s that travelled, and Sami Lukis in the early 2000s. (I remember her being in Hong Kong at some point doing it).
And whilst Sunrise has changed the viewing landscape in the morning in more recent years, the concept of Breakfast/morning television is not exclusive to Sunrise or Today for that matter.
Today may not have won the ratings on a national scale now for almost 20 years, but it reigned supreme in the mornings for 20 years prior to that, and also saw the demise of another breakfast program.
I think Wake Up was always doomed to fail, and the idea that Boland could create another Sunrise so many years later was foolish.
Australia isn’t big enough for a four-way split for morning news. They were never going to take much audience away from Sunrise, Today or News Breakfast, so they were having to engage people who normally wouldn’t watch or were willing to flick. As Breakfast proved a year earlier, the audience just wasn’t there.
They then spent so much time and money getting that beach shack ready to broadcast from, not realising it’s still just another Sydney location that the rest of the country doesn’t care about.
The three way hosting panel was a good idea, but filling it with the largely unknown (at the time) Natasha Exelby, and former Idol host James Matheson was a misstep. And marketing them as “Tash, Tarsh and Matho” was even worse. We know Natarsha Belling is capable, and pairing her with Matt Doran would have been better (which they sorta did towards the end).
It’s true. Today have copied so much from Sunrise that they are now practically the same show (and on Friday they were literally side-by-side in Adelaide).
Toady had extensive coverage of a police incident in Logan this morning. They did well to have good images of what looked like an arrest. Sunrise also had a lot of coverage but seemed to miss the arrest live. Later, Nine labelled their footage as EXCLUSIVE, which is debatable since there was vision of the same thing on Seven. ABC was late to the coverage but did manage to get a reporter there eventually.
I’m not sure if anyone caught it, but Jayne and Clint did a 30second update breaking into programming with a news alert on Barry’s death and that special coverage was coming up on WToday. It aired around 6:15 and then again at like 6:50.
Although there have definitely been similarities between the 2 program’s over the years, but I’d just like to clarify some thing’s.
