Lisa Wilkinson to start on Ten’s The Project on Sunday
Ten has flagged there is just “four days to go” until its star recruit joins the ranks of The Project.
Lisa Wilkinson, who defected from Nine’s Today Show last year, will start on The Sunday Project with Hamish Macdonald, Tommy Little and Rachel Corbett on 28 January at 6:30pm.
From there, she will join Carrie Bickmore, Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar at the desk on weeknights, as well as co-hosting with Aly on Friday nights.
Ten said it was “one of the most anticipated television debuts of 2018”.
“Lisa will bring her trademark intelligence, warmth and wit to the panel in what is set to be a bumper show,” the network said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_kbljvdg5M
In October, Wilkinson abruptly left Nine after contract negotiations broke down. She announced the news on Twitter and less than an hour later, Ten sent out a media release announcing her appointment to The Project.
Given the news was announced overnight and Wilkinson did not return to her co-hosting seat on Today, audiences were unaware they were watching her final appearance on the program. Her final episode had 274,000 metro viewers, which was below rival Sunrise on Seven which has 289,000, according to OzTAM’s preliminary overnight metro ratings.
The episode immediately following the shock departure had 301,000 metro viewers – ahead of Sunrise’s 262,000 – as co-host Karl Stefanovic, stand-in co-host Deb Knight and the on-air team said goodbye to Wilkinson, who did not appear on the program.
In late November, Georgie Gardner was announced as Wilkinson’s full-time replacement on the Today Show.
Gardner’s first episode on Monday had 256,000 metro viewers, according to OzTAM. On the same day, Sunrise pulled an audience of 281,000, but Today won in Sydney and Melbourne as well as across the key advertising demographics 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s.
Excellent. This week Mumbrella reported that The Project’s viewing audience was 479,000. I guess we can expect a sharp upward rise from Sunday.
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