Melissa Doyle is ready for prime time (but what does it mean for Today Tonight?)
It’s easy to be dismissive of TV presenters – particularly when they’re doing something as fluffy as morning television.
But today’s announcement of the departure of Mel Doyle from Sunrise is a reminder that it’s harder than it looks.
To get up at something like 4am, day-in and day-out, to be on top of things day after day, and to make it look like you enjoy it every day is hard.
Actually making middle Australia like you, is harder still.
The timing of this raises a few questions.
One possibility of course is that she simply had enough of getting up at that time, and Seven is giving her another gig to keep her in the family.
But if Seven is controlling the timing of this, then bigger moves are afoot.
Moving her on when the ratings race is so close with Today is a risk, even if Samantha Armytage has been well groomed as a successor partly thanks to her profile raising on Dancing With The Stars..Not least because Ten’s new tilt at the breakfast market could disrupt the delicate balance between the two leaders, even if it doesn’t become a serious challenger itself.
But there again, the show has lost ground in Melbourne, and perhaps Seven felt it had to move on either Kochie or Mel to get back into that fight – Armytage’s Encore Score is a bit better than Doyle’s in Victoria, albeit she appears to be strongest in Queensland.
Encore Scores for Mel Doyle and Sam Armytage | Analysis – Acid Test
So what has Seven got in mind for Doyle now?
A couple of hints came in a follow-up email sent by Seven a few minutes after the announcement. The first announcement gave no clue about whether the new project would be weekday or weekend, daily or otherwise.
But a few minutes later, the follow-up refers to how Doyle “gives up mornings for nighttimes” – which suggests daily. The fact that it’s a “Network News initiative” is another pointer on what she’ll be involved in. As is the fact that the follow up email contains a bio for Doyle emphasising her journalistic credentials.
My guess is that what we will see is another attempt to fix Seven’s Today Tonight problem. The 6.30pm show is being beaten by Nine’s A Current Affair, and it’s particularly bad in Sydney and Melbourne. While the main competition is Seven, Ten has telegraphed changes in that timeslot so it would make sense to try to get in first.
As we revealed at the beginning of the year, Seven weighed up the possibility of extending the 6pm bulletin to a full hour and axing Today Tonight. It even tried it for a few days before pulling back.
Whatever Seven has in mind for Doyle will, I suspect, have something to do with that.
It makes sense. She’s got the viewers’ trust. In the Encore Score survey of consumer appreciation, she has a 75 per cent recognition factor. Her positive score is 12%, and negative only 2%.
Interestingly, Doyle’s replacement Samantha Armytage scores even higher, with a 13 per cent positive and only 1 per cent negative score.
If Today Tonight presenter Helen Kapalos (only 50 per cent recognition, four per cent positive and 1 per cent negative) doesn’t know her fate already, she’d be right to be feeling nervous.
This doesn’t feel like Seven’s promise to Kerri-Anne Kennerley of a prime time show that came to nothing. But that said, if everything is ready and in place, then why not announce it now?
There are other unanswered questions. How does Sunrise newsreader Nat Barr feel about this? She’s put in a lot of service and must have thought she’d be in with a shot. I wonder how long she’s got on her contract before she can look around. But there again, Weekend Sunrise just opened up – could that be an option for her?
Changes as big as this rarely go entirely as planned. Some of the fallout is, I suspect, yet to come.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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