Sunrise clings on to beat Today by average of just 4000 metro viewers across the ratings year

Tim Burrowes

November 27, 2016 2:30

A month after Seven went to court to stop Nine claiming Today was Australia’s number one breakfast TV show, Sunrise has finished the ratings year with the top average audience, by the narrowest margin on record.

Across the 40-week ratings period, which excludes summer and easter, Seven’s Sunrise averaged 319,000 metro viewers to Today’s 315,000.

If the weeks of the Olympics was also excluded – and Seven argue they should not, given that they offer some of the most expensive programming of the year – Today beat Sunrise by 316,000 to 312,000.

Sunrise: Number one on average audience across ratings year

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.

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2 COMMENTS

Human headline 28 Nov 16

Is a 4,000 people difference over a year even statistically significant based on the current Oztam panel?

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John Grono 28 Nov 16

Bloody good question Human Headline.

I don’t have the definitive answer, but the panel size is designed around the +/- 3% error level. 4,000 in the SMBAP universe of 16.796m is around 2% of one percentage point, so top of head answer is that it is not significant.

But don’t forget that across the 40 week period there are 200 episodes measured, so in effect that is 200 samples of more than n=8,500 people per day or a grand total of around 1.7 million people days of viewing to come up with the 4k difference (i.e. there is a sampling efficiency factor that needs to be taken into account).

Bottom line is I am not sure, but a win is a win.