Today Show slips to 176,000 viewers on Good Friday
The traditionally quiet television landscape of Good Friday hit Nine’s breakfast offering, Today, particularly hard, with just 176,000 metro viewers tuning in on the public holiday.
Its rival over on Seven, Sunrise, was almost 100,000 viewers ahead, with 274,000 tuning in from the five capital cities.
Today revamped its line-up at the beginning of this year
A large part of Today’s ratings issues on Friday morning came from Adelaide, where the difference between the two programs was telling. In the South Australian capital, 21,000 viewers tuned into Sunrise, while just 8,000 tuned into Today.
In Melbourne, the problem was similarly stark, with 75,000 tuning into Seven to watch Sunrise, but just 37,000 watching Today on Nine.
In Brisbane, 67,000 chose Sunrise, while 47,000 went with Today.
The difference in Sydney was less dramatic, with 74,000 watching Sunrise, and 59,000 choosing Today, and in Perth the numbers were 37,000 and 26,000 respectively.
Outside of the cities, 163,000 watched Sunrise, and 78,000 watched Today, taking the shows’ total figures to 438,000 and 254,000.
The performance of Today during this Easter non-ratings period, however, is not the show’s worst, with the show dropping as low as 168,000 on 18 February.
Today is consistently beaten by Seven’s Sunrise
Outside of the breakfast battle, however, Nine had a successful – if quiet – Good Friday. Its news offering, Nine News, topped the ratings ladder – a rare win over Seven – with 1.035m metro viewers, and 1.364m including the regions.
Seven News had 826,000 in the cities, and 1.250m overall.
In entertainment, ABC’s Gardening Australia topped the ladder with 455,000 metro viewers (681,000 total), while in sport the NRL clash between Melbourne Storm and Sydney Roosters had 409,000 (640,000 total).
The evening NRL match was most popular in Sydney – where it screened on Nine’s primary channel – with 225,000. In Melbourne, it played on 9Gem to 30,000, while in Adelaide, just 4,000 tuned in.
Seven’s Friday afternoon AFL offering of the match between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and the Essendon Bombers had 393,000 metro viewers – 227,000 of whom were from Melbourne. Despite being a match between two Melbourne teams, the match attracted 80,000 viewers in Perth.
In the evening in Perth, Seven screened a second AFL match – between the West Coast Eagles and Port Adelaide Power – to 137,000 viewers. This match wasn’t shown in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney, but did have a further 130,000 watching in Adelaide. Its metro total was 267,000, and a further 57,000 tuned in from the regions – bringing the figure to 324,000.
Ten’s most-watched program for the evening was The Living Room, with 329,000 metro viewers, and 480,000 in total.
Overall, it was a close race between Seven and Nine, with Nine pipping Seven at the post. Nine had a 21.1% audience share for the evening, ahead of Seven’s 20.2%. ABC was in third position on 10.7%, ahead of Ten’s 9.1%. SBS secured 5.3% of the audience.
With the addition of multi-channels, however, Seven snuck ahead – thanks largely to 7Mate’s 5.7% audience share – taking the Seven Network total to 30.7% for the night. Nine Network had 30.6%, ahead of ABC’s 15.4%, Ten’s 15.1%, and SBS’ 8.3%.
Love Today show the ladies are doing a wonderful job. They are doing a better show than Karl did.Love love love the show keep up the good work.
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