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Long haul for TEN as Breakfast starts in 4th place

Launched ahead of schedule, the first day of TEN's morning TV battle indicates a tough battle ahead.

The first day of TEN’s morning TV battle indicates the long haul ahead.

Launched with little fanfare due to the snap decision to begin 4 days ahead of schedule, Breakfast landed in fourth place.

Sunrise was 399,000.
Today was 348,000.
ABC News Breakfast was ABC1: 56,000 / ABC News 24: 26,000
Breakfast was 51,000.

There was also a separate figure of 46,000 for Breakfast “Early” from 6-7am. And 42,00 for Breakfast “Extended” post 9am.

Both Sunrise and Today also break out an “Early” figure for their first hour (216,000 / 170,000 respectively).

TEN has always maintained Breakfast is a long-haul project, and it was an achievement to get the show to air early with a news landscape that was changing minute by minute. But scoring a “0” in Melbourne for 8:44-8:59am indicates just how tough the battle will be.

The real test will be in lifting shares from its former cartoon slots and attracting advertising revenue, and under the circumstances it’s too early to start drawing conclusions about results from the first day. A TEN release today claims a 67.8% increase in Total People.

Elsewhere last night My Kitchen Rules again ranked first with 1.63m viewers. Seven’s line-up once again led the night in all timeslots except at 7pm when ABC News won with 1.04m viewers.

Nine News was best for Nine on 922,000 followed by ACA on 813,000. Earth Flight was 557,000.

The Biggest Loser topped TEN’s evening on 709,000. Law and Order: SVU was 488,000 / 356,000. The Project was 411,000.

7:30 was 694,000 for ABC1. Family Confidential was 646,00 but The Straits was down to 456,000.

Neighbours topped multichannels on 278,000.

Thursday 23 February 2012.

29 Responses

  1. The reality is that 10 are entering a very crowded but small market. It is a fierce market and 7,abc and 9 all produce quality and entertaining shows. Breakfast might be ok but to gain traction it has to be sensational. i am a rusted on sunrise viewer and Today have their rusted on viewers so Ten would probably do better if they just showed cartoons or the test pattern. They are just too late entering this market. If they had a point of difference they may do better but Breakfast is a poor imitation.

  2. @David Knox

    You know I too prefer the straight forward weather presentation but I think it’s a waste to have someone in studio only to have them on screen for 2 minutes every half hour. I’ve seen her do morning News updates and interaction with The Circle team doing so, prior to the launch of Breakfast so she obviously she is capable of alot more. Plus it would balance out the genders on that couch.

  3. Perhaps they need to bring in a cash cow segment to lift the ratings??

    There are obviously alot of things to improve on like the set! Also why isn’t Magdalena being utilized? I thought she was a co host yet it appears she’s just there to look pretty and give the weather. Surely she has something to say?

    Hopefully they’ll find a groove and have decent guest interviews happening along with presenting worth while stories and segment. I do love the lack of sport updates however..

  4. Ten have had a really bad start with just under half of the population living outside the AEDT timezone. Why they didn’t go live to all states like Sunrise and Today have done over the past two days is beyond belief.

    If they want to start early because of the Labor leadership, surely they would know that the needed to go live to all states and terottiries.

  5. The Kevin Rudd press conference was live on Sunrise and Today, but on Breakfast there was no sign of it. Half an hour later when I flipped over there were headlines on screen saying the Rudd press conference was just about to start. I must be a bit slow, but only then did I realise the show was on half an hour delay in Adelaide! They also need to get rid of the coffee table!

  6. What I saw of Breakfast didn’t enjoy but it’s only day one. Quite enjoyed Paul, Andrew was constantly drinking coffee. Switched back to Sunrise and must say Mel is great out of the studio and thought she did a great job.

  7. I’m glad Breakfast came last. It was identical to Sunrise and Today, despite 10’s promises. I think I’ll stick with ABC News Breakfast and Today.

  8. Shame about The Straits. It’s a pretty good show. FNQ looks amazing, good to see a show set somewhere besides dirty old Melbourne.

    Sucked in to Ten’s Breakfast. Sack Henry, i might watch, but ABC News Breakfast is far superior to them all. Although if Kochie wears a Port Adelaide scarf every day like this morning, i might switch back to Sunrise.

  9. What annoyed me today is they knew Rudd was going to be having a live press thing this morning but here in QLD we have to wait an hour to see the ‘live’ coverage on TEN. One day is understandable on a brand new show but surely they could have just started it her at 5am QLD time to have live for local viewers.

  10. The format is going to do them in. There’s no point in serving up different hosts in such a similar style to the other two. I understand the urge to tap into such a rich market, but they need to something different and talking about what’s happening on Twitter isn’t it. Anyone who wants to know what’s on Twitter is on Twitter. What would have been great is a melange of Video Hits, The Couch, Before the Game, Entertainment Tonight with a sprinkling of news/current affairs.

  11. Sunrise did start with under 100k and the book Who Killed Channel 9 did say something about Sunrise when Adam Borland took over and I think it was getting an average of about 91k and Today was over 400k. Ch 7 used to air cartoons like Ten did and ch 10 once had a popular breakfast show in the 80s and early 90s. Ten need to commit to Breakfast on the long term and let it grow. Seven let Sunrise grew and look at its ratings now and over the past 7 years. Maybe Breakfast will end up as Australia’s number 1 breakfast show. Sunrise did it so its possible for breakfast. Breakfast did launch unexpectedly with little promotion for yesterday’s start.

    At least The Circle will have a stronger lead in and the kids will still watch the same cartoons just over on 11 instead.

  12. I did not see Breakfast today, but yesterday the sudden change in programming was very obvious – almost all of the adds were for toys. Im sure there will be some very unhappy advertisers who had paid for a under 15 audience and did not get it.

  13. And, as an example of lack of credibility, her name is Julie Bishop, not “Julia”.
    ” A TEN release today claims a 67.8% increase in Total People”. Yeah, well, from 2 to 3.4 is 67.8% so depends on the base figure to have any meaning.

  14. I’m not sure why Australia needs another TV show at breakfast. I don’t watch any of them, TV during the daytime is not something we’ve ever done, I stick with radio during the day. However you have to hand it to TEN who seem willing to do far more experimentation than the others, who play it safe to the point of total exasperation.

    Good for them for sticking with The Project (so far!) – I’ve watched it from the beginning.

  15. It will get better but, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not going to get anywhere near Today or Sunrise. And because of this, I can see the producers urging Paul to say something controversial to get more ratings, but that’s another issue.

  16. One issue Ten has is that a lot of the advertising of the new Breakfast is still indicating that the program hasn’t started yet – listening to Nova 969 yesterday afternoon they had the show sponsoring the news, but it was still presented as “starting Monday” – so if you had missed the Project’s announcement or hadn’t noticed it in the news then you wouldn’t be aware that it had already started. I’d wait til next week before really judging it – my husband for example had no idea it had moved until I mentioned it when I heard the ad on Nova.

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