Sunrise turns 10

This week marks 10 years since Sunrise revamped from earlier versions.

Yesterday the “Sunrise family” marked the occasion with media at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay.

In 2002 when it took on the might of Nine’s long-running Today show, the show was hosted by Melissa Doyle and Chris Reason, with David Koch subsequently given the co-presenting role by producer Adam Boland, after Reason had to bow out due to ill health.

Earlier incarnations had hosts including Anne Fulwood, Chris Bath, Mark Beretta, Peter Ford, and Georgie Gardner.

But it was the Doyle / Koch chemistry, together with Mark Beretta, Natalie Barr and Grant Denyer and the show’s shift towards breakfast-radio-on-TV that saw it connect with viewers.

Melissa Doyle says the show sought to initiate a conversation with the audience from very early on.

“We read emails out and interacted with our viewers more and that was probably where we put our little stake in the sand to say we were different. The different technology with Facebook and Twitter has made it easier but for us that never changed,” she says.

In addition to ABC News Breakfast offering a third alternative, TEN’s Breakfast has now entered the fray.

Doyle says Sunrise doesn’t take anything for granted, but is focussed on its own product rather than  obsessing about the competition.

“It sounds silly, but it’s almost as if we’ve been building our house and doing our thing and it’s as if you look outside and the neighbours have put an extra storey on. Of course we’ve been observing it but we’re not so consumed by everybody else that it dominates our thinking, day to day,” she says.

“We’ve changed and that’s what we’ve been focused on. I look back at how our show has grown and we’ve all grown as people and journalists and the issues we’ve covered. That’s what we focus on.

“But it’s great that the landscape is changing and there are more players in the market. It’s about choice. Imagine if we were the only thing you had to watch in the morning.

“The breakfast market itself has grown and I think that’s a reflection that people’s habits are changing. They watch television in the morning than they might have before. So maybe it’s that there are more people watching. I think the importance of it in people’s families and day to day activities has changed.”

Now produced by Michael Pell, Sunrise ranks first with national audiences, in what is largely a two-horse race. While ratings of around 380,000 may not sound grand, the drop-in / drop-out nature of breakfast shows means their Reach is actually much larger.

20 minutes is considered a standard viewing sample.

“Most people wouldn’t be able to sit there from 6-9am in the morning. If they’re anything like my house it’s frantic, and everyone is racing out the door. We’re very particular with news on the hour, those things are really important. I know whenever I’m off watching the show, the timeline and ticker are things that I rely on,” she says.

“We watch television in different ways now. With the Labor Leadership (vote) I was in Canberra and my husband was watching it stream on his iPad.  My kids were watching it at school up on their smartboard.”

Some campaigns generated by the show, including a push for Organ Donation liaison, have led to national change. But Doyle is hard pressed to nominate an individual highlight.

“The World Vision trips that we’ve done, the places we’ve taken our viewers. Last year heading to the Dadaab camp in Africa, things we’ve been able to do and hopefully issues we’ve been able to highlight. That’s why I wanted to become a journalist in the first place,” she says.

“So it’s the moments where we’ve done something good with our little three hours each day.”

Sunrise airs 6-9am weekdays on Seven.