Georgie Gardner’s new start on Today no match for market leaders on Sunrise in ratings

CHANNEL Nine’s new breakfast duo Today’s Karl Stefanovic and Georgie Gardner have failed to impress in their first big test against Channel Seven’s Sunrise.

NINE’S new breakfast combo of Karl Stefanovic and Georgie Gardner has failed to take advantage of its novelty factor on their first day on air together — with Seven’s Sunrise winning both five-city and national ratings yesterday.

While the pairing will take time to bed in — and with the official survey not set to start until February 11 — Karl and Georgie were beaten by market leaders, Sam Armytage and David Koch, who won the national battle 480,000 viewers to Today’s 378,000 people.

COMMENT: Same old Today won’t beat Sunrise

Georgie Gardner at her first day at work with co-host Karl Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys. Picture: Instagram/Sylvia Jeffreys

The metropolitan figures were a little kinder to the new team, but Sunrise still triumphed 281,000 viewers to Today’s 256,000.

The 10 per cent margin is a large one for the breakfast timeslot, with Seven’s prime-time Australian Open coverage also factoring in as a leg-up the following day.

But the defeat for Nine comes off the back of Seven’s 14th consecutive year on top of the breakfast battle — and after the shock departure of former Today co-host Lisa Wilkinson, who jumped ship to Ten over a pay parity dispute.

While Georgie was a familiar and credible choice as her replacement, the audience clearly needs more time to take to the new line-up; or perhaps, are still looking for something different and a more energetic format as an alternative.

Seven’s Sunrise team Natalie Barr, Samantha Armytage, David Koch and Mark Beretta will be hard to knock off the top spot. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Meanwhile, Seven’s exclusive on one of Australia’s most famous cold cases, investigating the disappearing of the Beaumont children, helped it to a national win and top spot in the ratings last night (winning an audience of 1.01 million metro viewers).

The tennis blockbuster between Novak Djokovic and new Korean sensation Hyeon Chung also scored well for Seven, holding an audience of 830,000 metro viewers from 7.30pm onwards over Chung’s three-set victory, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6.

ABC was next best in prime time, posting 608,000 viewers for Heather Ewart’s charming roadtrip series, Back Roads; just ahead of Ten’s Big Bash League coverage (605,000) and Nine’s RBT (516,000).