Lisa Wilkinson moving to The Project hasn’t helped the ratings

CHANNEL 10’s $2 million dollar gamble on Lisa Wilkinson appears to be coming up short with the host’s flagship program The Sunday Project shedding half its viewers since the star’s debut.

CHANNEL 10s $2 million dollar gamble on Lisa Wilkinson appears to be coming up short with the host’s flagship program The Sunday Project shedding half its viewers since the star’s debut.

And Bondi Rescue, the show it replaced in the timeslot was attracting many more viewers at this time last year.

Wilkinson was rumoured to have become the highest paid person on Australian TV after leaving Channel 9’s Today to sign with the Ten network to host on Sunday, co-host on Thursday and Friday and edit Ten Daily.

Lisa Wilkison famously left the Today Show and moved to The Project after wage talks broke down. Picture: Carlotta Moye

Wilkinson debuted on the show, which she co-hosts with journalist Hamish McDonald and comedian Tommy Little, on January 28 pulling in 481,000 five-city metro viewers in its first half-hour and 583,000 by 7pm — up 200,000 on the 2017 average.

But six weeks later just 227,000 viewers tuned in to the program at 6.30pm last Sunday, pushing the show out of the Top 20 programs for the day and losing more than half its debut audience.

While the show climbed to 347,000 viewers at 7pm, it was still well below ratings for the 6pm Channel Nine news, which pulled in 971,000 viewers.

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On her debut, she pulled in almost 500,000 viewers but it has fallen since then. Picture: Instagram/@lisa_wilkinson

In October last year, about the time news broke of Wilkinson’s dramatic exit from Channel 9 to head to Ten, the show’s 6.30pm numbers hovered around the 285,000 mark.

Mediaweek editor James Manning said the numbers showed that regardless of the profile of the host, viewers simply weren’t invested in the program.

“(With Wilkinson) people were intrigued at the start, for a one-off, but haven’t really tuned in if they didn’t believe in the format before that,” he said, adding viewers usually make their minds up pretty quickly.

“There does seem a reluctance for people to embrace a current affair style show on Sunday nights, preferring the magazine shows like 60 Minutes and Sunday Night.”

But a Channel 10 spokesman said the network was still pleased with the performance of the show.

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Despite failing to ignite TV ratings, Channel 10 are still pleased with how the show is going. Picture: Supplied

“Judging the performance of a television show on the basis of one night’s ratings is misleading,“ he said.

“Despite sitting in a highly competitive timeslot, it has increased its audience by 28 per cent across the full hour and by 34 per cent in the second half-hour, compared with 2017 (average).”

“Lisa, Hamish, Tommy and the team are doing a great job and viewers are responding accordingly.”

The Sunday Project only started airing in August last year. Before that, the 6.30 prime-time slot was filled by Bondi Rescue, which this time last year drew in 386,000 viewers.