Georgie Gardner played it safe in Today debut, but that won’t close the gap against Sunrise long term
ANALYSIS: She’s a safe pair of hands, but new Today co-host Georgie Gardner needs to take the show in another direction if it’s to close the ratings gap on Sunrise.
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COMMENT
GEORGIE Gardner’s son Angus might have been the only one to feel a bit miffed about his mother’s debut on Today.
Celebrating his 11th birthday on the same day his mum made her much heralded return, replacing Lisa Wilkinson, “Gussy” earned a shout out from her co-hosts who welcomed back their former colleague, who made a graceful and easy re-entry to the mad, mad world of breakfast TV.
With his working mum apparently holding the secret to where his birthday presents were stashed at home, some frantic text messaging between mother and son were about as dramatic as Georgie’s first day got in the co-host’s chair.
And that’s obviously just how the producers and Nine management would like it to stay.
But frankly, besides letting Lisa jump ship to Ten over a pay parity dispute, that would be their next mistake.
Going quietly in the breakfast TV battle is not what it’s going to take to close the gap on Seven’s Sunrise, which again won the ratings year in 2017 - helped along by the acrimonious headlines which followed Karl Stefanovic’s very public, ugly divorce followed unexpectedly and more damagingly by Lisa’s departure.
Of course, change is never without its bumps and bruises, but it could be argued that the braver option by Today would have been to take this as an opportunity to perform major surgery on a show that could use it.
Don’t get me wrong - Georgie was the best fix from within Nine’s stable, with her news credibility and necessary, no-nonsense, steel needed to tether co-host Karl’s in his more flighty moments.
When he’s engaged and challenged, Karl is undeniably the best performer in the breakfast TV market.
When he’s bored (and after 12 years in the same gig who can blame him), he can often be a brattish turn-off.
Georgie’s withering glares when these moods inevitably strike Karl are not going to go unnoticed by an audience as bored sometimes as he is.
So, why not shake things up?
Today’s episode was the safe, same-old, same-old - even it’s attempt to promote the on-air combo was unoriginal, called out by the BBC for ripping off its commercial.
Let’s be generous and put the story mix down to a slow news day and post-holiday-itis we can all be found guilty of, but once Gardner gets her feet under that desk, what then?
This is surely the time to tear a few pages out of the old playbook and write some new rules, new material.
If watching the changes forced upon US breakfast TV shows like NBC’s Today and its CBS equivalent, This Morning — after the #metoo movement claimed the scalps of Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose respectively — tells breakfast producers here anything it’s that viewers are ready for something different.
Ratings for NBC’s Today - which replaced the disgraced Lauer with another female anchor, Hoda Kotb - have improved dramatically, with the show posting rare wins over ABC’s Good Morning America (last achieved off the back of the network’s Rio Olympics coverage).
This Morning, which replaced Rose with John Dickerson, has held its audience, which, in these tumultuous times, is an achievement in itself.
US critics put both successes down to the professionalism of the female hosts - Kotb and Savannah Guthrie on Today; and Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell on This Morning.
Therein may be the clue to Nine’s Today moving forward - more of Georgie and the show’s extremely likeable newsreader, Sylvia Jeffreys, not less.
Nine might need to get its money’s worth from Karl, but the trick to luring back the mostly female viewers who have deserted the show could be in giving more airtime and opportunity to the talented and capable women it has on deck.
As they say - if only male executives would listen - the future is female.