Today show’s ratings decline requires radical surgery, so it’s time to cut Karl loose
IT’S a radical idea, but after Today pulled its lowest ratings in more than a decade, here’s something Nine should consider, writes Holly Byrnes.
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IT’S hardly the place to strategise open heart surgery.
But the ravings of Karl Stefanovic in the back of that Uber might just prove to be the prophetic plan B that his Today show now needs to make any meaningful recovery in the ratings race against Sunrise.
Because make no mistake, with Nine’s breakfast show plummeting to its lowest audience numbers in more than a decade this week, the network’s bosses can’t go on ignoring the symptoms of a show in decline.
Like any patient in palliative care, there can be good days but if the last year has taught management anything, it’s that only radical change for its stars and format that will shake this program back to life.
And before everyone rushes to blame Karl, he alone can’t be held accountable for the condition the show is in right now.
Even if his toxic malaise is a large part of the problem, in my opinion, it’s Karl — and the whingeing he went on with in the back of that Uber back in March — where a solution, strangely, may be found.
His complaint to little brother and Weekend Today presenter Pete back then was that his bosses were “out of touch” and had no clue how to claw back the audiences they have been losing to Seven rivals, Sunrise.
Lisa Wilkinson’s departure was panned widely for the gender statement Nine management made — specifically their backing of Karl as the critical cure-all of Today’s fortunes.
What’s come to pass since Georgie Gardner has replaced her has only reinforced the perception Karl is king and Georgie just has to grin and bear this latest breakfast TV experiment.
But as I suggested at the time of Georgie’s arrival, what the show’s producers needed to do was use the moment to remake the show — and not in the shadow of Sunrise, or as a carbon copy of the Lisa and Karl show that brought them closest to winning the breakfast crown.
Instead, taking it in a brash, brave and bold new direction that could play to Karl and Georgie’s strengths — and that’s clearly not sitting beside each other or behind the same desk.
While the puff pieces would have you believe Georgie and Karl are bosom buddies, her Julie Bishop-esque glares tell a different story.
And blind Freddy could tell you he doesn’t want to be sitting in the same chair he has for the past 12 years either.
It’s just achingly awkward and awful to watch.
So it’s time to cut Karl loose.
Not from the show entirely, that is, but cut him free from the routine he’s rotting in and give him, in part, what he wants.
And what he’s wanted for years now is to be a 60 Minutes-style roving reporter.
Just not for the flagship Sunday current affairs show, which apparently doesn’t want a bar of him since he bagged the program in that same Uber session.
Instead, filing for his own breakfast program, which could do worse than get off its backside and use its daily platform to break a few stories … set the agenda even.
Karl has let anyone know who will listen — including that loose-lipped Uber driver — how much he rates himself as a journalist, so it’s time to take him at his word and send him back to work.
And work he would have to after getting off air each morning, hitting the road to bank the stories he so admires and claims are being underdone by others at his network.
If he thinks he’s got the chops to deliver hard-hitting stories on Sunday nights, why not for the audience he sits in front of each weekday?
Besides boot leather and those bosses he keeps complaining about, what is stopping him from taking the bit between his teeth, showing the leadership that’s been entrusted to him and taking responsibility for Today’s ratings recovery; one cracking good yarn at a time?
And I’d be the first to say he’s got it in him to deliver, consistently arguing as I have that in form and firing, he is the best broadcaster on breakfast TV.
But that’s just part of their problem here.
The other one is geography, with Melbourne audiences particularly turning their backs on Today this year.
The TV-loving city has drifted away from Today, with Sunrise winning over Melbourne in 23 of the 30 five-city metro ratings weeks to date.
If you’re relying on the same metric Nine tried to use back in 2016 to claim a breakthrough victory over Seven, Sunrise could have already claimed this ratings year nationally back in July — after it won 21 weeks (out of a total of 40).
The figures undermine the impression that Sunrise — situated as it is on Martin Place in the centre of Sydney’s CBD — is unappealing to Melbourne viewers because of a perceived Sydney-centrism.
Sunrise has worked hard to overcome any such bias, giving its Melbourne (and other interstate) reporters a solid presence on air each day.
So my next left-field suggestion would be to move the whole kit-and-caboodle out of the stale surrounds of Today’s Willoughby studios and head south.
With plans for Nine to relocate to new premises in North Sydney still a way off (2020 at the earliest), between now and then could be the perfect time to show Melbourne more love.
Anyone who dug in their heels and didn’t want to go could be shown the exit and open the door for fresh faces and people who actually want to be there.
It’s a brutal play, but so is breakfast television and at the very least you need to wake up to presenters who have all the vigour and enthusiasm most of us all lack in the mornings and are looking for on TV to perk us up.
What we don’t want are surgically-applied smiles, or fake “news” about the healthy state of their co-hosts relationship, on a show that lacks the pulse of the one on track to beat it again to the ratings crown.
Holly Byrnes is the National TV Editor for News Corp.