While viewers abandon Sunrise and Today, ABC bucks the trend

Since 2016, Today's metropolitan ratings have slumped by almost 16 per cent — while Sunrise has shed nearly one-fifth of its city audience.

This isn't surprising.

In 2018, most long-running shows are losing viewers. If they experience only a small decline — as opposed to a precipitous drop — they're doing well.

Which makes ABC's NewsBreakfast — presented by Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland — an interesting case study.

A reason to smile: ABC NewsBreakfast hosts Michael Rowland and Virginia Trioli are holding firm while their commercial rivals decline.

Since 2016, it's grown by almost 3 per cent. In the two years prior, its ratings jumped by 48 per cent.

Clearly, they're doing something right.

At the very least, the ups and downs of each breakfast show challenge the notion that "all publicity is good publicity".

Just look at Seven's Sunrise, and the storm over an ill-advised segment featuring an all-white panel making glib (and incorrect) claims about Aboriginal children.

Sunrise's Sam Armytage (centre) presents an ill-advised segment with Prue MacSween and Ben Davis.Credit: Seven Network

Without even trying, Nine's Today promptly swung the spotlight back onto itself. As Sunrise's woes receded, news broke that Today host Karl Stefanovic had made critical remarks about his co-anchor Georgie Gardner. (This only came to light after a gossip mag reportedly paid a dodgy Uber driver $50,000 for his "recollections" of the conversation between Karl and his brother, Peter.)

Today's Karl Stefanovic with new co-host, Georgie Gardner.Credit: Fairfax Media

Of course, commercial brekkie presenters enjoy more positive coverage, too. They get lovely "at home with" spreads in glossy women's magazines. Their faces are plastered across giant billboards and bus shelters. And they have teams of network PR people at their disposal.

Trioli and Rowland would be lucky to get a photocopied poster on a telephone pole. (It's no secret that Aunty's marketing budget is, erm, more "modest" than its commercial rivals'.)

To be clear, Sunrise remains Australia's top-rating breakfast show by a wide margin. So far this year, it's averaging 270,000 city viewers, compared to Today on 253,000 and NewsBreakfast on 149,000.

The numbers point to an indisputable truth: while ABC holds firm, Sunrise and Today are going down.

At face value, these figures seem shockingly tiny. (NewsBreakfast's audience, for example, is smaller than the population of Townsville.)

But don't be fooled.

These numbers reflect only the five major capital cities — and they're averaged over the 7am to 9am period (totalling 10 hours across five weekdays).

Perhaps you watch NewsBreakfast for 15 minutes every morning, while eating your toast. No doubt you'd consider yourself a "regular viewer".

When it comes to ratings, though, you represent just one-eighth of a person.

For ABC to boost its audience by one measly viewer, it would need 40 actual people to watch 15 minutes of NewsBreakfast across a typical week.

It's much more useful to examine the cumulative audiences of these programs: each week, more than 6 million people (including regional residents) catch at least a few minutes of Sunrise, Today or NewsBreakfast.

Nevertheless, the average audience numbers point to an indisputable truth: while ABC holds firm, Sunrise and Today are going down.