End of the affair: Bereft MAFS viewers break up with Today

IT’S been a low-key breakup. No bold proclamations on social media. No bitter tell-alls in the magazines. But a breakup nonetheless.

The Married At First Sight (MAFS) effect which struck ratings gold for Channel Nine has worn off, with the boost it gave breakfast show Today ending almost as quickly as Davina hooked up with someone else’s TV husband.

Last week — the first since MAFS Sight ended — saw Today ratings, which had finally made some inroads with viewers in major capital cities, swing back heavily to rival show and perennial winner Sunrise.

Since the start of the 2018 TV ratings year, and the launch of its MAFS ratings smash hit, Channel Nine had cross-promoted the ratings behemoth mercilessly.

It worked to great effect across shows like A Current Affair and Today, as they became the first places for MAFS fans to get fresh updates and interviews as the latest MAFS exit or controversy flared.

Today has been suffering lacklustre ratings all year, with Sunrise continuing more than decade of dominance nationally, even as Georgie Gardner joined Today to steady the ship after the shock departure of Lisa Wilkinson.

Today continues to follow rival Sunrise in the ratings, as it has for more than a decade. It made ground in 2016, but lost momentum amid headlines as Stefanovic’s marriage broke down, new relationship began, and Wilkinson departed.

A fortnight ago, with MAFSinterest at fever pitch Today ended up with the perfect ratings storm — although Nine will be loath to admit it.

Call it the car-crash effect: the same week MAFS was exiting, with some of its biggest storylines, the fallout from Today host Karl Stefanovic apparently being busted slagging off his co-host, Georgie Gardner, on a speakerphone telephone call in an Uber was at its zenith.

On Monday, March 19, viewers who woke up with Today could not only get a bit more goss on the latest MAFS dinner party disaster, but also see how Stefanovic and Gardner were faring sitting next to each other since his criticisms — and pre-emptive damage control apology — became public.

Today had a rare but narrow five-city metropolitan ratings win over Sunrise that day, and an average of 259,000 viewers to Sunrise’s 257,000 viewers.

It was the same story through until Thursday, March 22, as MAFS ended its season and viewers lapped up the post-mortems next morning — with the added benefit of catching any awkwardness between Karl and Georgie (by now strategically reporting from separate states).

But on Friday, March 23 — Today’s first morning without MAFS scandals, only staff scandals, to boost the Channel Nine audience, Sunrise was back on top, belting Today in five-city metropolitan average ratings, 254,000 to 219,000.

It was enough, combined with Sunrise’s traditional dominance in regional areas (it outstrips Today by anywhere from about 60,000 to more than 100,000 regional viewers daily), to give Sunrise the breakfast ratings win for the week. Again.

Last week, in a world post MAFS, Today won just one metropolitan ratings day: Wednesday (245,000 to Sunrise’s 234,000).

Sunrise remains Australia’s top-rating breakfast show by a long shot.

This year, it’s averaging 270,000 city viewers, compared to Today on 253,000.

Meanwhile, MAFS finished its season as the most-watched television show of the year to date with a metro audience of 1.75m people.

The national audience peaked at 2.6m viewers for the finale.

The series was the number one show on television for six of its eight weeks on air.

Let's block ads! (Why?)