Channel Seven was dealt a humiliating blow last Wednesday as its ratings juggernaut Sunrise performed badly in Melbourne.
The breakfast show dominates the market nationally, but struggled to maintain its top rating in the Victorian capital city last week, pulling in just 29,000 viewers.
To make the blow even more bitter, the measly viewership count was the exact same number pulled by ABC children’s show The Adventures of Paddington.
Meanwhile, Sunrise’s Channel Nine rival Today more than doubled the Seven show’s ratings in Melbourne on the same day, netting 65,000 viewers in the city.
Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Seven for comment.
Despite Sunrise’s subpar performance in Melbourne, the popular breakfast show, helmed by Natalie Barr and Matt Shirvington, continues to hold the national crown.
For the 21st year in a row, the program has retained its title of the most popular TV breakfast program on Australian TV.
Rival show Today, hosted by Karl Stefanovic and Sarah Abo, brought in 311,000 viewers nation-wide while Sunrise easily took the lead with 379,000.
Channel Seven was dealt a humiliating blow last Wednesday as Sunrise, helmed by Natalie Barr (left) and Matt Shirvington (right), pulled only 29,000 viewers in Melbourne
It comes amid reports Seven and Nine are locked in a vicious ‘star wars’ as they try to convince their rivals’ best and brightest talent to switch channels.
Sources within Seven’s Sydney headquarters said the network has been forced to fend off interest from Nine in at least half a dozen of its young gun reporters as the two broadcasters battle it out for ratings supremacy.
The attempted talent raid comes as Seven launched its own assault on Nine’s ranks, convincing three of its star AFL panelists on its Footy Classified program to jump ship.
To make the blow even more bitter, the measly viewership count was the exact same number pulled by ABC children’s show The Adventures of Paddington (pictured)
‘We haven’t seen network poaching raids of this scale since the 1990s,’ one senior network insider told Daily Mail Australia.
‘It’s super aggressive at the moment—there are fewer viewers so the battle for eyeballs has never been more intense and the networks are doing absolutely everything they can to try to get the upper hand.’
Seven insiders said Nine had been predominantly targetting its emerging star female reporters in its newsrooms across the entire country as part of an unprecedent blitz.
The revelations come amid reports that Nine was increasingly concerned about the ‘massive experience gap’ between its own big name news presenters and its next generation of stars.
Meanwhile, Sunrise’s Channel Nine rival Today, helmed by Karl Stefanovic (left) and Sarah Abo (right), more than doubled the ratings in Melbourne, netting 65,000 viewers on the same day
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