Last year Karl Stefanovic wore the same blue suit for 12 months to underline the fact that while women were scrutinised for what they wore on TV men were not. “No one gives a shit,” the Today co-host said with typical candour after revealing the stunt.
Last week Stefanovic was in the news again, this time not for what he wore but rather for what he didn’t wear. He said on Twitter it would be “gear off on the show tomorrow” if the Australian cricket captain, Michael Clarke, didn’t score a century in the fourth Ashes Test. Happily Guardian Australia had chosen that day to visit the set and we were just as anxious as everyone in the studio and at home to find out if he would honour his promise. It made it a special Today show; publicist Lis Clough had been called in early to handle all the media attention and her phone rang constantly, while the program’s social media team pumped out tweets from the corner of the studio.
Along with his co-host, Lisa Wilkinson, Stefanovic also hammed it up outside performing a silly science experiment, wearing a white coat and barbecuing steak on a pile of flaming corn chips. What with the balloons, the helium gas and the funny glasses you’d be forgiven for thinking the cameras were filming a kids’ show or a comedy sketch.
Yet earlier in the show Stefanovic interviewed Labor’s Anthony Albanese and the government frontbenchers Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop, pushing them all hard on travel entitlements.
Nine’s news chief, Darren Wick, says despite the carnival atmosphere the breakfast shows are essentially news programs. “The producers are journalists and the presenters are journalists first and foremost,” Wick says. “And if something breaks they’ve got their journalism to fall back on.
“If we can tell people what’s going on and also give them a bit of a smile and something aspirational – positive stories like giving away cash – it’s a perfect mix.”
Breakfast is the cornerstone of the commercial TV networks’ news schedule, providing a wealth of content to be used throughout the day. The interviews with Albanese, Pyne and Bishop that Friday were used by other media and the network’s other shows. It’s the same with the rival breakfast show on Seven, Sunrise. When a big news story like floods or the disappearance of flight MH370 is running the breakfast shows will stay on all day because viewers expect the familiar hosts to interpret events as they unfold. Sunrise and Today are also used as a promotional vehicles for the night schedule, with reality stars from The Voice or My Kitchen Rules appearing the morning after their star turn the night before.
Today and Sunrise average about 350,000 viewers each day but across each show they would be seen by at least a million people each as viewers switch on and off. They both now employ dedicated social media journalists who push out the content the show produces to be shared by as many people as possible. The programs are relatively cheap to make and earn millions in revenue.
“They are very valuable assets and a great platform for advertisers,” says the managing director of Nunn Media, Chris Walton. “Sunrise and Today don’t do advertorials but they would have sponsorship opportunities in weather and traffic as well as advertising spots. I would say they make a robust profit.”
Sources told Guardian Australia a 30-second spot in all five metropolitan cities on Today would cost about $90,000 and the revenue across the two shows is estimated to be as high as $100m.
“Because of the nature of advertising, sponsors and advertisers want to jump on board both programs,” Wick says. “Neither program has ever had dominance over another so that advertisers are saying we are going to swap camps.”
Towards the end of Friday’s show, after Stefanovic had been ribbed about his promise all morning, Wilkinson was keen for some action, saying: “We’ve been on air for three hours now.” Stefanovic rose from the couch and headed past the cameras for the studio door. On the monitor we could see him reappearing from outside holding his suit, then running naked across the Channel Nine studio with his middle stump covered by a giant digital cricket ball. Wilkinson, the entertainment guru Richard “Dickie” Wilkinson and their guest, the author Nikki Gemmell, all gasped in horror as he ran past.
Dickie: “I can’t believe he did that! Thank goodness for that little ball there.”
Wilkinson: “Just one ball.”
In truth, thanks to the magic of television, those of us there at the end of the show didn’t see Stefanovic’s bum. He had pre-recorded his nudie run earlier when the studio was empty. Live or not, the stunt worked. The ratings spike for the Friday show was enough to hand Today a national win last week in the ratings, pushing what has been the leading breakfast show for 12 years, Sunrise, into second place.
Today has been the underdog since Seven teamed the daggy finance reporter David “Kochie” Koch and the newsreader Melissa Doyle up in 2002, creating the ratings juggernaut that was Mel and Kochie’s Sunrise “family”. Sunrise brought a relaxed informality to breakfast TV and the audience loved it, abandoning Today in droves. Today went though a few hosts and began changing its style to imitate Sunrise, introducing a news ticker at the bottom of the screen and, in later years, even replicating the orange and yellow set. Stefanovic took over in 2005 when he returned from a stint as a US correspondent and Wilkinson, a former magazine editor and host of Weekend Sunrise, joined him on the couch in 2007. In 2013 the breakfast landscape was changed again when Mel and Kochie were broken up and Doyle, 43, was replaced by Samantha Armytage.
Initially the change was successful and the ratings improved – putting a lot of pressure on the Sunrise special broadcast from Brisbane last week, hoping to shore up its Queensland audience. Sunrise’s executive producer, Michael Pell, has been in the role for five years, keeping Sunrise at No 1 and managing a rocky transition from Doyle to Armytage.
Pell was not impressed with Stefanovic’s nudie run but says he too has been “guilty” of making the presenters jump through hoops for entertainment. “While breakfast TV presenters are real people, they’re also still journalists who have also have to command a level of respect and authority,” Pell says. “So when looking at these stunts you weigh up what the potential brand damage is for that person versus a cheap thrill?
“We’re guilty of doing it as well. I put Samantha Armytage in a coffin with cockroaches and she had to interview the prime minister earlier that morning. We don’t take life too seriously and that’s very much the Sunrise vibe and I think Today was trying to get that Sunrise vibe on Friday.
“The audience still need to watch these people delivering very serious news and you really do have to wonder whether a nudie run has really jumped the shark.”
Wick says “Karl is Karl” and while he can be a clown he is also the best in the business at live broadcasting. “Karl going for the nude streak – no one else can do that,” he says. “How many people could do that and then at the same time maintain credibility with a great political interview? And when breaking news happens he’s one of the best in the country.”
Wick, a former Today and A Current Affair executive producer, has slowly turned the network’s news programs around and Nine is No 1 again at 6pm after losing to Seven between 2005 and 2011. Now he has his sights set on the other end of the day: on Today. “Nationally, Sunrise has won the year but momentum can be a game changer,” Wick says. “And right now, momentum is with Today. The team won last week nationally, and are flying in Brisbane. Queensland is the game changer. It’s where Sunrise first got a foot in the door, 12 years ago. And it’s where Today is fighting back.”
The pressure is on Seven to stay at No 1. The third commercial network, Ten, has launched two failed attempts at breakfast TV in the past three years – Breakfast and Wake Up – but the two established players have always seen them off and Ten has given up on the slot for now.
While most people choose the commercial networks the ABC offers News Breakfast with Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland. Its audience has also been building since it launched in 2008.
“Breakfast is one of the pillars of a commercial TV station and the 24-hour news cycle,” Wick says. “You go to bed and in the rest of the world things are still happening.
“The first thing you do when you wake up is turn on the TV. You want to know what’s going on in the world. You also want a bit of a laugh.
“If there’s a big story, a big breaking story people will turn to Nine as a strong news brand. And they’ll trust the Today show and they’ll stick on Nine all day.”
While Australian audiences accept the high jinks of Sunrise and Today, they wouldn’t go down so well in the US or the UK. “You’re not going to get Matt Lauer or George Stephanopoulos doing a nudie run or some of the crazy things Kochie does,” Wick says. “Kochie several years ago went to air on April Fools’ Day with a toupee on.”
So did Today jumped the shark with the nudie run? The positive coverage the show received would suggest not. Stefanovic insists it’s necessary to combine news with fun and to keep doing new things to keep the viewers interested. Even if that means playing the fool and inhaling helium and speaking in a funny voice.
“Television is changing so fast these days but it’s only in keeping with society,” he says. “In the click of a button you can be watching parliament on your phone and the next cat videos on YouTube.
“So it is with brekky TV. We have to keep our viewers constantly informed and entertained. But whatever we do, we try and do it well.
“Ultimately our audience is the judge on whether we get that right. They are our bosses to an extent. Everything we do is for them. Sometimes you get the mix right, sometimes not, but we keep striving to keep them with us.”
Last year there were constant headlines that Stefanovic and Wilkinson didn’t get along and Wick acknowledges it was a bad year. “I think it’s last year’s story,” he says. “They are pretty relaxed. They’ve both been there a long time. They’ve been doing it for the better part of a decade; you’re asking them to come in at crazy hours and be happy all the time.”
They certainly seemed relaxed in between segments, chatting to each other as they had their makeup touched up or checked their phones. Former Today show member Ben Fordham, who was appearing on Mornings after 9am, popped in with his baby and everyone scrambled to get a cuddle with him. If there is a simmering feud it was well hidden.
It’s a long day for the Today crew, who start at 5.30am and go through to 9am. Sunrise is a little shorter, running from 6am to 9am. They are “shattered” when they come off, a crew member tells us. And often they have to fly off for an appearance in another state, do publicity or attend a fashion show or another event at night.
But Stefanovic says he has no plans to give it up: “I love Today, it’s part of me,” he says. “It’s been 11 years and I’m still learning.
“The show has been through so much and is always going to be bigger than one element. If the sum of us in front and behind the camera isn’t firing, the show isn’t. It feels really good now.
“On a personal note, if there’s a better mix out there to keep all of my personalities interested, I haven’t found it.”
Wick says the show doesn’t just meander over three and a half hours but has a set pattern over seven half-hours. “It’s a big show,” Wick says. “You could almost break it up into seven separate audience segments.
“Your first hour and a half from 5.30am to 7am has a different tone: it’s very newsy. Early on before 6am you’ve got a lot of tradies watching and so we have a lot of sport, and then we have professionals watching either from home or from the gym while they’re on their bike or treadmill.
“Then we have families and mums getting the kids to school and hustling everyone out the door. Then after 8am most of the kids have left for school and stay-at-home mums and an older audience will sit down with a cup of tea and relax a bit.
“So the tone and pace changes all the time. We work on the basis that the TV is on all the time so the graphics will tell them what is going on even if they’re busy.”
Its diverse audience is the very reason breakfast TV is so popular with politicians, who are more likely to agree to come on Today tor Sunrise than they are to accept an interview on the ABC’s 7.30.
They rarely turn down an interview, Wick says. “Smart politicians realise the value of a forum of up to 350,000 people which will potentially be seen by millions,” he says. “We’ve got a great relationship with the PM’s office.
“You can’t buy that sort of publicity. Most times they’re available if a big story breaks, and if the PM can’t do it Julie Bishop or Christopher Pyne [will].”
Neither Stefanovic nor Wilkinson are soft interviewers, both conducting tough interviews when the occasion demands. “What I like about Karl and Lisa is they’re really tough with their questioning but they’re really polite, they’re courteous – they respect the person they’re interviewing,” Wick says.
This week Stefanovic turned 41 and Wilkinson posted a photo on Instagram of the two of them at Disneyland with the message: “Happy birthday to this bloke @kstefanovic We’ve been waking up together for more than eight years now...and sometime soon we’ll start to grow up. Promise! (Not really…).”
