Karl and Ally boost Today in shock ratings soar

Viewers sick of the musical chairs that have dominated Today for the past year can breathe easy as the brand new line-up delivers the solid boost Nine has been waiting for.

TVBlackbox reports Karl and Ally’s official debut scored a total of 226,000 a whopping 15% climb from Deb Knight and Georgie Gardiner’s first episode which pulled just 197,000 in January 2019.

The breakfast program is still trailing its competitor Sunrise which has dominated ratings and continues to do so, pulling a total of 293,000, almost 70,000 viewers on Today.

It’s a gap that seems to be rapidly closing however, on Saturday when the new presenters made their impromptu early debut to cover the bushfires the show trailed Sunrise by 80,000.

The rating boost will be welcome news to the program, which made a desperate bid for recovery, announcing a shake-up likened to a ‘bloodbath’ just before Christmas 2019.

New line-up for Today

The new line-up includes news reporter Tracy Vo, formerly of Today Perth News, and sport reporter Alex Cullen, formerly of Sunday Night.

It may be a whole new look, but it seems the hosts have had plenty of time to get to know each other already, with Ally Langdon pulling no punches when it comes to teasing Karl on air.

On Monday the host raised eyebrows with a not-so-subtle dig at her co-host during a cross to the Golden Globes red carpet, when reporter Charles Croucher described the Hollywood events saying, “it’s pretty well known as the drunker awards”.

“Karl will be right at home,” Ally quipped, raising eyebrows everywhere.

Ally was, of course, referring to Karl’s infamous appearance on the show after the 2009 Logies, back when he co-hosted with Lisa Wilkinson.

Karl appeared to be visibly intoxicated from the night before during the show, and later admitted he very likely was in an interview.

Not to be outdone, Karl also took a potshot at himself, joking about the pair’s premature appearance over the weekend.

The host joked about his ‘loser mates’ who clearly hadn’t tuned in over the weekend, given away by Sunday night texts wishing the returning host ‘good luck tomorrow’.

“Thanks for watching over the weekend,” the host joked in a faux-angry tone.

A bit of levity will go a long way for the new brekkie duo, who are facing the mammoth task of boosting last year’s struggling ratings, though it looks like they are on their way to pulling it off.

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