Today

Stephanie Rice, one of Australia’s most successful Olympians and one of the most recognised athletes in the country, has joined the TODAY family.

Her success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – winning three Gold Medals and breaking three World Records -launched her into the stratosphere of sporting celebrity. Continue reading »

PINK BLOWS TODAY ONE LAST KISS – World exclusive interview tomorrow, Wednesday July 4 on TODAY on Channel Nine

In an exclusive interview tomorrow, Nine Network’s Entertainment Editor Richard Wilkins talks to rock superstar Pink about life, motherhood, a recent health scare,
her much-anticipated new album and her new single Blow Me (One Last Kiss).

Richard caught up with Pink on location on the set of her new video in Malibu, California, last Friday, for the in-depth one-on-one chat. Continue reading »

Melbourne’s king of talkback on 3AW, Neil Mitchell, is set to become a key contributor to Channel Nine’s suite of news and current affairs programmes.

Mitchell is heard by more than 500,000 Victorians every week on his top-rating 3AW morning program.

In his exclusive role with Nine, Mitchell will become a regular commentator on Today, A Current Affair and Nine News. Continue reading »

KARL AND LISA LIVE AT THE QUEEN’S DIAMOND JUBILEE

From Monday, June 4, at 5.30am on Channel Nine Continue reading »

One Direction fever has officially hit our shores with Harry, Niall, Zayn, Liam and Louis causing a frenzy of screaming fans everywhere they go – and the Today Show on NINE has them LIVE tomorrow morning from 7.40am.

One Direction will be in the Today Show studio for their first Australian interview, where they will be watched by a special audience made up of children from the Starlight Foundation and Sydney Children’s Hospital, as well as thousands of fans watching at home.

Here to promote their debut album Up All Night, One Direction’s Australian and New Zealand’s concert sold out in just three minutes. Their special release Up All Night: The Souvenir Edition, exclusive to Australia and New Zealand, is number one on the ARIA Album Chart.

In their only TV performance in Australia, the boys will perform exclusively at the 2012 TV WEEK Logie Awards on Sunday, April 15, from 7.30pm on NINE.

Updated: One Direction will also appear on rival Breakfast program, Sunrise on Seven, some time in the last hour (8am-9pm). Then they have a day of radio interviews.

Ten’s new morning news and talk show Breakfast is rating so poorly, that it surely could not be considered sustainable. Ratings average around the 40,000 mark, but have hit as low as 24,000 on some mornings.

With Seven’s Sunrise reaching over 400,000 on average, Nine’s Today not far behind in the high 300,000′s and ABC’s breakfast offering reaching around 70,000 over two channels, Ten’s Breakfast has had no impact on the three existing offerings.

As Breakfast has such low figures, it must now be difficult to justify the money paid for its opinionated host New Zealand import Paul Henry.

Ten are well known for persisting with these sorts of decisions. The Project still being on air is testimony to their commitment to sticking with shows that are not necessarily an instant ratings hit.

But the difference between Breakfast and The Project, is that the Project is not rating at 10% of what its highest rating competitor in the timeslot is – it comparatively does better.

Ten say they are in for the long haul with Breakfast, but how long can the network sustain figures that low? Shows on digital channels in the morning pull better figures – namely ABC2 and ABC3 in the hours before children go to school. Children’s programming on 7TWO, 7mate, GO! and ELEVEN all are in a similar ball park as far as morning viewers are concerned.

Ten are not having a good run this year, with the network fourth in main channel shares on a numerous nights. So far, the impact of James Warburton has had little effect over the network’s overall performance.

Maybe in 2013 we will see a real difference with Ten vying for numerous sporting rights held currently by other networks and commissioning of new shows set to air later this year and next.

Nine today have announced their coverage details for the 2012 Olympic Games, which will include over 14 hours a day of live coverage plus a further 4 hours a day of highlights and related programming.

See press release below for full details.

The Olympics will be simulcast on GEM in HD – which is good news, but, given there is no mention of GO!, presumably GO! will remain with normal programming during the Olympics to give viewers other options.

As coverage is only a simulcast of the main channel Nine on GEM in HD, the Olympics coverage will really only again be single channel coverage, just like it was four years ago when Seven broadcast the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In this age of multi channels, this could have been the perfect opportunity for Nine to make use of multi channels by showing more than on event at once – particularly when there Australians competing. Over 90% of households have access to digital channels now.

Yes, anti-siphoning laws may prevent multi channel coverage on free to air, but Nine could have perhaps requested an exemption allowing them to go that one step further with multi channel free to air coverage, never before seen in Australia.

On the other hand, Foxtel will have 8 channels of Olympics coverage, in both standard and high definition. Perhaps the joint deal with Foxtel means the multi channel coverage is left exclusively for Subscription TV.

The Olympics broadcast starts with London Eve on the night of Friday July 27, followed by the Opening Ceremony, live and exclusive to Nine, from 6am Saturday July 28, 2012.

Here is the Press Release:

In 142 days all eyes will be on London for the greatest sporting event in the world as more than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries descend on the city for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Wide World of Sports, the Nine Network’s award-winning team with a reputation for top-class sporting broadcasts, will bring Olympic joy, heartache, celebration and tears to the Australian television audience for more than 18 hours a day across 16 days of elite competition.

The Games of the XXX Olympiad will go live from Saturday, July 28 (AEST) at 6.00am with the Opening Ceremony and end on Monday, August 13 (AEST) when the Olympic Flame is extinguished at the Closing Ceremony. During that time, Wide World of Sports will broadcast more than 300 hours of Olympic Games action on Channel Nine, which will also be simulcast in High Definition on GEM. 

The lead-up to the London 2012 Olympic Games has now begun on Nine. And for eight weeks from May 27, Nine will count down to London 2012 as Wide World of Sports presents Road to London, featuring Australian Olympic hopefuls in their quest to compete in London and bring home a medal. Throughout 2012, Nine’s Sunday morning flagship program, Wide World of Sports, will take viewers behind the scenes as our athletes prepare for London.

Nine’s Olympic Games coverage commences with the London Eve show on Friday, July 27 (AEST) bringing the excitement and anticipation to fever pitch, before the live and exclusive broadcast of the spectacular Opening Ceremony.

Wide World of Sports has 30 years’ experience in bringing great sporting broadcasts to a national audience. Nine’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the biggest sporting telecast of an Olympic Games hosted outside Australia.

Athletes will compete in 26 sports and 39 disciplines, with 300 gold medals up for grabs. Nine will showcase the most memorable moments of the Games and capture all the passion, pain and celebration as the world’s best athletes vie for gold.

A top team of hosts and expert commentators will bring the Games to Australian viewers. Hosting the coverage for Nine in London is the face and voice of Wide World of Sports, Ken Sutcliffe, and joining him are Karl Stefanovic, Leila McKinnon, Mark Nicholas and Cameron Williams. Leila McKinnon and Eddie McGuire will host Nine’s live and exclusive coverage of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Today’s Ben Fordham and Melbourne weekend newsreader Alicia Loxley will present regular Olympic Games updates throughout the coverage from London.

On competition days, Nine will deliver 14.5 hours of continuous live coverage from 6.30pm until 9.00am the following morning on London Live. Then from 9.00am to 11.00am each morning, you can see all the day’s highlights in London Gold, which will be replayed from 4.00pm-6.00pm every afternoon.

Nine’s expert commentary team for London 2012 includes nine Olympic gold medallists, revered former Olympic athletes, and distinguished sports broadcasters, who will call all the action. The Wide World of Sports exclusive swimming commentary team comprises Olympic gold medallists Grant Hackett and Giaan Rooney plus Ray Warren, Australia’s most accomplished sports commentator.

The Olympic commentary team includes James Tomkins (Rowing), Kerri Pottharst (Beach Volleyball), Scott McGrory (Cycling), Debbie Watson (Water Polo), Andrew Gaze (Basketball), Jane Flemming (Athletics), Melinda Gainsford Taylor (Athletics), Michael Slater (Diving), Andrew Voss (Weightlifting), James Brayshaw (Rowing) and Eddie McGuire (Marathon and Triathlon).

Nine News will bring viewers unrivalled coverage of all the stories from the Games. A team of reporters and camera crews will cover the Games around the clock with unparalleled access to the athletes village and Olympic venues to get the stories behind the magic moments. 

Karl Stefanovic, Lisa Wilkinson and the Today crew are also heading to London 2012. In the week leading up to the XXX Olympiad, Today will broadcast from the heart of London as it welcomes the world to the greatest show on earth. As well as bringing all the latest news from the Australian camp, Karl, Lisa, Georgie Gardner, Ben Fordham, Richard Wilkins, Richard Reid and Steve Jacobs will showcase the history, culture and excitement of the Olympics.

For a full week, Today will go behind the scenes as London makes final preparations for the Games and meet the athletes going for gold, as well as the families who’ll be cheering for them. The week will culminate with all the highlights of the Australian Olympic team reception, and the announcement of the flag-bearer for the Opening Ceremony.

Nine was there when the Olympics came to Melbourne in 1956 and 56 years later it will be there again for London 2012. Can IAAF Athlete of the Year and Nine’s Olympic Ambassador Sally Pearson go one better than Beijing and bring home the gold? Our best hopes among the men in the pool will lie with 2011 world 100m freestyle champion James “the missile” Magnussen. He goes to London as the superstar of our swim squad, but will he bring home the gold?

Will Australian pole vault gold medallist Steve Hooker retain his Olympic title? The Kookaburras are the reigning World Cup, Champions Trophy and Commonwealth champions in hockey – can they add Olympic gold medallists to that impressive list? Will Australia dominate at the velodrome? Are the experts right in predicting Australia will grab three gold medals in sailing? And how many medals can Australia lift from the pool?

Watch history being made at the XXX Olympiad on Nine and come on a trip of a lifetime as we take you to the Olympic city for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Melbourne Talk Radio (MTR 1377) stopped broadcasting at 5pm on Friday after its owners put the joint-venture company Melbourne Radio Operations Pty Ltd into administration.

The station had popular The Project stars – Steve Price on breakfast and Steve Vizard on Mornings, ACA’s Martin King and Ross Greenwood,  the business and finance editor of Today. When you go to the website there is only a phone number – that when you call is constantly engaged.

Macquarie Radio Network and joint-venture partner Pacific Star Network Ltd announced the move in a one-line statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

MTR has struggled in the ratings since it hit the airwaves in April 2010 and was never able to challenge the dominance of Fairfax Radio’s talkback station 3AW.

It managed a 1.4 per cent audience share in the latest Melbourne radio survey, released last week, compared to 3AW’s top spot of 12.8 per cent and ABC774′s 12.3 per cent.

Macquarie Radio pulled funding from the joint venture on Thursday, issuing a notice of default under its working capital loan agreement and saying it would not provide any further funding to MTR.

Drive host Luke Grant had the task of signing off, thanking listeners for their support.

“I wish we were here for longer but we are not.

“As we always say, thank you for listening, and maybe we will meet some other day down the line.”

Newsreader Amie Meehan, in Sydney, attempted to deliver a final news bulletin.

“Okay, I’m really sorry, I thought that I was still doing one last bulletin.

“Okay, no worries at all. I’m so sorry. I know you guys have worked your butts off, and no matter, whatever the ratings were, one way or the other doesn’t change the way you do your day.

“So I’m really sorry. No worries, bye bye.”

The Ten Network’s new show, Breakfast, made a rather modest debut yesterday morning, attracting an average of 51,000 viewers nationally.

That result put it in fourth place, behind Seven’s Sunrise (399,000 viewers nationally), Nine’s Today (348,000) and ABC News Breakfast (56,000).

Seven and Nine’s spin doctors will undoubtedly label the result with less flattering adjectives, but to put the numbers in context, Ten had rushed the show into the schedule with very little promotion hoping to capitalise on the Labor leadership crisis as a breaking news story.

The show, which features New Zealand television personality Paul Henry, Dr Andrew Rochford, Ten journalist Kathryn Robinson and weather journalist Magdalena Roze, was originally scheduled to launch on Monday.

As a result, it launched with no advertising support and ahead of most of the marketing and publicity planned for the show’s launch timed for this weekend.

The show was also not screened live in Queensland and South Australia because of time differences. On a morning where most viewing was driven by a breaking news story, that undoutedly left Breakfast at a serious disadvantage to its competitors.

Regardless of the ratings outcome, the decision to rush it into the schedule was smart as it sent a clear signal to the market that Ten was committed to making its new baby a legitimate fourth contender in the breakfast TV market.

One of the key indicators the market will be watching closely is how much Breakfast shaves off the existing market leaders Sunrise and Today and whether Ten’s new audience siphons from one more heavily than the other.

The day one result doesn’t flag that too loudly, though the margin of 50,000 viewers between Sunrise and Today is slightly larger than usual and suggests that the first, very slight, shaving may have come from Today.

The most watched program last night was My Kitchen Rules with 1.63 million viewers. It propelled the Seven Network to an overall win for the night with a combined share of 34.0 per cent.

Source – The Age

Mark Calvert, Director of News and Current Affairs at the Nine Network has resigned his post after four years with the company.

“This is the best job in television, but it’s 24/7 and it has been for four years. It’s time to take a breath, and re-acquaint myself with my family.

Any success I’ve had at Nine is all down to the best news and current affairs team in Australia. The future is in good hands with them.” said Calvert today.

Managing Director of the Nine Network Australia Jeffrey Browne said: “I want to thank Mark for his contribution to the Nine Network, in particular the great success we have had with our News and Current Affairs results. Mark’s contribution to the success of the Today Show has also been important and I wish him and his family well in the future.”

CEO of Nine Entertainment Company David Gyngell said: “Mark has worked with us to rebuild our news and current affairs over the past four years.  His achievements and efforts are much appreciated by all at the Network and we wish him well in his future endeavours.”