Karl Stefanovic’s big TV comeback is under stress, with the TODAY Show suffering an embarrassing slump in ratings, despite the huge amount of publicity that has accompanied his return.
The show yesterday produced its direst ratings since the controversial host came back on board, earning just 173,000 viewers in the metro market.
WATCH: Sam Armytage reacts to Karl Stefanovic’s TODAY show return
Meanwhile Sunrise hit 272,000 metro viewers, and the ABC’s decidedly less commercial News Breakfast outpaced Karl with 178,000.
This is the second day in a row that TODAY has sunk beneath the waves in the highly competitive breakfast TV market, with the latest numbers beneath the average brought in by the prior team of Deborah Knight and Georgie Gardner.
Karl has struggled to get back the audience that once flocked to TODAY after a series of dramas.
Things first started to head south when his winning pairing with Lisa Wilkinson came to an end, after she quit the show, upset that Nine refused to pay her as much as then management darling Karl.
Then the collapse of his marriage to wife Cass, a highly publicised new relationship with much younger new partner Jasmine and a flashy wedding were all perceived to have turned off legions of female viewers.
The Ubergate scandal, where Karl and brother Peter Stefanovic were heard talking about Nine colleagues, further sullied his reputation.
A string of stunts, including dressing up as Hannibal Lecter, have so far failed to bring back the glory days for the former golden child of the Nine Network boy’s club.
‘There is a whiff of desperation in the air,’ says an industry insider. ‘TODAY may yet recover but they have a lot of problems to iron out and it’s not clear that Karl is the one who can do the job. Time will tell.’
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