A photo from a corporate Christmas party shows that despite their ratings battle heating up, Sunrise and Today stars can still be friends.
Pictures from Virgin ‘s Christmas party on Thursday showed smiling Sunrise star Natalie Barr and Today host Karl Stafanovic cuddling up and beaming for the camera.
The keen breakfast rivals were among a crew of 45 journalists at Sydney’s Woodcut hosted by CEO Jayne Hrdlicka that marks a successful year for the airline.
But the cosy picture hid tensions behind the scenes of their respective shows.
After years of Sunrise dominating the ratings, Today this week scored three consecutive days of wins.
And earlier this week it was announced that Seven’s Sunrise had nabbed Today star producer Jake Lyle for their show.
A shock photo from a corporate Christmas party has shown that despite their ratings battle heating up, Sunrise and Today stars can still be friends. Pictured: Karl Stefanovic and Natalie Barr at the Virgin Christmas party this week
Today has this week flipped the script in the hotly-contested breakfast TV wars, according to TV Blackbox.
Sunrise presenters Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington have suffered a series of rare ratings defeats, slipping behind Nine’s Today on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Today managed to pull a total TV audience of 196,000 for the program on Tuesday, just a touch ahead of Sunrise’s 193,000 morning viewers.
Wednesday saw a similar result with Today pulling a total TV audience of 239,000, beating Sunrise’s 211,000 pairs of eyeballs.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Today scored 202,000 viewers, ahead of Sunrise on 194,000.
After years of Sunrise dominating the ratings, Today this week scored three consecutive days of wins. Pictured: Nat Barr and Matt Shirvington
The streak comes as Today’s senior producer, Jake Lyle, announced a move to Sunrise as its Supervising Producer, according to TV Tonight.
Jake Lyle has spent six years at Nine, including a year on the Today Show.
Today has struggled to gain ground over Sunrise in recent years, partly due to the revolving door of presenters on the Nine show.
Despite recent setbacks, Seven Network executives are no doubt eager to pop the champagne corks after the end of the upcoming ratings season, with Sunrise presumed the overall winner.
Today has struggled to gain ground in recent years, partly due to a revolving door of presenters on the Nine show. Pictured: Karl Stefanovic and Sarah Abo
This will be Sunrise’s 20th year of winning first in its timeslot, after taking out the top spot in the overall ratings survey last year.
According to the 2022 OzTam survey year, Sunrise had an average national daily audience of 397,000 viewers.
Seven said it was ’31 per cent bigger than its nearest competitor’.
The streak comes as Today’s senior producer, Jake Lyle, announced a move to Sunrise as its Supervising Producer, according to TV Tonight