According to OzTam TV ratings, as reported by The Australian, the program had zero viewers in Perth. That result is, obviously, worse than when one day last month the news bulletin had 43 viewers in Perth and 44 in Sydney.Channel 10’s morning line-up of 10 News First: Breakfast and Studio 10 has been floundering as it stumbles against its competitors on Channel 7, Channel 9 and the ABC.Its woes even became the butt of jokes at media industry event the Kennedy Awards on Friday night, at which Studio 10’s Sarah Harris and 10 News First: Breakfast’s Lachlan Kennedy were hosts.Fronting a crowd of 500 journalists, producers and industry people, Harris scanned the room and zinged, “Wow, so this is what it’s like to have an audience!”The brutal joke was followed up by her equally-good-sport colleague Kennedy, who said, “I’m the host of 10 News First: Breakfast – thank you all for watching”.The ironic gag wasn’t lost on the audience, who reportedly cacked at the Channel 10 hosts’ punchlines.TV ratings are extrapolated from a small sample of participating viewers, so it’s possible that somewhere in the WA capital, a few TV sets were tuned into 10 News First: Breakfast, but they weren’t ones hooked up to OzTam’s ratings panel.An OzTam spokesperson told The Australian that day’s result may be because of a “small underlying viewing sample”.10 News First: Breakfast launched on June 27 with co-hosts Kennedy and Natasha Exelby.Exelby was also part of Channel 10’s previous attempt in the earlier morning timeslot, Wake Up, which was canned after six months.However, Channel 10’s head of broadcast news Martin White told TV Tonight in July that the network had a “long-term commitment” to 10 News First: Breakfast. White said, “It’s a long-term commitment for us and we know people will find us across our platforms and the numbers will build. “Our plan is to make more news, not less.”The morning TV timeslots are still highly competitive despite the low average ratings. They are a priority for TV networks because the spread of viewers across the four hours is higher than the average ratings suggest with most viewers only tuning in for small blocks.They are also lucrative programs packed with advertorial and sponsored content.According to TV Tonight, Channel 7’s Sunrise has averaged 236,000 metro viewers this year during the official ratings weeks versus Channel 9’s Today which has a 200,000 average.While Sunrise typically “wins” the day, Today and ABC’s News Breakfast claims the odd victory.
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