Breakfast Off To Flying Start In 2008

Breakfast Off To Flying Start In 2008

TVNZ's popular early morning current affairs programme, Breakfast, has had a terrific start to 2008, growing its core audience of 25-54 year-old viewers by 29% (10,550 viewers)* compared with the same four weeks last year. In its first month on air, Breakfast also strengthened its younger audience, adding 20,620 viewers in the 18-49 demographic, a massive increase of 41% on the 2007 figures.

Breakfast's impressive start to the year builds on a very strong performance in 2007, and comes in a period when TV3's Sunrise has recorded historic lows in its 18-49 ratings, despite the overall number of morning television viewers having increased. Year-on-year comparison of total television viewers aged 18-54 for the 6.30-9am zone show a 30% increase for 2008.

TVNZ's dedicated business programme, Breakfast Business, has also started the year strongly. The audience for Breakfast Business has grown rapidly since it was moved into a new 6am timeslot in 2007, and is approaching audience levels comparable to TVNZ's former business programme which screened at the later time of 6.30am.

TVNZ Head of News and Current Affairs, Anthony Flannery says that the boost in viewership is a great endorsement of the new-look Breakfast and Breakfast Business and sets the programmes up for a highly successful year.

"I couldn't be happier with the performance of Breakfast and Breakfast Business," he said.

"Every weekday, Paul Henry, Pippa Wetzell, Peter Williams, Tamati Coffey, Corin Dann and our reporters, producers and crews pull out all the stops to produce top-notch programmes. These exciting ratings results are the best possible rewards for their efforts.

"Breakfast's coverage of major New Zealand events such as the funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary and Waitangi Day commemorations shows the value of strong early morning current affairs programming."

"I look forward to continuing to build on this success throughout 2008."

TVNZ has further strengthened the Breakfast team by appointing a permanent back-up host. Experienced broadcaster Alison Mau will provide cover for Pippa Wetzell and Peter Williams. When Paul Henry takes leave, Peter will host the programme with Pippa, with Alison reading the Breakfast news. As well as her role with Breakfast, Alison will be involved with other programmes in the News and Current Affairs stable.

*All ratings data sourced from AGB Nielsen Media Research

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