Why David Koch and Sam Armytage have been forced to cut their holidays short
As the year draws to a close, Sunrise hosts Samantha Armytage and David Koch were looking forward to a relaxing break over Christmas.
However, the surprise announcement of Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon returning to host the Today show in 2020 has cut their holiday plans short.
The Sunrise hosts are being forced to return from their holidays a week early as Channel Seven fights to retain the popularity held by Sunrise in the absence of Stefanovic.
As Today is returning on January 6th, 2020, which is a week earlier than the show debuted last year, Channel Seven has no option but to start Sunrise a week early as well.
Channel Seven and Nine have been in a ratings war for the last 15 years, with Channel Seven always coming out on top due to the success of Sunrise.
The reinstatement of Stefanovic means that things have to change.
Kochie said that he was more than happy to work through the holiday period in order to keep the lead of the network.
'We figured if the opposition A-team is on holidays, we will work through the summer and hope people give us a chance,' the veteran presenter told The Australian.
'When I told my wife we were starting a week early (to mirror what Today was doing), she just laughed in that cynical way that only wives can and started listing all the holidays we've been brought back from.'
Nine’s National Director of News and Current Affairs Darren Wick has confirmed that Stefanovic is in the “right headspace” for the role.
“I think a year on, he’s very much in a different headspace to where he was a year ago,” Mr Wick said to The Daily Telegraph.
“The pressure and the focus and the intensity of everything that he was going through, it spun out of control.
“It was a crash and burn. It’s one of the crashes and burns that he probably needed to have.
“It has taken him out of the glare, out of the spotlight for a while. He’s been able to settle down everything in his private life. He’s in a great space.”
He also admitted that the changes made to the show earlier this year were “too dramatic” as Stefanovic was ousted and replaced with journalists Deb Knight and Georgie Gardner.
The new hosts struggled to compete with Sunrise in 2918, with the ratings of Today reaching an all-time low of 155,000. This was almost half of Sunrise’s 277,000.