Georgie Gardner and Deborah Knight have addressed the “scrutiny” of their first week debuting the Today show’s new format.
The co-hosts spoke of the “tricky” transition, and also the negative comments they’d received while chatting to Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson on KIIS FM on Tuesday.
Deb replaced Karl Stefanovic, who departed the show shortly after his wedding last month, and suspected Australians were still getting used to the concept of two women hosting.
“It’s a new format for the Australian market, so it’s new and it’s been getting a lot of attention. But it’s the best people for the job, regardless of your gender,” she said.
“We play to our strengths — we’re both very different people and we’re finding our banter as a duo… but it’s exciting.”
Georgie said she could feel how heavily the show was being scrutinised, but she knew they’d gotten the content right.
“You just can’t hide in TV. Every look, every expression, every side glance is analysed and scrutinised. Often the analysis of it is quite wrong, by the way,” she said.
Deb, meanwhile, considered the assessment of the show from some critics to be unfair.
“We were written off in the first half-hour of the show. This commentary was coming through. Usually, when you review a show, you wait for it to finish,” she said.
Haven’t caught the new line-up yet? Here’s what the Today show looks like now:
