Oh.
This is… awkward.
A recent promo for Channel Nine’s The TODAY Show is almost identical to a BBC Breakfast promo that aired in 2016.
And the BBC is not impressed.
The UK broadcaster has even described the TODAY promo as “copied, at moments word for word”, and they’ve made their own video comparing the two ads, side-by-side.
The ads are eerily similar.
They both feature smiling breakfast show hosts greeting each other and then specifically greeting one of their viewers. In the BBC version the viewer is a mum named Jenny and in the Australian version it’s a mum named Karen.
They both then tell a teenage boy named ‘Jack’ that his toast is burning.
In the BBC Breakfast promo, a man is shown leaving his keys at home after the hosts tell him about rising petrol prices. In the TODAY version, a man is watching the hosts talk about rising petrol prices on his morning commute. Then Georgie Gardner tells him it’s his bus stop.
It’s all very uh… similar.
This is either the biggest coincidence to ever occur in breakfast TV promo land or someone in Channel Nine’s creative department has taken a little bit too much inspiration from the Brits.
When The Age reached out to TODAY for comment, their reply was brief and kind of skirted around the question.
“The promo, one of several campaigns to promote Today, ran for a short period over our summer break. It has not appeared on air for more than two weeks,” they said.
Huh… alrighty, then.
