“I did see Karl at the Logies,” Wilkinson says. “I went up and said hi towards the end of the evening because I was feelinga bit sorry for him. I just wanted to make sure he was OK. He becameeverybody's favourite punchline that night and that can’t be easy.”

Famously,Stefanovicdidn’t invite her to his lavish Mexican wedding in December. No doubt Nine,the owner of this masthead,hoped Stefanovic’s marriage to Jasmine Yarbrough would stem relentless media coverage of his messy divorce from Cassandra Thorburn. Instead,itintensified the frenzy. Less than a fortnight into his honeymoon,Nine removed its Gold Logie winner fromthe program that made him a star.

Today’s ratings had already dropped after Wilkinson,earning significantly less than Stefanovic,left in 2017. His departuretriggered another slump.

It was a sad end for one of commercial television’s better pairings;their genuine spark was a contrast to the perma-smiling blandness of other TV duos. In their decade on air together,they liftedTodayout of the doldrums,winning the most metropolitan ratings weeks in 2016. (ThoughSunrise’s national audience remainedsubstantially bigger and Seven’s breakfast program has extended its lead this year.)

“Even though Karl and I had an incredibly successful partnership,not even we can specify what it was that worked,” Wilkinson says. “You never know how two people will go until they’re on air and under the spotlight for three-and-a-half hours every day.”

Thatspotlight is now on currentToday hosts,Georgie Gardner and Deb Knight. But the scrutiny on Wilkinson’s ratings is just as intense.

Since joining Ten – where she co-hostsThe Project,narratesAmbulance Australia and edits the 10 Daily website – each fluctuation has beenturned into a screaming headline.

Ten’s hopes for a strong start to the year were dampened by flops such as quiz showPointless and a reboot ofChanging Rooms. Between January and May,according to Standard Media Index,the network claimed a 20.5 per cent slice of the TV advertising pie,while Seven and Nine took almost 39 per cent each. By mid-July,Ten’s audience share was a fraction smaller than ABC’s.

When a network’s ratings decline,so does its capacity to promote new shows. Even good programs fall by the wayside,and it can take years to steady the ship. “I’m very comfortable working in an underdog atmosphere,” Wilkinson says. “Professionally,I’ve always taken jobs where there’s room to grow.”

She lays out the evidence as she tackles dessert,cracking the chocolate shell of her caramel truffle.

In her five years at the helm ofDolly,she more than doubled its circulation,then madeCleo the world’s top-selling women’s lifestyle magazine per capita. (“You’d better be f---ing right,” Kerry Packer growled after sheaxed its male centrefolds.) During pay TV’s infancy,she joined Foxtel’s revival of panel showBeauty and the Beast. (“We had tens of viewers in those early days,” recalls one crew member.) In 2007,after a stint atWeekend Sunrise,she partnered with Stefanovic onToday. Back then,the show was being walloped by its rival.

Some industry executives thought Nine’s struggling breakfast program was a lost cause. “What can I say?” Wilkinson laughs. “I just really like a challenge.”

Two days after our lunch,an audience report lands in my inbox.The Project’s ratings are split into half-hours,with its 7pm weeknight portion ranking 42nd for the week,and its 6.30pm segment taking 79th place. “We’d be much happier if our early evenings were performing better,” Ten's programming chief Beverley McGarvey said in 2018,concedingThe Projectneeded to grow.

Having co-hosted the show’s Friday and Sunday editions since 2018,Wilkinson recently added Thursdays to her schedule. Her debut onThe Sunday Project delivered its best ratings since Ten revived the program the year prior. When those numbers softened,headlines trumpeted her “failure”. In fact,The Sunday Project’s national ratings,across the hour,are up 5 per cent since her arrival.

“I’ve been told by editors at news websites that my name gets clicks,” she shrugs. “People in charge of clickbait love a rollercoaster,so they have to keep changing the narrative.”

Ironically,this could benefitThe Project in the long run:“There are very few TV shows now that you can really trust. With our program,you can find out what’s going on,even if you haven’t see any other news that day. You learn what’s important but you also have a laugh,then you can get on with the rest of your night.

“I'm now part of a team that I've admired for 10 years;[the co-hosts and crew] are great teachers and I learn from all of them,every day. The standards of production are off the charts.”

Ten is yet to confirm a third season ofAmbulance Australia,a superb series documenting the work of Triple Zero dispatchers and paramedics,but its renewal seems likely. Like many of the ordinary people featured in the program,she knows how it feels to be blindsided by a medical emergency.

In 1990,her father,Ray,collapsed at a rugby game. He was taken by ambulance to hospital,where he was diagnosed with cancer. Less than a month later,he died.

In those final weeks,Wilkinson sat by his bedside,reading aloud from the sports pages ofThe Sydney Morning Herald. Ray was especially fond of rugby columnist Peter FitzSimons.

Not long after his funeral,Wilkinson met FitzSimons inToday's make-up room (he was there to talk sport,she was promotingCleo). She tried telling him how much her dadenjoyed his columns,but became choked up and had to leave. Eighteen months later,thanks to the match-making efforts of Nine journalist Liz Hayes,they went on a date. In September,they’ll celebrate 27 years of marriage.

“Pete does things for other people under the radar,and I won’t find out until someone else tells me,” Wilkinson says. “That was very much a quality of my dad’s. I’m always attracted to people,in the broadest sense,who show kindness and generosity and a desire to do the right thing.”

The “Lunch with” column is published in the Spectrum lift-out ofThe Age andThe Sydney Morning Herald,on sale every Saturday.

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