We did but see him passing by ... and if the TV ratings are any guide, that was about the extent of our interest in the arrival of the royal baby.

There was a dramatic spike in viewers for both the commercial breakfast shows on Tuesday, which found themselves blessed by the timing of the announcement just before dawn in Australia.

Nine's Today, which had Lisa Wilkinson and Ben Fordham anchoring in Sydney and Leila McKinnon and Peter Stefanovic on the ground in London, beat Seven's Sunrise (Melissa Doyle in London, David Koch and Samantha Armitage at home) by 34,000 nationally (422,000 against 388,000). Seven had the better of the very early viewers (pre-7am), winning 240,000 to Nine's 216,000.

Those numbers indicate a very definite royal baby bump: Nine was up 85,000 viewers on its Monday audience of 337,000 and Seven picked up an extra 71,000 over Monday's figure of 317,000. Week-on-week, Sunrise registered a bump of only 5000 compared to last Tuesday, while Today increased by a healthy 64,000.