While NBC News and ABC News duke it out through TV bookings, the press and staffer musical chairs, CBS This Morning has quietly grown double digits in viewers.
It’s hardly a shock that ABC’s Good Morning America wore the morning-show ratings crown for the first week of the television season, but its margin of victory over runner-up Today on NBC was rather surprising. Racking up its highest-rated frame since mid-spring, GMA bested Today by its largest margins for any week in more than 20 years (since May 1994). The NBC program was down double-digits in key demos vs. premiere week 2013, while both Good Morning America and third-place CBS This Morning were on the rise.
ABC’s Good Morning America continues its winning way in the a.m. through the first 11 weeks of the season. Season-to-date, ABC’s morning show has been averaging a Nielsen 5.7 million viewers and 2.14 million 25-54 viewers, higher than NBC’s Today, at 5.0 million and 2.07 million 25-54 viewers. CBS This Morning is farther back — at 3.05 million viewers and 1.03 million 25-54 viewers.
Despierta America grew viewership by 26% among adults 18-49 this year while English-language network morning shows are mostly flat or down.
The increasingly intense competition between NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America took its latest twist last week when the shows produced — in the Nielsen rating sample anyway — a flat-footed, photo-finish tie in the audience measure that counts the most among advertisers.
