Good Morning America and Today Tied at the Top

ABC AND NBC IN CLOSE BATTLE FOR MORNING NEWS RATINGS SUPREMACY

By Douglas Pucci
Follow @SonOfTheBronx

ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” tied for the top spot in Total Viewers for the week of June 25, 2012 with 4.604 million, according to Nielsen. This is the 5th time within the past 12 weeks that “Good Morning America” has ranked No. 1 in Total Viewers.
 
Most notable was ABC’s advantage over NBC on the morning of Friday, June 29 of 664,000 total viewers (4.852 million versus 4.188 million) and 112,000 viewers in the adults 25-54 demographic (1.858 million versus 1.746 million), as well as being the most-watched morning newscast of the week. June 29 was the first official day Savannah Guthrie became co-anchor of “Today,” which came one day after Ann Curry’s awkward and emotional exit from the NBC news program.

Compared to the week of June 18, “Good Morning America” was up three percent in total viewers and up three percent in adults 25-54 (from 4.459 million and 1.625 million, respectively). 
 
“Good Morning America” also saw increases in Total Viewers (up 6 percent) and Adults 25-54 (up 3 percent) over the year-ago week (4.350 million and 1.614 million, respectively, on the week of June 27, 2011).
 
“Good Morning America” is posting its smallest Total Viewer (366,000) and Adults 25-54 (377,000) margins with “Today” in 16 years – since the 1995-96 season.
 

WEEK OF 6/25/12      TOTAL VIEWERS      ADULTS 25-54      HOUSEHOLDS
ABC                    4,604,000      1.4/11; 1,669,000     3.5/14
NBC                    4,604,000      1.6/13; 1,946,000     3.5/14
CBS                    2,252,000      0.7/ 6;   867,000     1.7/ 7
Source: Nielsen Media Research