“GMA” Continues to Narrow Year-to-Year Total Viewer and Demo Gaps with NBC’s “Today”

“GMA” Posts Smallest Season-to-Date Total Viewer Gap with “Today” in 4 Years

“GMA” Posts 3-Month High in Total Viewers and Demo Audience

 ”GMA” Continues to Grow in Total Viewers Week-to-Week, Year-to-Year and Season-to-Date — M arking 33 Consecutive Weeks of Year-to-Year Growth in Total Viewers

ABC News’ “Good Morning America” averaged 4.621 million Total Viewers and a 1.4/11/1.778 million in Adults 25-54 for the week of August 22, 2011.  The program posted week-to-week increases in both Total Viewers (+7%) and Adults 25-54 (+5%), hitting a 3-month high in both Nielsen measures – since w/o 5/23/11 and w/o 5/30/11, respectively.    

On Friday (8/26/11), “Good Morning America,” with a special “Hurricane Irene” edition, posted its most-watched telecast (4.902 million) since June and best Adults 25-54 (1.954 million) performance since May – since 6/10/11 and 5/25/11, respectively.

“GMA” built on its year-earlier performance by double-digits in both Total Viewers (+19%) and Adults 25-54 (+14%), producing year-over-year growth in both demos for the last 18 weeks.  In addition, “GMA” improved the most over the same week last year (NBC: +11% and +9%, respectively; CBS: +10% and +9%, respectively).  Further, “GMA” extended its string of year-to-year overall audience growth to 33 weeks, and was up in 46 of 49 weeks overall this season.

Season to date, “GMA” is up the most among the network morning news programs in both Total Viewers (+10%) and Adults 25-54 (+3%) versus its year-ago averages (NBC’s “Today” is up by +2% and by +2%, respectively; CBS’ “Early Show” is up by +1% and is flat, respectively), attracting its largest audience in 4 years – since the 2006-2007 season.

For the 4th week in a row, “GMA” narrowed its margins with NBC’s “Today” from the year-ago week in both Total Viewers (-25% – 661,000 vs. 881,000) and Adults 25-54 (-2% – 568,000 vs. 581,000) .  Additionally, “GMA” decreased its year-earlier Total Viewer gap with “Today” for the last 11 weeks and in 44 of 49 weeks of the season to date.  “GMA” also cut its Total Viewer gap season to date by double-digits (-31%), posting its smallest Total Viewer gap with the NBC program in 4 years – since the 2006-07 season.    

“GMA” topped CBS’ “Early Show” by 80% in Total Viewers (4.621 million vs. 2.573 million) and by 70% in Adults 25-54 (1.778 million vs. 1.048 million).

Emmy Award-winning “GMA,” featuring the anchor team of Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Sam Champion, Lara Spencer and Josh Elliott, airs live Mon.-Fri. (7:00-9:00 a.m., ET) on ABC. James Goldston is senior executive producer and Tom Cibrowski is executive producer.

Week of 8/22/11             Total Viewers      Adults 25-54      Households

ABC                          4,621,000      1.4/11; 1,778,000     3.4/13

NBC                          5,282,000      1.9/15; 2,346,000     3.8/15

CBS                          2,573,000      0.8/ 7; 1,048,000     1.9/ 7

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and HHLDs Live + SD weeks of 8/22/11, 08/15/11, & 8/23/10.  Live+7 (where available) & Live+SD for STD 10/11 (9/20/11-8/28/11) & STD 09/10 (9/21/09-8/29/10).