" GMA" Up Year-to-Year in Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 While "Today" Declines Double-Digits

  "GMA" is Posting its Smallest Total Viewer and Adults 25-54 Margins with "Today" in 16 Years, Season to Date

ABC News' "Good Morning America" drew 5.111 million Total Viewers and a 1.7 rating/13 share/2.079 million Adults 25-54 for the week of May 14, 2012.  "GMA" trailed "Today" (5.175 million) during the week by only -64,000 Total Viewers. Additionally, Goodmorningamerica.com has expanded its lead and in April, had 17 million more unique users than Today.com.

For the 3rd week in a row and 6th time in the last 7 weeks, "GMA" improved on the same week last year in both Total Viewers (+6%) and Adults 25-54 (+13%) - 4.833 million and 1.844 million, respectively, on w/o 5/16/11 .  "GMA" stood as the only network morning newscasts to grow year to year, while both NBC's "Today"( -10%/-15%) and "CBS This Morning"( -10%/-11%) were each down by double-digits.

"GMA" decreased most of its year-to-year margins with "Today" in both Total Viewers (-93% - 64,000 vs. 894,000) and Adults 25-54 (-79% - 165,000 vs. 793,000) .  Further, "GMA" has cut its year-to-year demo gap with the NBC program by double-digits for the 20th week in a row and in 34 of 35 weeks this season.  

For the 2nd week in a row, "GMA" ranked No. 1 in the key adult news demo on Friday (5/18/12), beating "Today" by +42,000 (2.118 million vs. 2.076 million). 

Season to date, "GMA" has cut its gaps versus "Today" nearly in half in both Total Viewers (-49%) and Adults 25-54 (-47%) versus its year-ago season gaps.  In fact "GMA" is posting its smallest Total Viewer (413,000) and Adults 25-54 (396,000) margins with "Today" in 16 years - since the 1995-96 Season.

"GMA" more than doubled the performance "CBS This Morning" in Total Viewers (+113% - 5.111 million vs. 2.399 million) and Adults 25-54 (+122% - 2.079 million vs. 938,000).  In fact, GMA" turned in its largest demo advantage over the CBS program in more than 5 1/2 years - since w/o 10/16/06.   

Season to date "GMA" is the only morning program to grow in Total Viewers (+4%) and Adults 25-54 (+8%) versus its year-ago averages (NBC's "Today:" -4%/-8%, respectively; CBS' "This Morning:" -8%/-10%, respectively). "GMA" is seeing its largest overall season audience in 6 years, since 2005-06.

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 Live + SD weeks of 5/14/12, 5/7/12 & 5/16/11.  Most Current:  2011-2012 Season (9/19/11 - 5/20/12) and 2010-2011 Season (9/20/10 - 5/22/11).  

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. Tom Cibrowski is senior executive producer.

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