NBC’s Today is on a bit of a hot streak. It was the No. 1 morning show for the week of Sept. 6 across the board, topping Good Morning America in the key A25-54 demo and in average total viewers for the second consecutive week. The win marks the NBC morning show’s eighth across-the-board victory this season.
Today outperformed GMA in total viewers on both Tuesday (+128,000) and Friday (+268,000). Excluding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Friday’s advantage was Today’s biggest single-day win over GMA since Monday, Dec. 2, 2019.
It’s worth noting that NBC televised the NFL season opener on Thursday evening, an event which delivered massive ratings and ended late. This most certainly gave Today a built-in advantage over its ABC competition on Friday.
Relative to the previous week (Aug. 30), Today shed -7% in average total viewers and -3% among the key A25-54 demo. Compared to the same week in 2020, Today improved by +1% in average total viewers, but shed -4% of its A25-54 audience.
In addition to averaging a larger total audience than GMA last week, Today has been the No. 1 morning show in the key A25-54 demo for 310 of the past 315 weeks.
Good Morning America marked back-to-back weeks as the second-most-watched morning show, something almost unheard of in recent years, outside of weeks when NBC has the Olympics.
GMA did manage to beat Today in the key A25-54 demo on Thursday. For the week, the program shed -5% in the measurement from the prior week, and -7% in total viewers. Compared to the year-ago week, GMA fell -5% in total viewers and -9% in the key demo.
CBS Mornings with new co-host Nate Burleson averaged 2.46 million total viewers and 517,000 adults 25-54 last week. That’s a -9% drop-off in average total viewers, and -3% in 25-54 from the previous week. The program shed -8% in average total viewers and -21% in the key A25-54 demo from the year-ago week.
Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers for the week of Sept. 6:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 3,251,000 | 3,256,000 | 2,461,000 |
| • A25-54: | 845,000 | 952,000 | 517,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54. Live + SD Current Week (w/o 9/6/21), Previous Week (w/o 8/30/21) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 9/7/20). Most Current: 2020 -2021 Season (9/21/20 – 9/12/21) and Most Current: 2019 -2020 Season (9/23/19 – 9/13/20). *Beginning 8/31/20, national ratings also include Out of Home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular telecasts.