B&C‘s Marisa Guthrie writes about the “steady erosion of viewers” for the broadcast morning shows.
NBC’s Today has sat atop the morning news heap since 1995. But in the last year, the NBC money-maker — which rakes in an estimated $500 million a year in ad revenue — has seen 9% of its target audience of 25-54-year-olds disappear. ABC’s Good Morning America, the perennial No. 2, has come within a couple hundred thousand viewers of Today…However, it has not been able to convert Today’s audience erosion into morning dominance. GMA has lost 11% of its audience for the same time period (Sept. 18, 2006, to Sept. 23, 2007).
Meanwhile, at CBS, Guthrie writes “[Shelley] Ross, who started her job three weeks ago, has already divided the Early Show producers into two camps: ‘tape producers, who win awards, and editorial producers, who grow the audience’ by bringing in buzzy, high-profile stories.”