With the overnight ratings for Friday’s show just released, ABC’s “Good Morning America” appears to have won an entire week in the ratings — a feat which has not been accomplished in 852 weeks, since Dec., 1995 when Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric were the “Today” anchors.
On Friday, “GMA” had a 333,000 total viewer lead on “Today,” enough to put it over the top for the week winning by just 13,000 viewers.
Last week was seen as the week “GMA” could have toppled “Today” for a couple reasons: “GMA” has been gaining ground, and last week, “Today” anchor Matt Lauer was on vacation while the full “GMA” team was in place. As of Thursday’s show, “Today” had a +63,000 lead, but with “GMA’s” big win Wednesday (+366,000) and then Friday, that was enough. These are preliminary projections with final Nielsen numbers out Thursday morning.
“Everybody’s thrilled and cautiously optimistic that this holds up for the final numbers on Thursday,” an ABC insider tells TVNewser.
Here are the total viewer gaps, showing “Today’s” lead, for the last few weeks:
- April 9: -13,000