For the fourth season in a row, ABC’s Good Morning America was the most-watched morning show. And for the first time in four seasons, NBC’s Today show was No. 1 among younger viewers. The wins come as both shows have lost viewers. Coming during a presidential election and Olympics year, GMA lost -9 percent of its audience, while Today was down -2 percent.
In the 2014-15 season, the three morning shows averaged 13,248,000 viewers. This past season the average was 12,895,000, a loss of 353,000 or -3 percent. Only CBS This Morning grew its viewership vs. the previous season, growing its audience +7 percent and adding +4 percent in the demo. CBS has added nearly 1 million morning show viewers (977,000 or +43 percent) since the 2010-2011, which was the last for its predecessor The Early Show.
For Q3 2016, the Rio Olympics-heavy Today show took both total viewers and the A25-54 demo. Even so, Today was down -7 percent among the A25-54 demo compared to the Q3 2015. The show did see a viewership lift of +2 percent vs. Q3 2015.
GMA and Today also were down vs. the same week last year: ABC was down -8 percent in viewers and down -13 in the demo; NBC was down -7 percent and -5 percent, respectively.
GMA had the biggest makeover over the summer. It brought on Michael Strahan and added a studio audience to the second hour. The ABC program needs all the help in can get to hold on to younger viewers. Good Morning America has lost 300,000 viewers (-16 percent) in the advertiser-important A25-54 demo.
The averages for the 2015-2016 TV season:
- Total Viewers: ABC: 4.733M / NBC: 4.585M / CBS: 3.577M
- A25-54 viewers: ABC: 1.585M / NBC: 1.782M / CBS: 1.046M
The averages for Q3, 2016:
- Total Viewers: ABC: 4.258M / NBC: 4.317M / CBS: 3.321M
- A25-54 viewers: ABC: 1.383M / NBC: 1.705M / CBS: 961,000
The averages for the week of Sept. 12, 2016:
- Total Viewers: ABC: 4.464M / NBC: 4.248M / CBS: 3.333M
- A25-54 viewers: ABC: 1.449M / NBC: 1.678M / CBS: 1.035M