For the 12th consecutive week, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today split the weekly morning show ratings race. GMA averaged the most total viewers (3.24 million), while Today captured the most adults 25-54 (921,000) for the week of Oct. 18, 2021.
This is according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day for the fifth week of the 2021-’22 TV season.
GMA out-performed rival Today by an average of +62,000 total viewers per original broadcast. ABC’s morning show fell by less than -1% in average total viewers, but actually gained +4% in adults 25-54 from the previous week. Compared with the year-ago week (Oct. 19, 2020), however, GMA shed -6% in total viewers and -17% in the A25-54 demo.
Nevertheless, season to date, GMA is ranking as No. 1 morning newscast in total viewers for the 10th year in a row.
NBC’s Today finished the week No. 1 among adults 25-54, which means the program has earned either an outright win or first-place tie in the key A25-54 demo for 316 out of the past 321 weeks. In addition to averaging 921,000 adults 25-54 (+123,000 than GMA and +388,000 than CBS Mornings), Today averaged 3.18 million total viewers during the week of Oct. 18.
Unlike GMA, NBC’s morning show gained viewers from the previous week in multiple measurements. The program grew less than +1% in average total viewers, and gained +5% among adults 25-54. However, similar to the competition, Today shed viewers on a year-over-year basis. The program fell -2% in average total viewers and -10% among adults 25-54 from the comparable week in 2020. No surprise there, as younger demos continue to leave linear morning TV on an annual basis.
CBS Mornings averaged nearly 2.515 million total viewers to go with 533,000 A25-54 viewers last week, a nice performance by that show’s standard. CBS Mornings grew +1% in average total viewers and +1% among adults 25-54 from the previous week. However, the broadcast shed -4% of its average total audience and -11% of its A25-54 audience from the same week in 2020.
It is worth noting that on Monday, Oct. 18, CBS Mornings was retitled to “CBS Morn” due to a CBS News special report on the death of Colin Powell. The retitled telecast is excluded from the weekly and season averages, and CBS’ weekly averages are based on just four days (Tuesday-Friday).
Live-plus-same-day numbers for the week of Oct. 18, 2021:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 3,238,000 | 3,176,000 | 2,515,000 |
| • A25-54: | 798,000 | 921,000 | 533,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54. Live + SD Current Week (w/o 10/18/21), Previous Week (w/o 10/11/21) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 10/19/20). Most Current: 2021 -2022 Season (9/20 – 10/24/21) and 2020 -2021 Season (9/21 – 10/25/20). Beginning 8/31/20, national ratings also include Out of Home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular telecasts.