For the 11th consecutive week, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today split the weekly morning show ratings race. GMA averaged the most total viewers (3.25 million), while Today captured the most adults 25-54 (874,000) for the week of Oct. 11, 2021.
This is according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day for the fourth week of the 2021-’22 TV season.
GMA out-performed rival Today by +74,000 average total viewers, nearly half from the prior week (vs. +140,000). ABC’s morning show held steady in average total viewers, but lost -5% of its A25-54 audience from the previous week. ABC’s morning show did win Thursday in the key A25-54 demo.
Compared with the year-ago week (Oct. 12, 2020), GMA was -6% in total viewers and -18% in the A25-54 demo.
GMA decided to retitle its Monday, Oct. 11 broadcast. The retitled telecast is excluded from the weekly and season averages, and GMA’s weekly averages are based on four days (Tuesday-Friday). CBS Mornings and Today, on the other hand, continued to rate all five days of the week.
Speaking of Today, NBC’s morning show 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 315 out of the past 320 weeks. In addition to averaging 874,000 adults 25-54 (+110,000 than GMA and +345,000 than CBS Mornings), Today averaged 3.17 million total viewers during the week of Oct. 11.
Today also won in total viewers Friday.
Unlike GMA, NBC’s morning show grew its average total audience from the prior week (+2%). The program did shed -1% of its A25-54 audience, despite winning the measurement. Today also shed viewers on a year-over-year basis, -1% in average total viewers and -9% among adults 25-54 from the comparable week in 2020. No surprise there, as younger demos continue to leave all of the morning shows on an annual basis
CBS Mornings averaged nearly 2.5 million total viewers to go with 529,000 A25-54 viewers last week. That’s flat in average total viewers and a less than +1% improvement in the demo from the previous week. The broadcast shed -4% of its average total audience, but -18% of its A25-54 audience from the same week in 2020.
Live-plus-same-day numbers for the week of Oct. 11, 2021:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 3,253,000 | 3,174,000 | 2,490,000 |
| • A25-54: | 764,000 | 874,000 | 529,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54. Live + SD Current Week (w/o 10/11/21), Previous Week (w/o 10/4/21) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 10/12/20). Most Current: 2021 -2022 Season (9/20 – 10/17/21 and 2020 -2021 Season (9/21 – 10/18/20). Beginning 8/31/20, national ratings also include Out of Home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular telecasts.