The final week of August saw the total viewer gap separating ABC News’ Good Morning America and NBC News’ Today narrow to only 26,000 total viewers.

Meanwhile, third place CBS Mornings was also the only morning show to record week-to-week gains in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted Adults 25-54 demo. It finished behind GMA in the demo by 82,000 viewers.

GMA continued to be the most-watched morning show for the pre-Labor Day week, Today is nipping in its heels. New ABC News president Almin Karamehmedovic will likely have to keep his eye on both morning show rivals as the calendar turns to fall.

NOTE: Today and CBS Mornings were retitled on Friday (08/30/24) to Today-TS and CBS Morn, respectively, due to the Labor Day weekend. These retitled telecasts are excluded from the weekly and season averages. NBC News and CBS News’ weekly averages are based on four days (Monday to Thursday).

According to live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen, GMA averaged 2.549 million total viewers and 459,000 A25-54 viewers for the week of August 26. It was down -1% in the former category, but up +1% in the latter compared to the previous week.

Looking at its performance alongside the same week in 2023 (the week of Aug. 28), GMA saw declines of -15% and -22%, respectively.  

Today remained the leader in the Adults 25-54 demo with 640,000 viewers and finished second in total viewers with an audience of 2.523 million. The show was flat in total viewers, but up by +6% in the demo compared to the previous week.

Year-to-year, Today was down by -6% in total viewers but up by +1% in the demo—the only morning broadcast to see a gain in that category.

CBS Mornings finished with 1.981 million total viewers and 377,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo. That translates to respective gains of +5% and +10% compared to the previous week.

Looking back at 2023, CBS Mornings was down in total viewers and the A25-54 demo by -16% and -22%, respectively.

Nielsen live-plus-same-day averages for the week of August 26, 2024:

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 Live + SD Current Week (w/o 8/26/24), Previous Week (w/o 8/19/24) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 8/21/23). Most Current Data Stream: 2023-2024 Season (9/25/23–9/1/24) and 2022-2023 Season (9/19/22–8/27/23), Beginning 8/31/20, national ratings also include Out of Home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular telecasts.