The morning news shows started off the 2025-2026 broadcast season with good news for NBC’s Today for the week of September 22.

NBC News’ Today overtook ABC News’ Good Morning America to become the most-watched morning show in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo in the week. It leaped ahead of GMA courtesy of 94,000 additional viewers. However, its lead in the advertiser-coveted demo tightened as GMA showed some growth.

Meanwhile, Today and CBS News’ CBS Morning saw growth in total viewers, while GMA was the only newscast to see gains in the advertiser-coveted demo of Adults 25-54.

This was also the first week that the networks began using Nielsen’s big data and panel national TV ratings. It combines the firm’s panel measurement with data from cable, satellite set-top boxes, and smart TVs across 45 million households and 75 million devices.

NOTE: GMA was retitled on Tuesday (09/23/25) to GMA-ABC due to a special report on President Trump’s remarks at the United Nations. This retitled telecast is excluded from the weekly and season averages. ABC’s weekly averages are based on four days (Monday and Wednesday-Friday). 

According to national live + same-day ratings from Nielsen, GMA averaged 2.579 million total viewers and 501,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo for the week of September 22. Compared to the previous week, ABC News’ morning show was flat in total viewers and up +4% in the demo. Looking at its performance to the same week in 2024 (Sept. 23), GMA was down -2% in total viewers but rose by +13% in the demo. 

Today was still first in the demo with 572,000 viewers, and it was also the No. 1 network in total viewers with 2.673 million viewers for the just-concluded week. The broadcast saw growth of +6% in total viewers but fell by -2% in the demo compared to the previous week. It should be noted that Today’s lead in the demo has narrowed, with 71,000 viewers separating it from GMA. Looking at how it performed during the same week in 2024, Today was up by +3% in total viewers but down -14% in the demo.

Finally, CBS Mornings had 1.853 million total viewers and 295,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo. Compared to the previous week, CBS News’ morning show was up +2% in total viewers but down -4% in the A25-54 demo. During the same period in 2024, CBS Mornings experienced a -11% decline in total viewers and a -23% decline in the demo.

Source: Nielsen, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54, and Adults 18-49 National Live + Same Day Big Data Plus Panel Program Ratings.; Current Week (w/o 9/22/25), Previous Week (w/o 9/15/25) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 9/23/24).