ABC's Good Morning
America beat out NBC's Today in
the ratings the week of April 9 for the first week in over 16 years, according
to preliminary Nielsen ratings.
GMA averaged 5.147
million total viewers to Today's
5.134 million total viewers, beating the NBC program by a slim margin of 13,000
viewers. Those ratings may be adjusted slightly when Nielsen releases the
official weekly ratings on Thursday.
Today has held the
weekly ratings winning streak since December 1995, and ABC news President Ben
Sherwood has made toppling the No. 1 morning program a top priority since taking
over the news division.
"This is an exciting day but we will save any celebrating for when the final numbers come in on Thursday," said GMA senior executive producer Tom Cibrowski in a statement.
The race between the two shows was closely watched the week
of April 2, when Katie Couric filled in for the vacationing Robin Roberts on GMA, but the ABC show beat Today on only one morning and trailed by210,000 total viewers for the week.
GMA's win for the
week of April 9 came while Today
co-anchor Matt Lauer was on vacation. Lauer recently signed a contractextension to keep him on the NBC program for a reported four more years.
