'Good Morning America' Gains on 'Today'

Source: New York Times The "Today" show's lead over "Good Morning America" dwindled to perhaps 70,000 viewers last week, according to early estimates provided yesterday to NBC and ABC by Nielsen Media Research.

If those figures hold - the final numbers will be released by Nielsen on Thursday - then "Good Morning America" will have been its closest to "Today" at least in a given week, since December 1995. That is the last time that "Good Morning America," on ABC, beat "Today," on NBC, in the weekly ratings.

In recent years, the lead by "Today" over "Good Morning America" has been as much as two million viewers. Thus far, for the season that began in September, "Today" (average audience about 6 million viewers) has led "Good Morning America" (about 5.4 million) by more than 600,000 viewers.

But in recent weeks, the lead has become so narrow (about 300,000, during the week of May 2) that NBC replaced the program's executive producer last month.