Somewhere, Matt Lauer must be laughing.
Recent ratings analysis shows that viewership for NBC’s flagship morning news and chat show has reached its lowest point in 30 years.
According to Fox News, all the network morning shows are suffering, but Today has taken the brunt of the drop-off, shedding 10% of its audience so far this year.
“[It] has averaged 3.2 million viewers in 2021, a 10-percent drop from its 2020 total viewership. ABC’s Good Morning America is also down nine percent but has averaged 3.4 million to edge Today for the most-watched morning show,” the outlet reports. It goes on, “While both shows have declined from last year, the historic low for Today has raised eyebrows as the show used to surpass 6 million viewers on a regular basis in its heyday. Today also lost to Good Morning America in the key demographic of adults age 25-54 by its largest margin since the week of December 21, 2015.”
Freelance media analyst Drew Holden suggested that the Peacock network is struggling to decide what to do with the program now that it can no longer focus on Donald Trump, something that Daily Wire analysis has shown is impacting most establishment TV news shows.
Said Holden, “For years, Today invested in ginning up political outrage to grab eyeballs, at the expense of trying to understand the storylines and topics that people are actually interested in. Non-stop political coverage may’ve helped juice the numbers for a while, but at the end of the day, it isn’t what people want from Today or most other shows like it.”
An anonymous insider revealed that the network’s executives are, understandably, very unhappy. “It’s a total fiasco,” the source told Fox. “The show has lost its role [as a] cultural touchstone. There are obviously bigger industry trends at play but the show is a non-factor.”
Fox points out that this is hardly a good time for Today to be struggling as NBC is gearing up for its traditional coverage of the Olympic games. In the past, profiles of athletes and other feel-good stories have been a ratings bonanza for the network. But with the games going woke, as athletes kneel to show support for Black Lives Matter and biological males compete in women’s sports, audiences are proving less interested.
The latest consumer research from Zeta Global shows viewers don’t find the games as compelling as they have in the past. TV Technology reports, “Based on responses from over 2000 respondents across the United States, [Zeta’s] survey found that enthusiasm for the Tokyo Olympics is low. The majority of U.S. consumers are not looking forward to the Olympics this year: 45.2% of U.S. consumers surveyed are not looking forward to the Olympics, while 17.5% are undecided.”
Zeta predicted that audience disinterest will likely lead to the 2021 Tokyo Games being “one of the lowest-watched Summer Olympic Games in the 21st century, to date.”
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Source: Dailywire
