The first time ABC’s Good Morning America beat the Today Show in the ratings after 852 weeks in second place, NBC’s star Matt Lauer was on vacation. “I’ve gotta say, for me personally, the second week was much more gratifying,” GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos told New York this week about his show’s follow-up win two weeks after the breaking their sixteen-year losing streak. “It made it real.” Now things are really, really real: Preliminary numbers have GMA atop Today last week for the third time in five weeks, up 60,000 total viewers. The ABC morning show still trails NBC’s by 138,000 in the crucial 25-54 demo, but that’s the smallest gap since 2005. It’s time for Today to either call up Sarah Palin again, or just double-down on the Knuckles saga.
Related: 46 Minutes With George Stephanopoulos [NYM]
