WHICH WAY?: Robin Roberts facing off against Matt Lauer as virtual equals is a media story nobody saw coming. (Roger Wong/INFphoto.com)
WHICH WAY?: Robin Roberts facing off against Matt Lauer as virtual equals is a media story nobody saw coming. (
)
Forget “American Idol” or “Revenge.”
TV’s most furious drama is going full-bore in morning TV — and it’s only just begun.
The seesaw battle between NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s upstart “Good Morning America” has set fire to one of TV’s oldest and most change-resistant time periods.
Last month, “GMA” finally beat “Today” (in total viewers) for the first time in 16 years — after a protracted come-from-behind race that seemed — in that “one step forward, two steps back” kind of way — to take forever.
In the six weeks since then, the two shows have swapped leads (three wins for “Today,” three wins for “GMA”), with “Today” retaining its edge in the “money” demographic of adults 25 to 54.
But that probably doesn’t mean much to the average TV viewer, who’s witnessing an historical transition that occurs maybe once a generation.
“It’s just a thrilling time,” says “GMA” executive producer Tom Cibrowski, one of the generals in this battle. “It’s really hard to get hardcore viewers to change flavors, and we’ve been successful in getting people to tune in to us.
“And we plan on making it exciting from now to eternity.”
(“Today” show executive producer Jim Bell declined to comment for this article.)
Cibrowski attributes the “GMA” surge not to A-list guests but to the chemistry of his on-air team: Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Sam Champion, Josh Elliott and Lara Spencer. “We’ve worked really hard over the past year with our new team and the new additions, Josh Elliott and Lara Spencer . . . and it’s just clicked,” he says. “Our audience can see and understand that this is a team that enjoys each other and has fun off-screen, too.”
Morning viewers haven’t abandoned “Today” and its morning team, but the fact that this playing field would have been leveled so quickly is something no one could have predicted.
NBC, in its own way, fired a huge salvo last month by nearly doubling veteran “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer’s salary to roughly $30 million a year, keeping him in the morning for the foreseeable future and ensuring some a.m. stability.
“Today” has undergone several changes in the past few years — most importantly with Ann Curry replacing Meredith Vieira.
“People in general are not going to leave morning TV,” Cibrowski says. “It’s a place where people are going to have their favorite personalities — whether it’s us or them.
“Any morning show producer will tell you this is a chess game — you always want to know who’s on the field, but you want to play your own game.”