Matt Lauer Ouster Announcement Works Well For ‘Today’, Ratings-Wise

Today scored a weekly win in overall audience, as well as in the demos, last week. That includes the NBC morning show’s biggest Wednesday crowd since the morning immediately after Donald Trump’s stunning Election Day win.

On Wednesday, 5.7 million people watched Savannah Guthrie read a statement fromMatt Lauerin which he said, in about 90 words, that “there are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions,” etc.

One day earlier, Guthrie announced at the top of the show that NBC News had jettisoned its 800-pound gorilla after receiving a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, and believed it highly likely it was not an isolated incident.

Wednesday’s audience was Today‘s biggest Wednesday crowd with a regular broadcast since the morning immediately after Trump was elected President.

While the high drama was playing out on Today, ABC’s Good Morning America  logged 4.3M viewers and CBS This Morning averaged 3.6M.

For the week, Today tallied 4.9M viewers, besting usual front-runner GMA, which averaged 4.4M. CTM attracted 3.5M.

Today also took the demo derbies last week, including a 1.4 rating in the news demo, aka adults 25-54, and a 1.0 rating with the younger 18-49 crowd. GMA averaged 1.2 and 0.8, respectively, and CTM posted 0.8 and 0.5, respectively.

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