Do Viewers Miss the Morning TV Hosts Accused of Sexual Harassment?
TVNewser is reporting that “As we’ve been documenting weekly, the three network morning shows have been losing viewers for years. With the May sweeps numbers just out that downward trend continued.
“ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today show, and CBS This Morning averaged a combined 11.502 million viewers each day for the month of May. That’s down 1.8 million, or -14 percent, from the 13.332 million average of May 2016.
“In the advertiser-friendly A25-54 demo, the three shows drew a combined average of 3.505 million daily viewers, down from 4.480 million, or -22 percent, since May 2016.
That is a significant drop for the Big 3 morning shows. What is most interesting about these drops in viewers as they they coincide with the departure of several personalities that have been accused with everything from sexual harassment to rape.
The article goes on to say “In the last 6 months, all three shows have seen anchor shake-ups. NBC and CBS split with their male anchors, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, respectively, following sexual harassment claims. GMA is paring down its anchor team, focusing on Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan as Amy Robach moves to 20/20 and Lara Spencer cuts back her time on the show.”
It is doubtful that keeping those accused of nefarious or criminal behaviors would have done anything to help ratings for morning shows, since they have been in decline since (2016). But the significance in the decline since the departure of Lauer and Rose has to make all media watchers wonder.
It is more likely these viewers are simply choosing to watch something else — probably on demand platforms that they can control what they watch and when they watch it.
