The February sweeps performance for “The Early Show” on CBS was its best in nine years in total viewers and key demographic categories, including adults 25 to 54 and 18 to 49.
“We’re stable and settled and growing,” said Michael Bass, senior executive producer of the perpetually third-ranked morning show.
Mr. Bass said the jelling of the show’s anchor foursome-Harry Smith, Julie Chen, Rene Syler and Hannah Storm, the decision to go back to a full-time weatherman and the determination to “do more news than either of the other shows” in the first half-hour have paid off by converting samplers to regular viewers.
In the season-to-date, with the overall morning show audience up 4 percent, Mr. Bass said, “Early” has gained twice as many viewers as “Today” and 25,000 to 30,000 viewers per week more than ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The week of Feb. 2 to 6 ended with “The Early Show” in its best competitive position, finishing 1.3 million viewers behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which finished 1.9 million viewers behind NBC’s “Today.” For the sweeps, “Today” averaged 6.47 million viewers, down slightly from 6.49 million in February 2003, followed by “GMA,” which scored 5.28 million viewers, down from 5.43 million the year before.
The only network morning show to post year-to-year viewership increases was “The Early Show” with 3.26 million, up from 3.13 million in February 2003.