ABC ‘MORNING’ IN NIELSEN WIN

With rival morning hosts David Hartman and Bryant Gumbel both on vacation last week, ABC’s “Good Morning America” beat NBC’s “Today” show in the ratings for the first time in 15 weeks, figures from the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed Thursday.

“GMA,” with actor Wayne Rogers subsituting for Hartman, had a 5.7 rating. “Today,” with John Palmer filling in for Gumbel, had a 5.5. The “CBS Morning News” averaged a 3.2 rating.

“What it means is that it’s very competitive in the morning,” said John Goodman, a producer for “GMA.” “In the future, we’re going to win some, they’re going to win some.”

“We never expected to win every week,” said NBC News spokesman Bill McAndrew.

With 14 consecutive first-place finishes, “Today” did win the first-quarter ratings, the first time the NBC broadcast has dominated a quarterly period since 1979.

Nielsen figures for the first three months of 1986 were: “Today” 5.8, “GMA” 5.2, and the “CBS Morning News” 3.1.