CBS ‘Morning Show’ Turns Up Third

Despite a heavy promotional campaign and opening-day reviews so withering that some viewers might have tuned in simply to see what all the fuss was about, CBS’s new “The Morning Show” was No. 3 in the ratings for its premiere week.

But that had been expected, a CBS research executive said Thursday, noting that the new show had slightly better ratings its first week than the “CBS Morning News” got in its final week as a two-hour broadcast.

“I think we’re satisfied,” said Michael Eisenberg, the network’s director of national audience research. “For a new show to kick off that way--no complaints here.”

NBC’s front-running “Today” show won the week with a 5.5 ratings average, followed by ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which got a 4.2. Each ratings point represents 874,000 homes.

As had been the case with its predecessor, “The CBS Morning News,” CBS’ new entertainment-oriented entry, was a distant third during the week of Jan. 12-16, according to A.C. Nielsen Co. estimates. It averaged a 3.1 rating.

That was one-tenth of a ratings point better than the “CBS Morning News” got during the previous week.

Eisenberg said that the new program’s ratings probably will be down slightly for a week, now that the initial sampling by viewers is over.

No clear pattern of how the show is doing with viewers will emerge for at least four weeks, he added. “We’ll need at least a month to see how we’re settling in,” he said.

The 90-minute show, co-hosted by actress Mariette Hartley and former New York anchorman Rolland Smith, also fared better in the Nielsens than its predecessor had during the same week a year ago. During that week in 1986, the “CBS Morning News,” then co-anchored by Forrest Sawyer and Maria Shriver, had a 2.8 ratings average.

Sawyer now co-anchors, with Faith Daniels, the new hard-news version of the “CBS Morning News” that airs for half an hour before the 7:30 a.m. start of “The Morning Show.” Shriver left CBS News last fall and now works for NBC News.