• by Wayne Friedman , June 20, 2005

NBC's "Today Show" is slowly finding its ratings-legs again with the help of increased on-air marketing and harder news stories.

The longtime program leader in early morning network TV made gains in the last few weeks, building back to a 500,000-viewer advantage over ABC's "Good Morning America" for the week of June 5-12. Last week, "Today" rose to an 800,000-viewer advantage on certain days.

"The combination of on-air promotion time and better stories has helped," said Vince Manze, president and creative director of The NBC Agency. "We are aggressively promoting the stories up until the last minute. We are paying a lot more attention to it." The number of "Today"'s on-air promotional spots has been boosted significantly. Typically, "Today" promotional spots come in 10-second increments. Over the past year, "Today" might get one 10-second spot a night in prime time--if at all. Now NBC runs an extra 20 or 30 seconds of promos a night.

"We might not have done any spots," said Manze. "Now it is up to three times a night." More top-of-mind news segments, under the direction of new Executive Producer Jim Bell, are a big part of the rise. Recently the show has had a number of exclusive interviews, including Angelina Jolie. Co-anchor Katie Couric will have an exclusive with "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks. Other big-name entertainment talent such as Lindsay Lohan, Tom Cruise, Bo Bice, and Steven Spielberg will make appearances on the show soon.

For the week of June 5-12, "Today" earned a Nielsen Media Research 4.5 household rating/16 share and 5.5 million viewers. "GMA" remained in second place, with a 3.9/14 and 5.0 million viewers. CBS' "The Early Show" finished third, with a 2.1/8 and 2.5 million viewers.

Still, "The Today Show" has a long way to go. It had more than a 1 million-viewer lead over "GMA" last year, and as much as a 2 million-viewer lead in recent years.

In the spring, "The Today Show"'s lead shrank to under 100,000 viewers on some days. In the last couple of months, ABC's "GMA" benefited significantly from actors' appearances from its big shows "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."

In April, NBC quickly moved to change the leadership role of "The Today Show" with the hiring of Jim Bell to executive producer. To a great extent, NBC's problems stemmed from running much softer lifestyle programming such as "Live for Today," a multi-part lifestyle series in which NBC news anchors help average people do something they really want to do.

"Marketing-wise, we would concentrate on these long series--lifestyle series," said NBC's Manze.

"Now we are focused on top-of-mind stories--not always celebrity-oriented." Manze says that means more topical stories such as the missing Alabama student or the Michael Jackson trial.

Soon, "The Today Show" will ramp up even more. NBC is making a major business marketing boost around "The Today Show," focusing on the show's longevity as the number one network morning show for the last 500 weeks.