The Today Show recently had its smallest audience in 30 years as it experienced a devastating drop in viewership. “It’s a total fiasco,” a longtime veteran of the show said to Fox News. “The show has lost its role [as a] cultural touchstone,” the source adds. “There are obviously bigger industry trends at play but the show is a non-factor.”
‘Today’ has the smallest viewership audience since at least 1991
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How can they fix their decreasing viewership? Critics weigh in
“Like countless other outlets and shows in recent months, the ‘Today’ show has seen their number of watchers decline considerably since President Trump left office, even as they continue to focus coverage on the former president,” says freelance writer Drew Holden.
“For years, ‘Today’ invested in ginning up political outrage to grab eyeballs, at the expense of trying to understand the storylines and topics that people are actually interested in,” Holden added. “Non-stop political coverage may’ve helped juice the numbers for a while, but at the end of the day, it isn’t what people want from ‘Today’ or most other shows like it.”
Changing content
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“Frankly, the news agenda is hardly more positive in 2021, with crime, border problems, inflation, and COVID variants needing to be covered. Audiences are exhausted and it is difficult for smiling morning hosts like Savannah Guthrie to put a happy face on this dismal news environment. It is worth noting that the total viewers for ‘Today’ are less than half of what the show drew twenty years ago when Katie Couric was the star of morning news.”
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