Katie Couric Helps Good Morning America Topple The Today Show

ABC’s Katie Couric-co-anchored “Good Morning America,” featuring a segment with the latest “Dancing With the Stars” evictee, trumped NBC’s “Today” show, with Ryan Seacrest, Wednesday morning.

Wednesday is “GMA’s” most-watched day this season; the show’s averaging an audience of 4.913 million those mornings. This past Wednesday, however, with Katie guest-anchoring and an interview with “Dancing’s” Jack Wagner, “GMA” nabbed 5.236 million.

Meanwhile, “Today” logged 5.149 million viewers Wednesday morning, when its big “get” was Seacrest announcing he had joined the NBC family and had been given his first assignment: Help the net’s prime-time coverage of the Summer Olympics in London.

News that the Katie-co-anchored “GMA” had finally eked out its first daily viewer win this week against “Today” came the same day “GMA” announced that last week, sans Couric, it came its closest to tying “Today” in seven years.

Just 119,000 viewers separated the two shows last week, with “GMA” scoring more viewers than “Today” on Tuesday and Friday. One year ago, the margin separating the two shows was 469,000 viewers for the comparable week.

Katie Couric Says ‘Good Morning America!’ This Week

Former Today show host, Katie Couric  is set to wake up and shake up  the morning show rating wars this week with a guest hosting gig on Good Morning America.

And “Today” isn’t taking Katie Couric‘s return to morning television lying down.

Katie Couric helped “Good Morning America” throw a lit match onto the simmering morning show wars when she agreed to co-host the ABC show for a week starting this Monday. It’s widely seen as the biggest attempt yet by “GMA” to break the fabled 16-year ratings winning streak that “Today” has held.

Beyond all of the ratings prestige, the morning shows are the financial linchpins of their news networks, meaning that there is a great deal on the line for everyone involved.

With “GMA” giving “Today” a run for its money in the ratings, the NBC show quickly struck back announcing that Sarah Palin will co-host the show on Tuesday, promising that she would “reveal a different side of her.”

Monday also features an appearance by Oprah Winfrey on “CBS This Morning.” With all three shows pulling out the big guns, it is sure to be one of the most closely watched mornings in some time.