The Early Show - Ratings

Ratings

CBS has been the perennial third-place finisher in the morning race since 1976, placing second only a few times in the past 30 years. CBS beat Good Morning America for second place the weeks of January 17, 1977 and December 28, 1998. The Today Show was in first place both times. However, CBS outrated The Today Show for second spot over a few weeks in 1984 when Jane Pauley was on maternity leave. At that time, Good Morning America was ranked #1.

In September 2007, CBS sought to change the third-place position of The Early Show by hiring Shelly Ross, former executive producer of GMA from 1999–2004. Significant changes were made to the program as Ross asserted her influence. For instance, the network no longer allows the frequent local station breaks that were previously allowed during the former broadcast as of January 7, 2008. CBS reportedly viewed the removal of those breaks as vital to creating a national profile for the program.

However, some CBS affiliates continued to air the full program on another co-owned sister station and continue to air their local morning news; WWL-TV in New Orleans has never aired the Early Show or any of its previous versions, broadcasting all local newscasts instead, currently from 5 am to 9 am. The Early Show now airs in New Orleans on MyNetworkTV sister station WUPL, paired with The Daily Buzz. Cincinnati's WKRC-TV airs the full show on the CBS station with an hour of all-local news on their CW subchannel. Salt Lake City's KUTV (which was formerly owned by the network until 2007) continued to preempt the program's first hour despite the network's insistence. Tulsa's KOTV aired the full two hours starting at 8:00 AM and moved its last hour of their morning show to its CW sister station. WFMY in Greensboro, North Carolina also airs the broadcast from 8:00-10:00am to air an extra hour of local news from 7:00-8:00am.

Industry insiders considered Shelley Ross' influence to be a serious threat to bring the profile of the show up to make the program a true competitor to NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. After six months, Ross was fired from the position, after frequent feuds with staff, particularly Smith and Chen, who reportedly informed management that either Ross would have to go or they would.

Despite the change in staff in 2011, the program remained mired in third place, averaging around 2–2.5 million average viewers per week. The program also faced pressure from management to take advantage of CBS News redefining itself more as a hard news organization after the end of the Katie Couric era, asking the program's staff to take advantage of stories presented on 60 Minutes and the CBS Evening News and expand on those stories in the morning time slot rather than following the lead as defined by Today and GMA to the letter.