‘Gma’ Hosts Downplay Drop In Show’s Ratings

They’ve lost 71 weeks in a row. The big boss says major changes are coming. The major changes could be them.

What, Joan Lunden and Charlie Gibson worry? “Nobody has told us anything,” said Lunden Monday, perched in “Good Morning America’s” Independence Mall booth overlooking the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future. “I just signed a new three-year contract. This stuff always goes on when there’s a swing in ratings.”

Swing? Tiger Woods has a swing. This is a nosedive.

After Nielsen reigns from 1980 to ‘85 and ‘90 to ‘94, ABC’s “GMA” appears to be Krazy-Glued behind NBC’s “Today,” with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. “GMA’s” 4.0 rating, its lowest seasonal average since ‘88-‘89, is down 9 percent from the same period last year.

With a 5.0 rating - its highest in 10 years - “Today” is up 9 percent over last season. (“CBS This Morning,” down 4 percent, is a distant third.) Each rating point equals 970,000 TV homes, as if you didn’t know.

Despite “GMA’s” woes, life goes on for the co-hosts.

“I’d rather be No. 1, but NBC is on a roll,” says Gibson, 54, co-host since ‘87 and a 22-year ABC veteran. “If you let this affect what you do on the program from day to day, you’re dead.”

Lunden, 46, “GMA’s” queen since 1980, agrees.

“I’ve been here through a lot of regimes, when the ratings were up and when we changed hosts (from avuncular David Hartman to Gibson). I just come in, do the best show I can and go about my business. I try to avoid office politics. Otherwise, I would have been gone a long time ago.”