When we're not talking about Charlie Gibson creeping up on Brian Williams, our other favorite television industry topic – besides guessing where NY1's Roger Clark will show up next – has to be the ratings race among the morning shows. Today, Television Week's Michele Greppi has us make a fist as she slides the needle of executive quotables into our elbow crease.

• "The fact that we haven't lost a viewer since last year to me is very promising." — Good Morning America senior executive producer Jim Murphy
• "We are getting viewers the Today show is losing" — CBS morning programming VP Steve Friedman

And then there's NBC.

• "We still have our gap intact." —Today show exec producer Jim Bell

That's so funny, 'cause NBC Nightly News producer John Reiss was just telling us the same thing. And then.