Broadcast Evening Newscasts Lose More than 1 Million Viewers in Past Year

By Chris Ariens 

Even as the oil continues to gush from the sea floor, and the networks shuttle their anchors to points along the Gulf coast, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News and the CBS Evening News continue to lose viewers. All three broadcasts were down in Q2 2010 compared to the same period last year.

In numbers released today, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams lost -440,000 viewers (-140k in A25-54 demo) compared to Q2 2009. ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer lost -260,000 viewers (-80k demo) (Charlie Gibson was anchor in 2009). The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric lost the most, based on a percentage, losing -340,000 viewers (30k demo) compared to Q2 2009. ABC and CBS were also down when Q2 2008 is compared to Q2 2009.

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Numbers for Q2 2010:

  NBC ABC CBS
• Total: 7,620,000 6,990,000 5,210,000
• A25-54: 2,260,000 1,980,000 1,600,000

Numbers for Q2 2009

  NBC ABC CBS
• Total: 8,060,000 7,260,000 5,550,000
• A25-54: 2,400,000 2,060,000 1,630,000

Q1 2010 was not kind to the evening newscasts either. World News and Evening News saw their lowest averages ever for the first three months of 2010. And it was ’round about this time last year those two broadcasts hit all-time ratings lows. It should be noted the anchors, CBS’ Couric and ABC’s Gibson, were off that week.

We’ll have last week’s Evening News ratings later this afternoon…

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