“World News with Diane Sawyer” had a rare win in the A25-54 demo last week. “World News” topped NBC “Nightly News with Brian Williams” by 12,000 viewers, or less than 1%. The last time that happened was the week of July 22, 2013. Sawyer and Williams were anchoring all five days last week.
It’s not that “World News” saw a big jump over last year, in fact the program was only up +1% in the ad-friendly demo, but “Nightly” saw a big drop: down -18% year-over-year. “World News” has been getting closer to “Nightly” in the demo in recent weeks. As for programming, “World News” had a mix of breaking news — the Pennsylvania school stabbing and California college bus crash — as well as international news, including ABC’s Terry Moran reporting from the Central African Republic. Sawyer also lightened the mix with her interview with the cast of “Mad Men.”
Both programs actually lost total viewers. “Nightly” was down -2%, while “World News” was down -1% compared to the same week last year. Meanwhile, the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” was the only broadcast up in total viewers, year over year: +2%. But “Evening News” shed -10% in the demo.
Numbers for the week of April 7, 2014:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,175,000 | 7,378,000 | 6,366,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,870,000 | 1,882,000 | 1,495,000 |