Evening News Ratings: Week of February 27 & Sweeps

By Chris Ariens 

“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” remains far outfront, but the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” continues to be the horse to watch. “Evening News” added more 800,000 viewers from the same week last year, +14%. The Pelley broadcast is also growing among younger viewers, +13%. “Nightly” was also up compared to last year +4% in Total Viewers, but down in younger viewers. “World News with Diane Sawyer” is down in both categories, -8% in total viewers and -7% in younger viewers.

Season-to-date, the “CBS Evening News” is the only network evening newscast to post a year-to-year ratings increases in households (+5%), Total Viewers (+5%) and A25-54 viewers (+7%).

Compared to February 2011 sweep, which was heavy with coverage from the Arab Spring, all three newscasts are down. Those numbers after the jump.

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Numbers for the week of February 27, 2012:

NBC ABC CBS
• Total Viewers: 9,650,000 8,032,000 6,827,000
• A25-54: 2,690,000 2,199,000 2,056,000

NBC ABC CBS
• Total Viewers: 9,398,000 7,927,000 6,675,000
• A25-54: 2,648,000 2,125,000 2,024,000

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