Evening News Ratings: Week of October 1

By Chris Ariens 

In the mornings, the news is about “GMA” overtaking — and maintaining a lead on — “Today,” but in the evenings it’s about the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.” While still trailing “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” by 2 million viewers and “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” by 1.5 million, Pelley’s is the only evening news broadcast to once again show growth.

Compared to the same week last year Pelley’s broadcast is up +4.5%. “Nightly” is down -2% and “World News” is down -1%. In younger viewers all three broadcasts are down. As we pointed out last week, this is not a good sign going into the final weeks of a presidential election — and as was shown with the massive viewership for the first debate — there is interest in the election. It just seems voters are finding other places — cable, online, social — to get their election news.

Week-to-week only “Nightly News” showed growth, separating itself from “World News” by a half a million viewers.

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On Wednesday, “CBS Evening News” was retitled “CBS-Evening-Nws” due to the first Presidential Debate. CBS’s averages are based on 4 days.

Numbers for the week of October 1:

NBC ABC CBS
• Total Viewers: 7,746,000 7,297,000 5,733,000
• A25-54: 2,076,000 1,807,000 1,593,000

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