On its first Friday night, NBC’s “Rock Center” topped its newsmagazine competition, “20/20” in Total Viewers, while ABC edged the Brian Williams broadcast in the news demo of A25-54. The shows tied in the A18-49 demo with a 1.3 rating/4 share.
“Rock Center” drew 5.51 million viewers while “20/20” drew 5.19 million. “20/20” topped “Rock Center” by +6% in the demo. With 11.2 million viewers, “Blue Bloods” on CBS drew more than the combined viewership of the news programs.
Williams, anchoring in part from outside Rockefeller Center because there was a blizzard, and because he could, told the story of “Rock Center’s” long road to Friday nights, in old west fashion: “We gathered on and moved into Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. where we were not wanted. Wednesdays at 9:00 would be more hospitable territory said the wise men in the city of angels, but they was wrong.”