David Muir returned to the anchor’s chair after a week off, and ABC World News Tonight stepped up and won the week of July 4 in total viewers. This is the sixth win for the program in the past eight weeks. World News Tonight had an especially strong Friday, winning by 339,000 total viewers. Muir was in Dallas that night. All in all, WNT was up 3.5 percent in total viewers but down 3 percent in the news demo from the same week in 2015.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt has now finished No. 1 in the news demo for 49 out of the past 50 weeks. Nightly was down less than 1 percent in the demo compared to the same week last year. The program was down 5 percent in total viewers year-over-year, but still remains the most-watched and highest-rated evening newscast of the season.
The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley continues to see year-over-year improvement, particularly in the news demo. The program was up 5 percent in the demo, but fell 4 percent in total viewers compared to the same week last year.
*It’s useful to note that while each of the three evening newscasts aired original episodes on Monday, July 4th, NBC’s numbers for that night didn’t count towards the week’s averages.
Numbers for the week of July 4, 2016:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 7,761,000 | 7,741,000 | 6,414,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,730,000 | 1,957,000 | 1,587,000 |