ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir finishes the first three months of 2018 as the most-watched evening newscast. It’s the first Q1 win in 19 years for ABC. And they did it with the largest viewer advantage (+506,000) over NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt in 22 years.
Holt’s broadcast was most-watched in the A25-54 demo, which is important to advertisers of news programs. This is Nightly’s 11th straight quarterly win in the demo.
Compared to Q1 2017 World News Tonight was the only broadcast to see growth in both total viewers (+6 percent) and the demo (+3 percent). Nightly News was flat in viewers and down -1 percent in the demo; CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor was down -5 percent in viewers and down -8 percent in the demo.
Numbers for Q1 2018:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,403,000 | 8,898,000 | 6,878,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,986,000 | 2,107,000 | 1,473,000 |
For the week of March 26, World News Tonight was most-watched while NBC Nightly News won the demo. And, for the second week in a row, both shows saw viewer growth.
Compared to the same week last year ABC was up +7 percent in viewers and up +4 percent in the demo; NBC was up +6 percent in viewers and up +7 percent in the demo. CBS Evening News lost viewers year-over-year: -5 percent in viewers and down -1 percent in the demo.
Numbers for the week of Mar. 26, 2018:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,589,000 | 8,269,000 | 6,144,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,751,000 | 1,924,000 | 1,348,000 |