ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir has been consistently topping NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt among total viewers for several months. But last week, the ABC evening newscast also beat Nightly in the A25-54 demo, breaking the NBC News program’s 89-week winning streak, and giving ABC its first across-the-board win in nearly two years.
While ABC got a boost last Monday from the Oscars, which helped its weekly average, the program is the only one seeing consistent growth. Compared to the same week last year Muir’s broadcast was up +9 percent in viewers and up +11 percent in the demo. It should be noted, too, that this year’s Oscars ratings were down 20 percent on ABC, and Nightly News won the demo during the 2017 post-Oscars week.
The day-to-day breakdown in the demo shows World News won Monday, Tuesday and Thursday while Nightly took Wednesday and Friday. ABC’s overall margin of victory was 81,000 viewers, or just +4 percent.
As ABC continues to have its most-watched season in 13 years, their competition is seeing a loss of viewers: Nightly was flat in viewers vs. last year, and down -4 percent in the demo; the CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor was also down slightly: -3 percent in viewers and -1 percent in the demo.
Numbers for the week of Mar 5., 2018:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,125,000 | 8,329,000 | 6,502,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,988,000 | 1,907,000 | 1,409,000 |