Evening News Ratings: Week of April 29

The evening news ratings race returned to normal this past week, with ABC and NBC splitting top honors. ABC World News Tonight with David Muir finished No. 1 among total viewers for the week of April 29, while NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt finished No. 1 in the key demos, including among the advertiser-friendly adults 25-54 category. That’s based on live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen.

ABC’s evening newscast defeated NBC by +813,000 total viewers, more than tripling its lead year over year, and has now outperformed its ABC and CBS competition in total viewers 31 of the past 32 weeks of the broadcast season to-date in total viewers. It’s well on its way to finishing the 2018-2019 broadcast season as the most-watched evening newscast for the third consecutive year, and is giving NBC a run for its money in A25-54.

NBC Nightly News averaged 1.663 million A25-54 demo viewers this past week, topping CBS by +590,000 (+55%) and ABC by +23,000 (+1%). Nightly remains the No. 1 evening newscast among younger demos for the broadcast season to-date.

The NBC newscast featured an interview with the parents of detained freelance journalist Austin Tice on World Press Freedom Day. Additionally, Holt spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the U.S. position on the chaos in Venezuela.

Versus the comparable week in 2018, the evening newscasts performed pretty well. ABC was +9% in total viewers, NBC was +2% in total viewers, while the CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor held steady. In the A25-54 demo, ABC was +6%, NBC +2% and CBS -7% vs. the comparable week last year.

Numbers for the week of April 29 2019:

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 Live + SD, 2018-19 Current Week (w/o 4/29/19), and Year-Ago Week (w/o 4/30/18).  Season to date: Most Current: 2018 -2019 Season (9/24/18 – 5/5/19) and 2017-2018 Season (9/25/18 – 5/6/18).  Averages based on regular telecasts.