The toppling of Tripoli, an earthquake in Virginia and Irene’s march up the East Coast meant a big week for the network evening newscasts. The three shows drew a combined average of 22.56 million Total Viewers. And considering the same week last year — August 23, 2010 — saw an all-time collective low with 18.7 million Total Viewers, they had nowhere to go but up.
The “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” was up the most in Total Viewers: +24%, followed by
“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” up +22% and ABC “World News with Diane Sawyer” up 17%. All three shows were up double digits in the demo as well, with “Nightly” up the most +32%, followed by “World News” +27% and “Evening News” +22%.
“Nightly News” was the big winner with a lead of more than one million Total Viewers on ABC, and a 2.7 million viewer lead on CBS.
Numbers for the week of August 22:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,784,000 | 7,704,000 | 6,074,000 |
| • A25-54: | 2,631,000 | 2,176,000 | 1,820,000 |