The three evening newscasts saw sizable week-to-week drops last week, particularly “CBS Evening News,” which as we reported earlier tied its all-time low for total viewers. “NBC Nightly News,” which featured live reporting from Iraq on Wednesday, topped the summer week, though the first-place demo gap shrunk 100k viewers compared to the previous week.
Compared to the same week last year, “Nightly” was the only newscast to grow its audiences.
Katie Couric anchored from Afghanistan on Thursday and Friday (Erica Hill and Harry Smith filled in Tues-Wed.) Diane Sawyer was off last week with George Stephanopoulos filling in Mon-Thurs. David Muir was in Friday and actually topped “Nightly” and Brian Williams in total viewers and the demo.
Though Sawyer has topped “Nightly” on individual evenings in either the demo or total viewers on a handful of occasions, the last broadcast “World News” officially topped NBC in both categories was last September.
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total: | 7,420,000 | 6,510,000 | 4,890,000 |
| • A25-54: | 2,150,000 | 1,760,000 | 1,440,000 |