NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt won the week yet again. That said, the program fell 7 percent in total viewers and fell 5 percent in A25-54 versus the comparable week in 2015. Nightly’s margin of victory over ABC and CBS wasn’t as dominant as it was during the Olympics (predictably), nor was it as dominant as it was for the comparable week in 2015. Nevertheless, Nightly News is the 5th-most-watched non-sports program across all of TV from June through August.
It’s also important to note the Nightly News ratings from this past week are based on a 4-day average (Mon – Weds, and Friday). The Thursday night telecast is not included in these numbers due to NFL pre-season action.
World News Tonight with David Muir finished No. 2 this past week. The program improved 1 percent in total viewers, but fell 9 percent in the A25-54 demo compared to the same week 1 year ago. Despite another fall in the news demo, World News Tonight is the only evening newscast to grow year-over-year in total viewers, and has delivered year-over-year improvement in average total viewers for 3 of the past 4 weeks.
The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley fell 2 percent in total viewers, but grew 4 percent in the news demo compared to the same week last year. Evening News is the only evening newscast to grow year-over-year in A25-54 viewers.
Similar to Nightly, CBS Evening News ratings from this past week are based on a 4-day average (Mon – Thurs). The ratings don’t include Friday due to NFL pre-season action. This was also the case for the comparable week in 2015, so the year-over-year comparison continues to hold true.
Numbers for the week of August 22, 2016:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 7,839,000 | 7,716,000 | 6,365,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,987,000 | 1,701,000 | 1,474,000 |