The evening newsers trekked halfway across the world last week to cover the Hanoi summit from Vietnam.
While on-the-ground coverage of global summits often have a positive impact on evening news ratings, there was another event that likely influenced viewership, at least early on in the week: The 91st Academy Awards.
Carryover from the ABC’s Oscars broadcast, which aired Sunday, Feb. 24, might be a reason why ABC World News Tonight with David Muir was the No. 1 evening newscast for the week of Feb. 25 across all relevant audience categories. For the post-Oscars week, World News outdelivered NBC by its largest margin in 6 weeks, and increased its total viewer lead year to year by an impressive +51 percent. World News won the week in total viewers for the 22nd week out of 23 weeks of the season.
Additionally, the ABC evening newscast was +4 percent in total viewers and +6 percent in A25-54 viewers vs. the same week in 2018.
Yes, World News probably got a lift early in the week from the Oscars; However, it’s not farfetched to see the ABC evening newscast put a dent into Nightly News’ lead in the demo, even of there was no Oscars leading into the week. After all, World News Tonight beat NBC during February sweeps across the board for the first time in a long time.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt was +1 percent in total viewers, and -1 percent in A25-54 viewers vs. the comparable week in 2018. Yes, the broadcast finished No. 2 across the board, but it’s still beating ABC in the key A25-54 for the current broadcast season to-date. Plus, attracting an average of 8.5 million viewers a night is still a lot of viewers.
CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor saw the most significant year-over-year ratings losses: -3 percent in total viewers and -9 percent in A25-54 viewers.
Numbers for the week of Feb. 25, 2019:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,356,000 | 8,510,000 | 6,340,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,972,000 | 1,928,000 | 1,236,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 Live + SD, 2018-19 Current Week (w/o 2/25/19), and Year-Ago Week (w/o 2/26/18). Season to date: Most Current: 2018 -2019 Season (9/24/18 – 3/1/19) and 2017-2018 Season (9/25/18 – 3/4/18). Averages based on regular telecasts.