“NBC Nightly News” with Lester Holt won the week of Feb. 29 as well as February sweeps in both total viewers and the A25-54 demo.
February 2015 marked Holt’s first full month in the Nightly News anchor chair, a role that became permanent in June. But while the cable news networks have seen ratings records covering the 2016 campaigns, the evening newscasts all lost viewers compared to Feb. 2015. Nightly was down -6 percent in viewers and down -9 percent in the demo; ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir was down -4 percent in viewers and down -11 percent in the demo while CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley was down -5 percent, and down -7 percent, respectively.
For the week, Muir’s World News Tonight got within 7,000 viewers–less than 1 percent–of Holt’s Nightly News. The ABC newscast was also the only one to grow vs. last year in viewers, +4 percent. Both Nightly News and CBS Evening News were down in both viewers and the demo, vs. the same week last year.
Numbers for the week of Feb. 29, 2016:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,924,000 | 8,917,000 | 7,345,000 |
| • A25-54: | 2,177,000 | 2,116,000 | 1,697,000 |
Numbers for the week of Feb. 2016 Sweep:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,117,000 | 9,068,000 | 7,598,000 |
| • A25-54: | 2,245,000 | 2,120,000 | 1,824,000 |