NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt continued its A25-54 demo streak (barely) winning 26 of the last 28 weeks, while ABC World News Tonight with David Muir maintained its No. 1 ranking in total viewers.
Nightly News was significantly down this past week vs. the comparable week in 2018, which was opening week of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
NBC retitled its Thursday and Friday broadcasts that week, as Olympics coverage pre-empted the broadcast in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
Tomorrow, Holt is receiving the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism from the National Press Foundation.
ABC World News Tonight, not surprisingly, earned a slight lift in total viewers vs. the same week last year (+1 percent), when the newscast was going up against an Olympics-boosted Nightly News. However, the newscast was -1 percent in A25-54 viewers, year-over-year.
It’s worth noting that due to the State of the Union on Tuesday Feb. 5, ABC World News Tonight was retitled to Wrld News Tonite. The telecast is excluded from the weekly averages. ABC’s weekly averages are based on four days (Mon, Wed-Fri).
Season to date, World News ranks No. 1 in total viewers for the 3rd year in a row. The ABC evening newscast leads NBC’s evening newscast by +422,000 total viewers, delivering its largest total viewers lead in 23 years – since the 1995-96 season.
Muir traveled to Afghanistan the prior weekend to conduct an interview with four-star General Scott Miller. The report that aired on the Monday, Feb. 4 broadcast.
CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor was -5 percent in total viewers, and -9 percent in A25-54 viewers vs. the comparable week in 2018.
Numbers for the week of February 4, 2019:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,481,000 | 8,761,000 | 6,743,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,971,000 | 1,990,000 | 1,416,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 Live + SD, 2018-19 Current Week (w/o 2/4/19), and Year-Ago Week (w/o 2/5/18). Season to date: Most Current: 2018 -2019 Season (9/24/18 – 2/10/19) and 2017-2018 Season (9/25/18 – 2/11/18). Averages based on regular telecasts.