Evening News Ratings: Week of January 16

By Chris Ariens 

“The CBS Evening News,” 7 months into Scott Pelley’s run as anchor, is in its closest competitive position with ABC’s “World News” in five years, since the week of Sept. 25, 2006. The perennially third place “Evening News” overtook #2 “World News” in younger viewers last week and in Total Viewers, Pelley’s broadcast, while still third, is closing the gap with #2 “World News with Diane Sawyer,” last week separated by 1.06 million viewers.

Last week saw the best Total Viewer delivery for CBS since the week of January 26, 2009, the week after Pres. Obama’s inauguration.

“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” remains a strong #1 with 1.8 million more viewers than “World News.”

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The bright spot for the Sawyer’s newscast: season-to-date the show has closed the A25-54 demo gap with “Nightly” to the smallest margin in 3 years.

All three shows were up week-to-week. But only “Evening News” was up year-over-year in both Total Viewers and younger viewers.

Numbers for the week of January 16, 2012:

NBC ABC CBS
• Total Viewers: 10,249,000 8,449,000 7,394,000
• A25-54: 2,861,000 2,261,000 2,287,000

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