Evening News Ratings: Week of July 3

This is complicated, so bear with me. In an unusual ratings week, World News Tonight beat NBC Nightly News in total viewers.

Due to the July 4 holiday, Monday and Tuesday ratings were excluded from the weekly average. (In the unofficial five-day average, NBC topped ABC.)

Wednesday through Friday, Diane Sawyer subbed for Charles Gibson. But ABC’s win wasn’t due to Diane — it was due to NBC’s loss of 520,000 viewers compared to the week before. All the evening newscasts were down last week, because of the holiday. But NBC was down the most. NBC attributes that to an “abnormally low lead-in delivery due to afternoon coverage (until 5:00 pm) of the Wimbledon tennis tournament on NBC” on Thursday and Friday. The numbers were especially low this year, according to NBC.

ABC notes that World News Tonight has been #1 in the 25-54 demo for four weeks. For July 5-7:

Total viewers: NBC: 7,220,000 / ABC: 7,340,000 / CBS: 6,520,000

25-54 rating: NBC: 1.9/9 / ABC: 2.1/9 / CBS: 1.7/8