ABC World News Tonight continues to post year-over-year audience growth in 2018.
Anchored by David Muir, the ABC evening newscast averaged more than 7.8 million viewers for the week of July 30, making it the most-watched evening newscast for the 25th consecutive week. WNT was also able to increase its year-to-year total viewer lead over NBC by +80 percent, and posted +2 percent growth in total viewers vs. the comparable week in 2017.
World News is having its best year in total viewers since the 2004-2005 season.
But not all was peachy for the newscast. Similar to its competition, WNT lost some traction among adults 25-54 vs. the same week last year (-2 percent).
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt continues to hold onto that No. 1 ranking among adults 25-54. The broadcast’s 1.57 million demo viewer average for the week is +62,000 more than ABC (+4 percent) and +498,000 (+46 percent) more than CBS.
Nightly News managed to win all four of its broadcasts in the demo last week, Jenn Suozzo‘s first as interim ep of the newscast.
Despite the win, Nightly’s A25-54 audience was -5 percent vs. the comparable week in 2017, and the newscast No. 2 in total viewers, including a -1 percent decline from last year.
The CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor posted the most significant year-over-year losses of the trio this past week, -3 percent in total viewers and -11 percent among adults 25-54.
Numbers for the week of July 30, 2018:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 7,849,000 | 7,363,000 | 5,537,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,509,000 | 1,570,000 | 1,073,000 |
*Editor’s note: Due to NFL Pre-Season on Thursday (8/2/18), “NBC Nightly News” was retitled to “NBC Nitely News.” The telecast is excluded from the weekly averages. “Nightly News” averages are based on just 4 days (Mon-Wed and Fri).
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54. Live + SD weeks of 7/30/18, and 7/31/17. Season-to-Date: Most Current: 2017-2018 Season (9/25/17 – 7/29/18) and 2016-2017 Season (9/19/16 – 7/30/17). Averages based on regular telecasts.