Despite a big week of news from Washington, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey and Lester Holt‘s interview with Pres. Trump all about it, the three evening newscasts lost viewers last week, verses the same week last year.
The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley saw the biggest drop, down double digits in both total viewers and the A25-54 demo. Holt’s Nightly News interview with Trump Thursday averaged 7.5 million viewers, making it the fourth most-watched program across all of TV that night. Still, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir won the week in viewers, edging Nightly News by less than 1 percent. Nightly remains No. 1 among younger viewers.
ABC had a big lead on Tuesday night (342,000 viewers more than NBC) less than an hour after news of Comey’s firing broke.
Compared to the same week last year NBC was down -7 percent in viewers and down -12 percent in the demo; ABC was down -4 percent in viewers and down -12 percent in the demo; and CBS was down -13 percent in viewers and down -21 percent in the demo.
Numbers for the week of May 8, 2017:
| NBC | ABC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 7,410,000 | 7,481,000 | 5,862,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,654,000 | 1,504,000 | 1,216,000 |