Driven by in-depth, on-the-ground coverage of Hurricane Florence, ABC and NBC’s evening newscasts each posted year-over-year growth last week in total viewers.
ABC World News Tonight with David Muir finished No. 1 in total viewers last week, winning by +509,000, widening its advantage versus the year-ago week by +54 percent. The ABC evening newscast has won the last 31 weeks in total viewers and 47 of the 51 weeks of the season.
Season to date, WNT is delivering its largest viewership in 13 years – since the 2004-05 season, and is leading NBC Nightly News in total viewers by its largest margin in 22 years.
WNT posted impressive +5 percent growth in total viewers this past week vs. the same week in 2017, and delivered its strongest week in 6 months (8.76 million total viewers). The broadcast appears to be resonating more with older audiences, because despite year-over-year total audience growth, the broadcast and was -1 percent this week in A25-54.
Muir anchored the broadcast Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from North Carolina to report on Florence.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt is the No. 1 evening newscast in the A25-54 demo, a status it has held now for 10 of the last 11 weeks. Not did Nightly News remain No. 1 in the demo this past week (~2 million viewers), but it also managed to achieve something few broadcast news shows have done as of late: Post year-over-year audience growth in multiple categories. Nightly was +3 percent in total viewers, and +3 percent in A25-54 viewers this past week vs. the same week in 2017.
Holt also traveled to North Carolina to report on Florence, anchoring the broadcast from the ground on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night.
The CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor was -1 percent in total viewers and -4 percent in the key A25-54 demo vs. the same week in 2017.
Similar to his competitors, Glor broadcasted his network’s evening newscast from the ground in North Carolina last week. But unlike his competitors, the Friday edition of Evening News lasted a full hour.
Numbers for the week of September 10, 2018:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,757,000 | 8,248,000 | 6,047,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,794,000 | 1,958,000 | 1,283,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 Live + SD weeks of 9/10/18, and 9/11/17. Season-to-Date: Most Current: 2017-2018 Season (9/25/17 – 9/16/18) and 2016-2017 Season (9/19/16 – 9/17/17). Averages based on regular telecasts.