New All-Time Lows for Both CBS & ABC Evening Newscasts

By Chris Ariens 

Breaking: TVNewser has learned the CBS Evening News has once again set an all-time low last week with 4.89 million Total Viewers and 1.42 million A25-54 viewers. But it was also the lowest (since records began in the 1991-’92 season) for ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson. The Gibson program drew 6.42 million Total Viewers and 1.77 million A25-54 viewers.

Both CBS’s Katie Couric and ABC’s Charlie Gibson were off last week.

More details to come…

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> Update: Insiders tell us at least one network is looking into the continued impact of the digital TV transition which occurred June 12.

> Update (2): NBC averaged 7.75m Total Viewers Mon-Wed but on Thursday and Friday gave their program a different Nielsen code — “Nitely News.” (The correct spelling is “Nightly News”). This is despite the fact that the network had regular coverage on those days. We’re trying to determine if the U.S. Open Golf Championship had something to do with the coding change. Had Thursday and Friday been included, the average would have been lower. On Friday “Nightly” averaged 6.29m Total Viewers.

> Update (3): An NBC insider tells us, even though the broadcast had full national coverage, the U.S. Open tends to affect viewership so the Thursday and Friday shows were not in the average. NBC says this is normal procedure.

> More: Evening News Ratings: June 15, 2009

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