During the week of April 24, ABC, NBC and CBS’ evening news offerings all gained total viewers from the previous week. NBC and CBS also gained Adults 25-54.
Nevertheless, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir remains No. 1 in the genre, averaging 7.84 million total viewers and 1.22 million A25-54 viewers for the week, per live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen.
WNT marked its fifth consecutive week week as the most-watched regularly-scheduled U.S. show across broadcast and cable (excluding sports), and has now defeated its evening news competition from NBC and CBS 230 of the past 231 weeks in average total viewers—and 159 of the last 161 weeks among Adults 25-54.
ABC’s top-rated evening newscast gained +1% in total viewers but lost -4% in A25-54 viewers compared to the week before (week of April 17). World News Tonight remains down year-over-year in the ratings department. The newscast dropped -1% in total viewers and a whopping -13% in A25-54 viewers vs. the same week one year ago.
World News Tonight was retitled to “WNT-ABC” on Thursday, April 27 and Friday, April 28 due to live coverage of the 2023 NFL Draft. As a result, World News Tonight’s weekday news averages are based on three days (Monday-Wednesday). The year-ago week (April 25, 2022) featured only two days of Nielsen-rated World News Tonight telecasts. With that in mind, a year-over-year drop isn’t surprising. However, no program (or network) ever wants to see double digit percent audience losses in any measurement.
Over on NBC, Nightly News with Lester Holt averaged 6.45 million total viewers (No. 5 among all regularly-scheduled broadcast and cable TV programming) to go with 974,000 A25-54 viewers during the week of April 24. That’s +3% in total viewers and less than +1% in Adults 25-54 (+2,000 viewers) from the previous week — cutting the week-to-week gap with ABC by +3% and +31%, respectively. Compared to the same week in 2022, Nightly News shed -2% in total viewers and -7% among Adults 25-54.
According to Adobe Analytics and Partner Portals; YouTube Analytics Portal, full weekday episodes of NBC Nightly News on YouTube reached an average of 1.1 million views and 825,000 total viewers last week.
The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell had a solid ratings week by its standards. The newscast averaged 4.79 million total viewers with 729,000 Adults 25-54 for the week of April 24. That’s +5% in total viewers and +3% in A25-54 viewers from the previous week. The newscast is also +4% in total viewers and +4% in A25-54 viewers from the year-ago week.
Nielsen live-plus-same-day viewer averages for the week of April 24, 2023:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 7,842,000 | 6,454,000 | 4,791,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,221,000 | 974,000 | 729,000 |