ABC World News Tonight with David Muir continues to dominate the evening news ratings race in the summer of 2020.
ABC’s flagship newscast finished the week of Aug. 10 as the No. 1 evening newscast, both in Total Viewers and in Adults 25-54 (1.65 million). By averaging 8.55 million Total Viewers per first-run broadcast, World News Tonight was the most-watched show on all of U.S. television for the 11th consecutive week.
ABC’s evening newscast was +6% in the A25-54 demo and +2% in Total Viewers from the same week in 2019 (week of Aug. 12). The newscast was +1% in Total Viewers but -1% in the key demo versus the previous week in 2020 (Aug. 3).
A pretty good week for the newscast, though the average age keeps growing for all of the evening newsers.
World News Tonight is having its most-watched season in 17 years and strongest key Adults 25-54 performances in five years—since the 2003-04 and the 2015-16 seasons, respectively.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt continues to finish in second place behind WNT in the key measurements. The newscast averaged 7.28 million Total Viewers and 1.47 million Adults 25-54 during the week of Aug. 10. It was the second most-watched show on all of U.S. television (excluding sports and syndication), but fell to No. 6 on U.S. TV among Adults 25-54.
Nightly News was -1% in A25-54 demo viewers from the prior week (Aug. 3) and -2% in Total Viewers. It was +1% versus the year-ago week (Aug. 12, 2019) in Total Viewers, but -3% in A25-54 demo viewers.
For the week of Aug. 10, first-run broadcasts of the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.34 million Total Viewers and 958,000 A25-54 viewers.
Compared to the prior week, Evening News was +2% in Total Viewers and flat in the key demo. Relative to the year-ago week, Evening News was +4% in Total Viewers, but is losing Adults 25-54 (-7% in the demo).
One should note that CBS Evening News is back to retitling its Friday broadcasts (at least for now), and the week of Aug. 10 ratings are based on just four days.
*Nielsen ratings for ABC, NBC and CBS include additional airings at various times during the day, and in a variety of markets, large and small.
Nielsen live-plus-same-day averages for the week of Aug. 10:
| ABC | NBC | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 8,549,000 | 7,277,000 | 5,337,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,645,000 | 1,472,000 | 958,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 Live + SD Current Week (w/o 8/10/20), Previous Week (w/o 8/3/20) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 8/5/19). Most Current: 2019-2020 Season (9/23/19-8/16/20) and 2018-2019 Season (9/24/18-8/18/19). Nielsen ratings for ABC, NBC and CBS include additional airings in select markets. Averages based on regular telecasts. Broadcast and Cable ranker for w/o 8/10/20 based on Total Day.