It appears ABC’s dominance in the evening news ratings race seems to be extending to the ad-friendly A25-54 demographic. At least for now.
Anchored by David Muir, World News Tonight stood as the No. 1 evening newscast for the 5th consecutive week in Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 for the week of Jan. 13, 2020. Not only did WNT finish No. 1, but it also turned in its largest overall viewer win over its main rival NBC Nightly News in 5 months – since week of Aug. 12, 2019, and has averaged a larger total audience than its NBC and CBS competition all 17 weeks of the season and the last 60 weeks overall.
In addition, World News Tonight’s run of 5 consecutive Adults 25-54 weekly wins represents its longest in nearly 5 years – since week of March 9, 2015 through the week of April 6, 2015.
All in all, ABC has the No. 1 evening newscast in both Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 season to date for the first time in 24 years—since the 1995-96 season.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt remains in 2nd place season to-date, after finishing the 2019 calendar year No. 1 in the A25-54 demo. Last week, Nightly presented a unique look inside the epicenter of the Fukushima nuclear disaster ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony near its devastated power plant. Additionally, Keir Simmons conducted an investigation into dating apps, which revealed that experts warned that those apps like Grindr could pose a national security risk.
The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell remained in 3rd place across the board, and was unable to average 6 million total viewers (though it did surpass 1 million in the demo).
Compared to the same week 1 year ago, (which also featured an across the board win for WNT), ratings for the evening newscasts were relatively poor. ABC’s evening newscast was -5% in Total Viewers and -12% among Adults 25-54. The year-over-year losses were even more extreme for NBC and CBS. Nightly News was -9% in Total Viewers and -19% in Adults 25-54, while Evening News was -15% in Total Viewers and -25% among Adults 25-54.
The averages for the week of Jan. 13, 2020:
| Network | ABC | NBC | CBS |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total Viewers: | 9,277,000 | 8,084,000 | 5,882,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,865,000 | 1,655,000 | 1,083,000 |