World News Tonight Ranks No. 1 in Total Audience for 3rd Consecutive Week

By A.J. Katz 

The 2016-2017 broadcast season is still in its infancy, but ABC continues to make some noise in the evenings. World News Tonight with David Muir was once again the most-watched evening newscast for the week, defeating NBC Nightly News by an average of 3,000 total viewers. This victory marks the first time in 17 years that World News Tonight has won the first three weeks of a broadcast season in total audience. Perhaps aided by coverage of Hurricane Matthew, World News delivered its best week in seven months (week of March 7th), which included a 6 percent year-over-year improvement in total viewers. The program fell 3 percent in the news demo compared to the same week last year.

Despite slipping to second place in total audience this season to-date, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt finished ahead of ABC in Adults 25-54, and grew 8 percent in the demo compared to the same week last year. Nightly also grew 2 percent in total viewers and was the sole evening newscast to show year-over-year improvement in both categories.

The CBS Evening News had a rough week, down 3 percent in total viewers and -3 percent in the news demo from the comparable week in 2015.

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Due to Thursday Night Football, CBS Evening News ratings are based on 4 days (Mon-Wed and Fri).

Numbers for the week of Oct. 3, 2016:

NBC ABC NBC CBS
• Total Viewers: 8,449,000 8,446,000 6,498,000
• A25-54: 1,828,000 2,168,000 1,526,000

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