World News Tonight remains # 1, while Nightly News offers the best ratings since February 21
David Muir, Lester Holt, and Norah O’Donnell were back as the evening news anchor last week after taking time off for the holidays.
New year, same trend: ABC World News Tonight ended the opening week of 2022 as number 1 on the evening news, both in total viewership (9.39 million) and in adults of 25 at 54 (1.80 million).
ABC’s evening newscast has now beaten its NBC and CBS competitors 162 in the past 163 weeks in average total viewers, and 91 in the past 93 weeks among adults aged 25 to 54.
World News’s victory tonight was reinforced by David Muir’s interview with the three of the officers who testified during congressional hearings into the Jan.6 attack. This interview aired Wednesday, January 5 on WNT and averaged 9.4 million viewers.
World News Tonight gained + 7% of the total number of viewers and + 13% among adults aged 25 to 54 compared to the previous week (December 27). Compared to the same week in 2021 (January 4), the trend was worse, with World News Tonight losing -7% average total audience and -15% among adults aged 25 to 54. A substantial year-over-year drop was to be expected, as on Wednesday of last year there was wall-to-wall coverage of the shocking attack on the U.S. Capitol (January 6, 2021).
On NBC, Nightly News featuring Lester holt an average of 8.21 million total viewers and 1.55 million adults aged 25 to 54. This is the largest television news audience (total viewers and A25-54), excluding Thanksgiving week, since the week of February 15, 2021. Night time has increased by 13% in total viewership and 25% in adults aged 25 to 54 compared to the previous week. Compared to the same week in 2020, NBC’s nighttime newscast fell -4% in total viewership and -12% among adults aged 25 to 54; small losses year over year compared to what ABC and CBS have experienced.
Additionally, on YouTube, full weekday episodes of NBC Nightly News averaged 694,000 views and nearly 556,000 viewers last week. This is according to data from Adobe Analytics and partner portals; YouTube analytics portal.
The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.705 million total viewers and 1.02 million adults aged 25 to 54 for the week of January 3. This represents + 11% of the total number of viewers and + 14% of adult viewers aged 25 to 54 compared to the newscast average during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. . CBS found that year-over-year losses were greater than those of its competitors, both in terms of average viewers (-17%) and among adults aged 25 to 54 (-32%) .
ABC, NBC and CBS evening news ratings for the week of January 3, 2022 are based on the five days. Evening news ratings averages for the previous week were based on just four days (Monday through Thursday), due to New Year’s Eve.
Live and same-day Nielsen averages for the week of January 3, 2022:
| ABC | CNB | SCS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total number of viewers: | 9,391,000 | 8,209,000 | 5,705,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,804,000 | 1,554,000 | 1,018,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, adults 25 to 54 years old. Live + SD Current week (without 1/3/22), previous week (without 12/27/21) and previous week (without 1/4/21). The most recent: season 2021-2022 (09/21/21 to 01/09/22) and season 2020-2021 (09/21/20 to 01/21/21). As of 08/31/20, the national rankings also include out-of-home viewing (OOH). Averages based on regular TV broadcasts.
