ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer overtook NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams last Thursday. The ABC broadcast led with a portion of Sawyer’s interview with kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard; it was watched by 7.65 million viewers, outperforming Nightly by 106,000.
Nightly News nevertheless bested World News on Thursday among news’ target demographic of 25 to 54-year olds with 2.21 million viewers versus 1.97 million.
For the week of July 8, World News attracted its largest overall audience in six weeks. But Nightly News held onto its crown as the top-rated newscast for the week, averaging 7.77 million viewers compared to ABC’s 7.42 million. Nightly was also first among news’ target demographic of 25 to 54-year-olds, averaging 2.31 million compared to ABC’s 1.94 million. The NBC broadcast as been the most-watched newscast for 142 of the past 143 weeks, though last week marked NBC’s smallest margin over ABC in nearly a year.
The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley averaged 5.62 million viewers with 1.73 million in the demo.
(Due to the holiday weekend, weekly averages for all three broadcasts exclude Monday, July 4.)
