ABC News Weekly Ratings Release: Dec. 30, 2019 - Jan. 3, 2020

ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir” stood as the No. 1 evening newscast for the 3rd consecutive week in all key target demos: Total Viewers (8.810 million), Adults 25-54 (1.770 million) and Adults 18-49 (1.256 million) for the week of Dec. 30, 2019, based on Live + Same Day Data from Nielsen Media Research. “World News Tonight” outperformed “NBC Nightly News” (8.174 million, 1.657 million and 1.174 million, respectively) by 636,000 Total Viewers, 113,000 Adults 25-54 and 82,000 Adults 18-49.

In addition, “World News Tonight” widened its Total Viewer advantage year to year (+25% – 636,000 vs. 510,000), winning all 15 weeks of the season and the last 58 weeks overall. “World News Tonight” saw gains over the previous week in Total Viewers (+686,000/+8% – 8.810 million vs. 8.124 million), Adults 25-54 (+278,000/+19% – 1.770 million vs. 1.492 million) and Adults 18-49 (+225,000/+22% – 1.256 million vs. 1.031 million).

Season to date, “World News Tonight” (8.620 million) ranks No. 1 in Total Viewers at this point of the season for the 4th consecutive year, based on Most Current Data. In fact, “World News Tonight” is more than doubling its lead over “NBC Nightly News”(7.904 million) from last season (+124% – 716,000 vs. 319,000) to its largest season lead in 24 years—since the 1995-1996 season. “World News Tonight” is beating”CBS Evening News” (5.554 million) by 3.066 million, posting its biggest Total Viewer season advantage in at least 28 years (since at least the start of Nielsen electronic database in the 1991-1992 season).

In addition, “World News Tonight” is No. 1 for the season in Adults 25-54, leading NBC by 1,000 news demo viewers (1.670 million vs. 1.669 million) and taking the top spot for the first time at this point of a season in 12 years—since the 2007-08 season. “World News Tonight” is also slashing its season margin with NBC in Adults 18-49 (-57% – 31,000 vs. 72,000), seeing its closest gap in 23 years—since the 1996-97 season.

“World News Tonight” is No. 1 in both Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 season to date for the first time in 24 years—since the 1995-96 season.

For the week, “World News Tonight” (8.810 million, 1.770 million and 1.256 million, respectively) beat “CBS Evening News” (5.686 million, 995,000 and 734,000, respectively) by 3.124 million Total Viewers, 775,000 Adults 25-54 and 522,000 Adults 18-49.

NOTE: During New Year’s week, “World News Tonight” was retitled to “Wrld News Tonite” on Monday (12/30/19) and was coded as a special on Tuesday (12/31/19) and Wednesday (1/1/20); “CBS Evening News” was retitled to “CBS Evening Nws” on Monday and Tuesday and coded as a special on Wednesday; “NBC Nightly News” was coded as specials on Tuesday and Wednesday. All specialed and retitled telecasts are excluded from the weekly and season averages. ABC’s and CBS’ weekly averages are based on two days (Thurs and Fri), while NBC’s averages are based on three days (Mon, Thurs-Fri).


EVENING NEWS (Week of Dec. 30, 2019):

          TOTAL VIEWERS     A25-54      A18-49     HOUSEHOLDS
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ABC        8,810,000        1.5/7       1.0/6        5.7/13
NBC        8,174,000        1.4/7       0.9/6        5.2/11
CBS        5,686,000        0.8/4       0.6/4        3.8/ 8

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49 Live + SD Current Week (w/o 12/30/19), Previous Week (w/o 12/23/19) and Year-Ago Week (w/o 12/31/18). Most Current: 2019-2020 Season (9/23/19-1/5/20) and 2018-2019 Season (9/24/19-1/6/19). Nielsen ratings for ABC, NBC and CBS include additional airings in select markets. Averages based on regular telecasts.