“ABC World News” Narrows BOTH Total Viewing and Demo Gaps with “NBC Nightly News” Week-to-Week and Year-to-Year

Year-to-Year, “ABC World News” Grows Total Viewing and Demo Audience for Fourth Consecutive Week – Sees Total Viewing Gains for 28 Weeks in a Row 

For the week of August 29, 2011, ”ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” averaged 7.23 million Total Viewers and a 1.6 rating/6 share/1.87 million among Adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research.  For the 4th consecutive week, “ABC World News” improved on the year-ago week in both Total Viewers (+4%) and Adults 25-54(+9%).  In addition, “World News” grew its overall audience year-to-year for the 28th straight week. 

“ABC World News” cut the gaps with ”NBC Nightly News” compared to the previous week in both Total Viewers (-42% – 628,000 vs. 1.08 million) and Adults 25-54 (-5% – 432,000 vs. 455,000).  Additionally, for the 3rd time in the last 4 weeks, “ABC World News” narrowed its gaps with “NBC Nightly News” from the same week last year by double-digits in both overall viewers (-40% – 628,000 vs. 1.05 million) and in the key adults news demo (-33% – 432,000 vs. 647,000).

“ABC World News” outperformed “CBS Evening News” by 1.35 million viewers and by 134,000 Adults 25-54, improving its demo margin over CBS year to year by 63% (82,000 on w/o 8/30/10).

Note: Diane Sawyer was off Tuesday-Friday 8/30-9/2/11. On Friday 9/2/11, “CBS Evening News” was retitled “CBS-Eve-Nws;” ratings were excluded from the average.  The CBS weekly average is based on four days only (Monday-Thursday), while the ABC and NBC weekly averages are based on five days. Week-to-week, the Household Using Television (HUT) levels decreased -3% while the People Using Television levels (PUT) declined among both Total Viewers (-5%) and Adults 25-54 (-6%).

“ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” airs at 6:30 p.m., (ET) on the ABC Television Network.  Jon Banner is the executive producer of the broadcast.

EVENING NEWS (Week of August 29, 2011)