Top rated ABC World News Tonight with david muir it won the last week of the 2022 calendar year, not only in average total viewers, but also in the Adults 25-54 demo. This now means that ABC’s evening newscast has beaten its competition from NBC and CBS 213 of the last 214 weeks in average total viewers, and 141 of the last 143 weeks among adults 25-54.
With mary bruce replacing Muir, World News Tonight averaged 8.42 million total linear viewers for the week between Christmas and New Years, a -5% loss from the previous week (the week of December 12), but still the #4 on all US television, excluding sports programming. WNT also averaged 1.36 million viewers for the week’s key demo A25-54, which is -13% less than the previous week. Compared to the same week in 2021, ABC’s evening news has -4% total viewers and -15% viewers from A25-54.
World News Tonight ended 2022 as the #1 nightly newscast in total viewers for the sixth consecutive year, and #1 in adults 25-54 for the third consecutive year.
With tom llamas as a guest anchor, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt it remained the second ranked nightly newscast, averaging 7.21 million total viewers along with 1.205 million A25-54s during the week between Christmas and New Years. That’s a loss of -8% and -11%, respectively, from what the news reported in those measurements the week before. However, Nightly News dropped less than -1% in total viewers, and -3% in A25-54 viewers from the week of the prior year, minuscule year-over-year declines relative to what ABC and CBS watched.
Based on data from Adobe Analytics and partner portals, and the YouTube Analytics portal, weekday full episodes of NBC Nightly News garnered an average of 797,000 views and 634,000 total viewers streaming on YouTube.
With Jericka Duncan as a guest anchor, the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell averaged 5.15 million total viewers last week, which is -7% from the previous week, but consistent with the week of the previous year. The newscast averaged 773,000 adults ages 25-54 last week, which is -11% from the prior week and -13% from the week of the prior year.
Note: On Monday, December 26, World News Tonight and CBS Evening News were coded as specials due to the Christmas holidays. On Friday, December 30, World News Tonight was rebranded as “WNT-ABC”, CBS Evening News was rebranded as CBS Evening Nws”, and NBC Nightly News was rebranded as “NBC Nitely News” due to the New Year holiday. The special broadcasts and retitled are excluded from weekly and season averages.ABC and CBS weekly averages are based on 3 days (Tuesday through Thursday), while NBC weekly averages are based on 4 days (Monday through Thursday).
Nielsen Live Plus Same-Day Averages for the week of December 26, 2022:
| abc | nbc | CBS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| • Total viewers: | 8,418,000 | 7,210,000 | 5,150,000 |
| • A25-54: | 1,358,000 | 1,205,000 | 773,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 Live + SD Current Week (without 12/26/22), Previous Week (without 12/19/22), and Week of Previous Year (with or 12/27/21). Most current data stream: 2022-2023 season (9/19/22 – 1/1/23), 2021-2022 season (9/20/21 – ½/22). Nielsen ratings for ABC, NBC and CBS include additional broadcasts in select markets. As of August 31, 2020, the national rankings also include out-of-home (OOH) viewing. Averages based on regular streams.
