ABC World News Tonight with David Muir held onto the top spot in evening news for the week of May 4, even as its audience eased lower in both total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo. The ABC broadcast averaged 8.183 million viewers and 976,000 in the key advertising category, enough to keep it ahead of NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News.
The decline was small but real. ABC World News Tonight was down 1% in total viewers and 3% in the demo from the prior week, a reminder that even the top-rated newscast is not immune to the softer conditions across the format. NBC Nightly News averaged 6.125 million total viewers and 903,000 Adults 25-54 viewers, leaving it No. 2 in both categories, while CBS Evening News drew 3.702 million viewers and 473,000 in the demo.
The week mattered because all three evening newscasts lost viewers. CBS was down 4% in total viewers and 13% in the demo from the previous week, while ABC and NBC also slipped. Still, ABC's lead over NBC remained substantial in total audience, and the gap in the demo stayed wide enough to underline how firmly David Muir's newscast continues to command the hour.
That edge came with one wrinkle: for the second week in a row, more than 70,000 demo viewers separated ABC World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News. The margin was not dramatic enough to change the leaderboard, but it shows how closely the two broadcasters are being watched in the category that matters most to advertisers. ABC was also up 13% in total viewers and 1% in the demo compared with the same week a year earlier, while NBC rose 9% in total viewers and 14% in the demo and CBS posted a 2% gain in total viewers but fell 6% in the demo.
The ratings figures were based on four days rather than a full five-day week because each network had one broadcast retitled and excluded from the weekly average. Nielsen's national live+same-day big data plus program ratings were used for the week, with year-over-year comparisons based on Big Data+Panel measurements. The retitling did not change the broader picture: ABC World News Tonight ratings still led the field, NBC remained a clear No. 2, and CBS continued to trail both competitors by a wide margin.
For now, the evening news race still runs through Muir. The numbers show ABC holding the line at the top even as the audience softens, and the question for the next weekly release is not whether it leads, but whether the others can narrow a gap that has stayed stubbornly open.
