ABC World News Tonight, with David Muir, continues to win the evening news ratings race, with all three network newscasts delivering week-to-week total viewer gains, but losing Adults 25-54.
Just a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir was the first American correspondent to interview the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. So Muir thought that it was time to bring what was happening in the country back to the forefront. Over what was Labor Day weekend in the U.S., the ABC anchor returned to Ukraine for an interview with Zelensky.
Long Island University released the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism, honoring journalists in 15 categories for their reporting in 2021. Award winners span a wide range of revelatory news coverage. The broadcasting winners included Dave Biscobing of KNXV, the E.W. Scripps ABC affiliate in Phoenix, who was honored for Local Television Reporting for “Politically Charged,” a series of reports revealing that police and prosecutors testified to the existence of a street gang they invented to convince a grand jury to authorize surveillance of political protestors. Also honored were ABC News anchor David Muir, executive producer Almin Karamehmedovic and producer Esther Castillejo; A.C.Thompson of ProPublica and two collaborators, PBS Frontline and the Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program; and CNN Chief Foreign Correspondent Clarissa Ward and her crew who won for Foreign Television Reporting.
A year ago, ABC’s World News Tonight was crushing NBC’s Nightly News by a gap of 1.7 million total viewers, according to Nielsen. As it stands today, Lester Holt’s evening news program is within about 900,000 total viewers of David Muir’s. That’s an improvement of about 47% from the chasm this time last year.
ABC’s Muir Hits 5 Years At ‘World News’ On Top
ABC is finishing the season with its largest lead over NBC in 23 years, and 27 years for CBS. It’s the third consecutive year that ABC has won the ratings competition.
ABC’s Muir Reflects On 2 Years As Anchor
In the two years since David Muir took over as anchor of ABC World News Tonight, he’s done town hall specials with President Obama and Pope Francis and moderated primary debates with both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. He’s done his evening newscast from San Bernardino; Orlando, Fla.; Paris; and Brussels to report on terrorist attacks, and Dallas, where five policemen were shot dead in July. He reflects on his second anniversary in the job.
Exclusives
The evening news race continues to be highly competitive. NBC Nightly News had the most viewers last week, but ABC World News Tonight brought in the most 25-to-54 viewers, the age group sought by news advertisers.
