ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir again finished the season on top in total viewers and the key demographic, averaging 8.74 million total viewers. NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt averaged 7.32 million and CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell posted 5.4 million. But all the network evening newscasts saw their viewership drop in 2020-21 versus a year earlier.
Netflix chief Reed Hastings thinks TV news — specifically national evening news — is dying. When asked about creating a live evening newscast — as rival HBO is doing with its partnership with Vice — Hastings responded: “You don’t want to invest in things that are dying.”
he February finishing order for the network evening newscasts didn’t look much different, with Brian Williams‘ NBC Nightly News taking top honors, followed by Diane Sawyer’s ABC World News and Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News finishing last. But ABC was the only network to show growth (it was up 1%).
