The Royal Wedding, the killing of Osama bin Laden and Japan’s near-nuclear meltdown drove TV viewers to do the almost unthinkable: watch the evening news. After years of sinking ratings, the network evening broadcasts added viewers in the second quarter — the first time in a decade that all three posted a quarterly year-over-year audience gain. NBC, ABC and CBS combined added some 1.9 million evening news viewers in the quarter, for a total of 21.7 million viewers.
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%).
