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.
ABC’s World News Tonight won the quarter in average total viewers for nightly news broadcasts, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings, topping average and age-demo rankings for the 6:30 p.m. ET slot. For the second quarter of 2020, World News Tonight, hosted by David Muir, brought in an average of 10,331,000 viewers total. Comparatively, NBC’s Nightly News with Lester Holt took in an average of 8,866,000 and CBS’s Evening News, helmed by Norah O’Donnell, secured 6,257,000 viewers on average.
Exclusives
ABC News said today that Tom Llamas will anchor the Saturday and Sunday iterations of World News Tonight, and Cecilia Vega has been promoted to senior White House correspondent.
The network said Monday that Cecilia Vega, who has worked for ABC since 2011 after working in local news in San Francisco, will work on Saturdays. Tom Llamas, who came to ABC from NBC’s New York affiliate, will work Sunday night.
ABC’s World News Tonight won the week of Sept. 29 with total viewers, in the news demo and among 18-49 year olds — the first time the newscast has pulled that off since 2008. Among overall audience, it was the ABC newscast’s first win in 264 weeks — snapping NBC Nightly News’s 263-week winning streak.
