Nothing has helped the recently flagging fortunes of NBC News like the injection of large audiences after coverage of the Olympics on the network this summer.
“NBC Nightly News” with Brian Williams is the latest example: After months of having ABC’s “World News” with Diane Sawyer steadily chop into its ratings lead, NBC’s newscast posted some record-setting numbers last week.
Similarly, NBC’s “Today” show, which recently had dropped to second place in the mornings behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” has also been getting a significant boost from the Olympics and has dominated the morning hours again during the coverage.
Olympics Carry-Over
Games Give a Lift to ‘Today’ Just When It Needed One
On Friday, “Today” had 6.5 million viewers, its best total in more than a year. Just before the Games, the show’s main competitor, “Good Morning America,” had been gaining in the ratings.
Average nightly viewership for “Nightly News,” which has been broadcast from London during the Games, soared to an enormous number for the week: 10.85 million, about three million more than its recent average. The program also scored its best-ever advantage over both ABC’s and CBS’s evening newscasts — at least in the modern era of people meter ratings, which started in 1987.
NBC beat ABC by just under four million viewers — ABC’s newscast had 6.85 million. It beat the CBS newscast with Scott Pelley by over five million viewers — CBS had 5.50 million viewers.
In addition, in the category of the audience that determines most of the ad sales in television news, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, NBC also scored its biggest margin over ABC, with an edge of 1.61 million. NBC’s margin over CBS in that category, 1.72 million, was its best since 2003.