Washington Evening, Late News Viewing +7%

Washington is in the anomalous position of seeing double-digit increases overall in early evening news viewing (5 and 6 p.m.) and only statistically insignificant declines at 10 and 11 p.m., according to a TVNewsCheck analysis of the Nielsen’s count of weekday viewers aged 25 to 54 in those time periods during the May sweeps. Those evening gains were enough to give D.C. a 7% overall increase over a year ago.

Despite enormous moves in the 5 p.m. race, there was no change in the ranking with NBC’s WRC (+5%) in front, followed by ABC’s WJLA (+50%); Fox’s WTTG (+46%); and CBS’s WUSA in fourth, down 11%.

The 6 p.m. news also went to WRC (-5%), which was No. 1 last year, with a tie for second between WJLA (-8%) and WTTG (+69%). WUSA (-27%) trailed.

WTTG, the sole programmer of 10 p.m. news in the nation’s capital, was relatively stable at 54,000 (-4%).

At 11 p.m., which last year was a very tight race between No. 1 WRC and No. 2 WJLA, turned into a romp for WRC this May. It was up 27% to claim first place. WTTG (-13%) moved up to second place by losing fewer viewers than WJLA (-56%), which finished third. WUSA (-14%) came in fourth.

Univision’s WFDC took top honors among Spanish-language stations at 6 p.m. with its 35% gain, beating WZDC (Telemundo), which was flat. At 11 p.m., however, the two were tied; WFDC was down 7% from last year, while WZDC did not have 11 o’clock news in 2013.