“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was on top as usual for the week of April 22, beating “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” by +605,000 Total Viewers and +320,000 viewers in the A25-54 demographic. “World News” leads “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” by +1,078,000 Total Viewers and +155,000 A25-54 viewers.

But only Pelley’s newscast has grown in both ratings measurements compared to the same week last year, up +12% in Total Viewers and +5% in A25-54 viewers. “World News” is up +3% in Total Viewers and down -4% in the A25-54 demographic and “Nightly” is flat in both ratings measurements.

Numbers for the week of April 22, 2013:

“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was on top for the week of February 25, besting “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” by +550,000 Total Viewers and +154,000 A25-54 viewers.

But “Nightly” is the only broadcast of the three to be down in both ratings measurements year over year, -7% in Total Viewers and -11% in the demo. “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” is up +1% in Total Viewers and down -4% among younger viewers.

“World News” is up +5% and +2%, respectively. On February 25, the ABC evening newscast posted its highest ratings in two years, with 9,350,000 Total Viewers and 2,629,000 A25-54 viewers.

Numbers for the week of February 25, 2013:

As for the February sweep:
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The evening news race is getting interesting. All three broadcasts were up last week in both Total Viewers and younger viewers compared to the same week last year.

“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was #1 again, with #2 ABC “World News with Diane Sawyer” cutting its gaps with “Nightly” in both Total Viewers (-52% / 349,000 vs. 725,000 million) and A25-54 viewers (-4% / 374,000 vs. 390,000) compared to last year. Thursday’s “World News” was the #1 evening newscast, outperforming “Nightly” by 106,000 Total Viewers. Portions of Sawyer’s interview with Jaycee Dugard first aired on that broadcast.

And the “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” continues to show growth: +7% in Total Viewers and +8% in younger viewers compared to last year.

All broadcasts were based on four days (Tue-Fri) taking July 4th out of the average.

Numbers for the week of July 4:

“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was the most-watched evening newscast last week, with an 850K total viewer lead over “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer.” Year-over-year “World News” was up (+560K), “Evening News” was down (-130K) and “Nightly News” put up the same numbers.

Numbers for the week of Feb. 28:

“NBC Nightly News” wins the February 2011 sweeps period with a 1.1 million lead over #2, “ABC World News.” The Diane Sawyer newscast was the only one to grow year-over-year, +1% in total viewers and had its best February in three years. CBS was down -4% and NBC was

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If Anderson Cooper were a car, he’d be a classic American convertible.

“Maybe it’s the silver hair. Maybe it’s the kind of work he does. I don’t think he’d be a Porsche,” says Jim Murphy, executive producer of Cooper’s upcoming daytime show. “He’s going to cover a lot of space and be very open to people watching.”

Murphy knows about covering space. Prior to joining ABC in 2006 as senior executive producer of ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ he did two e.p. stints at CBS, with ‘Evening News’ under Dan Rather, then Bob Schieffer; and ‘CBS This Morning.’

Murphy jumps to the syndicated ‘Anderson’ in mid-March. The talk show launches Sept. 12, replacing Oprah Winfrey in some markets. (No pressure.)

Though Murphy and Cooper barely know each other, in Murphy’s words, they have several mutual friends. “The funny thing is, they’ve said to both of us over the years that we’d make a really good team,” Murphy says. “I’ve admired the guy for a hell of a long time.”

As it turns out, the timing was perfect. Murphy, who turned 50 last year, was burning out and needed a change. He went to new ABC News president Ben Sherwood, who had been Murphy’s predecessor on ‘GMA.’

“I was honest with him and he was honest with me,” Murphy says. “Morning TV is very hard, very competitive, very high pressure. You can only do this job for a certain amount of time – it’s definitely like dog years.

“This [‘Anderson’] was out there. Nothing else at ABC was as interesting or challenging. We agreed to part amicably.” Murphy was released from the remainder of his contract.

Given that Cooper will continue his nightly show at CNN as well as his occasional pieces for CBS’s ’60 Minutes,’ the big question is this: What happens to ‘Anderson’ when Cooper is called away for big breaking news anywhere on the planet?

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“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was #1 again last week, but down in both Total Viewers and younger viewers from the week before. #2 “World News with Diane Sawyer” was down in Total Viewers and flat in the A25-54 demo while the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” was up slightly in both.

Numbers for the week of October 4, 2010.