Viewers Tune In For NBC’s Experiment

Last night, for the first time in the program’s 37-year history, NBC Nightly News had a sole sponsor: Philips Electronics. With less ads in between, ‘Nightly’ had longer-form pieces and expanded segments.

As noted below, the viewer response was big. And the ratings are reflecting that: According to 6:30 affiliate time period numbers (which represent about 75 percent of the country), Nightly News delivered 10,329,000 total viewers last night — almost 1.2 million more than ABC’s 9,156,000 and over 2.3 million more than CBS’s 8 million…

> Also: Monday’s number was about 800,000 more than the program’s November average…

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