Who’s Leading the Weekend Evening News Race?

We share the weekend Evening News Ratings scoreboards every Tuesday, but we don’t often get a chance to share numbers for the weekend shows. So here goes.

Like its weekday counterpart, “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” is firmly locked in first place on Saturday and Sunday evening. In the year since David Muir took over as “World News” anchor second-place ABC has narrowed its margins with “Nightly” by -14% in Total Viewers and -3% in A25-54 viewers.

Over the last year, “NBC Nightly News” has averaged a 1.14 million Total Viewer lead over “ABC World News” and a 2.34 million Total Viewer lead over “CBS Evening News” which was, for most of the last year, anchored by Russ Mitchell. Jeff Glor took over as Sunday anchor last month. Among younger viewers, NBC leads ABC by 341,000 viewers and leads CBS by 559,000 viewers.

The margins between “NBC Nightly News” and “ABC World News” during the same time period are smaller on Sundays. The two shows are separated by 649,000 Total Viewers and 281,000 A25-54 viewers. On Sundays during football season, “Nightly” is displaced by NBC’s Sunday Night Football on the West Coast.

Numbers for Saturday/Sunday (Feb. 19, 2011 – Feb. 12, 2012):

	NBC	ABC	CBS
• Total Viewers:	5,552,000	4,466,000	3,426,000
• A25-54:	1,466,000	1,163,000	887,000

 

 

 

Numbers for Saturday (Feb. 19, 2011 – Feb. 12, 2012):

	NBC	ABC	CBS
• Total Viewers:	5,658,000	4,522,000	3,317,000
• A25-54:	1,389,000	1,049,000	830,000

 

 

 

Numbers for Sunday (Feb. 19, 2011 – Feb. 12, 2012):

	NBC	ABC	CBS
• Total Viewers:	5,456,000	4,777,000	3,594,000
• A25-54:	1,537,000	1,256,000	975,000

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