It’s the end of the 2023-2024 TV season as we knew it, and you’d better believe that David Muir is feeling fine.
With the week of September 16 in the history books, the World News Tonight host and the rest of the ABC News team can celebrate their own Triple Crown: another week, quarter, and season at the top of the evening news charts. According to live plus same-day data from Nielsen, WNT drew total viewer audiences of 7.184 million total viewers for the previous week, 7.305 million for 2024’s third quarter, and 7.717 million for the full 2023-2024 season. Apparently, seven isn’t only a lucky number for Josh Hartnett.
NOTE: On Friday (9/20/24), “World News Tonight” was retitled to “WNT-ABC,” and “CBS Evening News” was retitled to “CBS Evening Nws.” The retitled telecasts are excluded from the weekly and season averages. ABC’s and CBS’ weekly averages are based on four days (Monday-Thursday).
World News Tonight also won the Adults 25-54 demo in all three periods, with 949,000 viewers for the week, 995,000 for Q3, and 1.072 million for the season. Week-to-week, WNT saw a +4% gain in total viewers and a -2% dip in the demo, while the quarter-to-quarter stats netted out at a +1% gain in the former category and a +4% bump in the latter.
ABC notes that this is WNT’s eighth season as the top evening newscast in total viewers and the demo, the first time in 28 years that it took first place in that many consecutive seasons. Additionally, Muir proved to be one of the network’s biggest primetime stars as World News Tonight finished as the No. 1 program in total viewers across all of broadcast and cable for 24 out of the last 52 weeks (with and without sports).
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt claimed the silver medal across the week, quarter, and season in both measured categories. In total viewers, the NBC News program averaged 5.612 million for the week of Sept. 16, 6.197 million for Q3, and 6.437 million for the 2023-2024 season. Nightly News saw a stumble of -7% compared to the previous week but rose quarter-to-quarter with a +9% gain from Q2.
NBC did see a smaller viewership gap between itself and ABC in the A25-54 demo. Nightly News pulled in 826,000 viewers for a -6% dip compared to the prior week. In Q3, though, the newscast attracted 961,000 viewers for a +33% gain over Q2—only 34,000 viewers behind WNT. Credit can most likely go to the 2024 Paris Olympics, which powered Nightly News to its own gold medal performance. For the full season, NBC’s demo audience measured in at 955,000.
NBC notes that Nightly News had its best competitive season in four years in those closely-watched demos. The newscast also took the No. 1 spot as the most-watched TV program for three consecutive weeks during Q3, excluding specials, sports, and syndication.
That brings us to the CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, which was the No. 3 program of the week, quarter, and season in both total viewers and the demo. In better news, it was the only evening newscast to see week-to-week gains in both of those measured categories, attracting 4.470 million total viewers for a +2% bump and 684,000 A25-54 viewers for a +4% bump.