“NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH LESTER HOLT” HITS FOUR-WEEK HIGH

NBC Broadcast Draws Over 8 Million Viewers for 6th Straight Week

Nightly Beats ABC in the Demo for 3rd Consecutive Month 

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015 – “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” was #1 in total viewers and all demos for the first week of the 2015-16 season, marking the broadcast’s 9th straight across-the-board win and 13th in the 14 weeks since Holt was named anchor.

During the week of Pope Francis’ visit to America, the NBC broadcast hit a four-week high among total viewers and drew over 8 million viewers for the 6th straight week.  Week-to-week, Nightly was up in total viewers (+3%, or +275,000), A25-54 viewers (+3%, or +50,000), and A18-49 viewers (+3%, or +37,000).

For September, Nightly has seen its total viewer and A25-54 advantages over CBS widen for the 4th consecutive month and has outperformed ABC among A25-54 viewers for the 3rd consecutive month.

Nightly was up across the board compared to the same week last season and was the only network newscast to grow by double-digits in the key A25-54 demo.  Nightly posted growth in total viewers (+1%, or +45,000), A25-54 viewers (+10%, or +175,000), and A18-49 viewers (+9%, or +118,000).

Nightly has been #1 among total viewers all 14 weeks since Holt was named anchor and #1 across the board for 9 straight weeks and 13 out of the 14 weeks. Nightly has now won among total viewers for 19 of the last 22 weeks, and 307 of the last 314 weeks.

Note: NBC and ABC are based on 3-day averages (Mon-Wed) due to preemptions for Papal coverage while CBS is based on a 4-day average (Thursday excluded) due to Papal coverage and NFL Thursday Night Football.

Weekly Highlights:            

• Nightly averaged 8.284 million total viewers, +371,000 (+5%) ahead of ABC World News Tonight and +1.735 million (+27%) more than CBS Evening News.
• Nightly averaged 1.996 million A25-54 viewers, leading ABC by +93,000 (+5%) and CBS by +584,000 (+42%).
• Nightly delivered a 1.7 A25-54 rating, +1 tenth more than ABC and +5 tenths more than CBS.
• Nightly averaged 1.473 million A18-49 viewers, +207,000 (+16%) higher than ABC and +538,000 (+58%) more than CBS.
• Nightly delivered a 1.2 A18-49 rating, +2 tenths more than ABC and +5 tenths more than CBS.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 21-25, 2015

# # #