Only Evening Newscast to Grow Viewership Across the Board vs. Both Last Year & Week
Continues to Mark Closest Demo Gaps vs. ABC in 6 Years for Current Season
Week of December 15 Highlights
- Nightly News ranks #1 in the key A25-54 demo on Thursday
- Nightly News is the only evening newscast to increase across-the-board viewership vs. both last year and week
- Nightly News continues to deliver its closest demo gaps vs. ABC in six years for the current season
- Nightly News marks its 14th consecutive week of closing the A25-54 gap vs. ABC in year-over-year measurements
- Nightly News is the #3 most-watched TV show of the week with 6.5 million total viewers (excluding specials, sports, and syndication)
Week of December 15 Stats
- Averages 6.532 million total viewers, topping CBS by +2.280 million (+54%)
- Increases total viewership vs. last week by +100,000 and last year by +201,000
- Nightly News’ total viewer gap vs. ABC is 5% better vs. prior year at this point in the season
- Nightly News is the only evening newscast to grow in total viewers this season
- Averages 866,000 A25-54 viewers, beating CBS by +324,000 (+60%)
- Nightly News is the only evening newscast to increase A25-54 viewers vs. both last year (+11,000) and last week (+12,000)
- Nightly News’ A25-54 gap vs. ABC is 38% better vs. prior year at this point in the season, marking its closest demo gap vs. the network in 6 years
- Nightly News narrows the A25-54 gap vs. ABC by 31% vs. last year
- Averages 612,000 A18-49 viewers, beating CBS by +205,000 (+50%)
- Nightly News increases A18-49 viewership vs. last year by +30,000 and last week by +3,000
- Nightly News narrows the A18-49 gap vs. ABC by 30% vs. last year
- Nightly News’ A18-49 gap vs. ABC is 24% better vs. prior year at this point in the season
Week of December 15
| Program | P25-54 | P18-49 | P2+ |
| Imps | Imps | Imps | |
| NBC NIGHTLY NEWS | 866 | 612 | 6,532 |
| CBS EVENING NEWS | 542 | 407 | 4,252 |
| ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT | 1,027 | 748 | 8,050 |
Source: Nielsen Big Data + Panel, L+SD, Week of 12/15/2025-12/21/2025. Based on regularly titled telecasts for NBC Nightly News (Mon-Fri), ABC World News Tonight (Mon-Thu), and CBS Evening News (Mon-Thu). Both ABC and CBS retitled on Friday.
